Last month, Rhode Island State Senator Linda Ujifusa (D-Portsmouth, Bristol) and State Rep. Jennifer Boylan (D-Barrington, East Providence) proposed the Climate Superfund Act to the R.I. Senate and House of Representatives, respectively. The bill would make major fossil fuel companies pay for the damages their carbon emissions have caused in Rhode Island.
Large fossil fuel companies — defined by the bill as companies that have produced over 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the past three decades — would pay a share proportional to the cleanups and damages they have caused. “Peer-reviewed allocation analyses” would determine the amount that each company pays, according to the bill.
The collected funds would be allocated for climate resiliency projects in the state. Potential projects include the construction of seawalls to strengthen coastal defenses, improving stormwater systems and emergency shelters and expanding bike and pedestrian paths, Boylan and Ujifusa wrote in a joint statement to The Herald.
Terrence Gray, director of the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, expressed concerns about the bill’s feasibility in a letter to the House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.
“It is uncertain how RIDEM would determine the proportional share of total costs as required by this legislation,” Gray wrote in the letter.
Gray also cited legal concerns, referencing how Vermont and New York have faced lawsuits after passing “comparable” bills.
In another letter to the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, American Petroleum Institute Northeast Region Director Michael Giamio called the bill “bad public policy,” “unfair” and potentially “unconstitutional.”
Giamio did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment.
“What’s unfair is Rhode Islanders having to pay exorbitant fees for our energy,” said Cassidy DiPaola, director of communications for Fossil Free Media.
DiPaola is a part of Fossil Free Media’s Make Polluters Pay movement, which advocates for states to pass similar climate superfund acts.
Boylan wrote that Barrington’s vulnerability to “tidal and storm flooding” has shaped her policy agenda.
“Seeing projections of sea level rises and how that will impact and physically divide my community into an island community has pushed addressing climate change to the top of my priorities,” she added.
Ujifusa noted that the Ocean State “is uniquely vulnerable to climate disasters, with 400 miles of coastline and an economy dependent on tourism and marine trades.”
James Crowley — senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental legal advocacy organization — emphasized the importance of “state and local action” in Rhode Island, which is “already feeling the impacts of the climate crisis.”
“Preparing for and responding to the impacts of climate change will impose enormous costs on our state,” Crowley wrote in an email to The Herald. “It makes sense for major fossil fuel companies to help pay for the damage that they have knowingly caused with their products.”
