Rhode Island training program to support offshore wind sector

Rhode Island residents seeking employment in offshore wind will benefit from a new training program. Gov. Dan McKee, along with labor and higher education officials and officials from Orsted and Eversource, announced Wednesday a new partnership that brings together higher education, workforce development, and labor organizations that is designed to provide state residents with the education and training necessary to work in the energy sector.

Rhode Island governor signs offshore wind procurement bill

New offshore wind energy production in Rhode Island is getting a jolt. Democratic Gov. Dan McKee signed legislation Wednesday morning that increases the capacity of market-competitive offshore wind procurement by expanding the parameters to between 600 to 1,000 megawatts.

Windmills in a First World Country

With the steady march toward more renewable energy within our nation, legislators in our Ocean State have once again jumped on the bandwagon, and they’re bringing our state’s energy companies along for the costly ride.

A Rhode Island bill being sponsored by solely democrat representatives will have the state drastically increase renewable energy production and supply, requiring all of RI’s electricity to be offset by renewable energy by 2033.

Biden considers gas tax holiday amid nearly $5 national average

President Joe Biden said Monday he would decide on a potential gas tax holiday by the end of the week.

OPINION: Joe Biden’s progressive energy agenda is soaring prices

Middle class Americans don’t need an economist or political scientist to tell them there’s something wrong with the economy. They realize it every time they put gas in their tanks or have to pay more for groceries. The financial security of many families is now in jeopardy because the Biden Administration cares more about appeasing radical environmentalists rather than securing America’s energy independence.

Here’s how gas prices rank around the country

Gas prices have hit record highs day after day in recent weeks, breaking the $5 mark over the weekend for the first time ever. Those higher prices have put many Americans in a bind as they also deal with the highest inflation in decades.

Opinion/Stenhouse: Senators can act to help reduce RI’s energy costs

Most don’t realize that Rhode Island is facing a potential energy crisis: Our state does not have the energy infrastructure needed to meet demand. As a result, we have among the highest average retail prices for energy as compared with other states. In fact, this is a New England-wide problem. As E&E News put it, […]

Gas prices hit new record high on Memorial Day

he cost of gasoline hit a new record high on Monday as many Americans kicked off the summer season traveling over Memorial Day weekend. The average price of a gallon of gasoline climbed to $4.62 a gallon Monday, up about a penny from Sunday and $1.58 higher than last Memorial Day, when the average cost was $3.04.

The End of the Climate Change Legend by Stephen Moore

By Stephen Moore For many years now, there has been a spirited debate about whether climate change is science, religion or even perhaps a secret route to socialism. That question remains unanswered, but we’ve now discovered with certainty that climate change is a political albatross around the neck of the Democratic Party. The Left’s spiritual […]

Now is the Time for RI Motorists to be Decoupled from California’s Oppressive Emissions Policies

Ocean State motorists dodged a bullet last December when the TCI Gas Tax was defeated here and in 13 other northeast states. The “Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI)” would have artificially increased gasoline prices by up to 35 cents per gallon, while steadily reducing available fuel supplies, by ceding a major portion of our state’s […]

Connecticut’s Refusal of the TCI Gas Tax Should Kill the Bills in RI

It would be cruel for lawmakers to impose this fuel tax, which will especially harm rural and low-income residents, just so the elite can receive a subsidy for their expensive electric vehicles.

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Not-So-Hidden Schemes

My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for April 12, included talk about:

  • Still waiting on the LG
  • McKee’s Saturday climate signing in Newport
  • The big-money RI Foundation
  • The big-money Warwick firefighter overtime
  • Voting bills
  • Providence schools still in a lurch

I’ll be on again Monday, April 19, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.

No Cost Projections or Means Identified to Achieve Rhode Island’s Green New Deal

The innocently named “2021 Act on Climate”, H5445, has been ominously rocketing through the General Assembly. It passed the full House on March 23 and the full Senate is scheduled to vote on it this afternoon. If it passes, it will have cleared the General Assembly and presumably be sent straight on to Governor Daniel McKee for his action within seven (ten?) days.

Informally dubbed “Rhode Island’s Green New Deal”, H5445 would mandate the reduction to zero by 2050 of greenhouse gases in Rhode Island – a goal that could only be accomplished by eliminating the use of all fossil fuels and transitioning entirely to renewable energy sources, wind and solar; i.e., from reliable, reasonably priced energy sources to intermittent, exorbitantly expensive ones. More about it here, including why the effective date of substantial implementation would be 2026, not thirty long years from now.

But perhaps we are missing something. Have proponents of the bill answered the critically important question about cost of implementation?

Politics This Week with John DePetro: RI’s Con-Game Government

My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for March 29, included talk about:

  • The Lt. Gov. final 5
  • Climate change politics
  • Kate Coyne McCoy’s threat to “moderate” Dems
  • Cranston’s new far-left Republican
  • Can the log-jam of Providence’s school system be broken up?
  • Were we wrong to doubt Mattiello as the firewall?

I’ll be on again Monday, April 5, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.

Tell Governor McKee To Veto Rhode Island’s Version Of The Green New Deal!

Take action now! Add your voice to the many thousands who have asked Governor Dan McKee to live up to his promises as an advocate for the small business community, to take decisive action to relieve businesses of excessive green mandates and to ensure our state’s long-term viability by VETOING Rhode Island’s Green New Deal.

RI in Crisis While Our Progressive Leaders Self-Gratify

If we are going to revive our economy, we have to revive our sense of responsibility and become more engaged in what’s happening around us.

Rhody Reporter: Axe the Act – H5445

The Rhody Reporter is flabbergasted at the scope of a wildly progressive bill just passed by the RI legislature. It would cede all legislative and executive prerogative on RI carbon emissions to an unelected state commission. Mark Zaccaria explains en route to asking everyone to call the governor and beg for a veto!

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Bad Bills and Employment Theater

My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for March 22, included talk about:

  • Bad environmental legislation
  • Bad firearms legislation
  • Bad voting legislation
  • A telling Newsmakers interview
  • No confidence in the teachers’ union
  • A phony lieutenant governor top 10

I’ll be on again Monday, March 29, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.

TCI Is More Intrusive Government That RI Doesn’t Need

The Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI) is just another big-government attempt to manipulate the people.

Say NO to Radical Energy Scheme Rocketing Through The General Assembly

A full on assault against the average Rhode Island family is rocketing through the General Assembly. The Ocean State is quickly moving to put our own version of the Green New Deal into law. We need you to take action immediately to voice your opposition to it, before it is too late. Click here now to say NO to this far-left radical scheme from the land of make-believe.

This, along with the TCI Gas Tax, will paralyze our state. As we struggle to recover from the pandemic, it should be inconceivable that state lawmakers would choose NOW to consider an additional 30-40 cents per gallon gas tax increase or impose a radical, prohibitively expensive energy scheme.

Yet, the price of gasoline could soon rise (even more than it already has) if a new stealth carbon-tax scheme – the TCI Gas Tax – is implemented … a move that would necessarily increase costs on families and business, driving more people out of our state. The House of Representatives will vote on House Bill 5445 this Tuesday. This version of the state’s green new deal has already passed the RI Senate.

Even if you have contacted lawmakers already, we need you to take action again to oppose RI’s Green New Deal: Click here to contact lawmakers to say NO to the TCI Gas Tax and H5445, Rhode Island’s Green New Deal!

The simple form, once completed, will automatically send an email to the Governor and to legislative leaders telling them to reject the regional gasoline cap-and-trade scheme and RI’s Green New Deal.

Tell them today that you stand against these radical energy schemes. Thank you for taking action, and remember that your voice counts.

House Vote Tuesday – Would Inflict Extremest Global Warming Measure on RI

On Tuesday, the Rhode Island House will be voting on H5445A. It would mandate the reduction to zero of greenhouse gases in Rhode Island. While the deadline in the bill is 2050, the real deadline is five years from now, at which point, the lawsuits can start. From the bill:

The Rhode Island attorney general, any Rhode Island resident and any Rhode Island corporation, company, organization, nonprofit or other Rhode Island legal entity or organization registered with the Rhode Island secretary of state may bring a civil action to enforce this chapter.

Click here, courtesy UpriseRI, for the case in favor of the bill.

Nowhere in that article or anywhere has there been offered any science or evidence that this most drastic of measures would have any impact whatsoever on global warming nor has there been remotely adequate disclosure about the ludicrous cost of bringing it about (converting every house and building in the state to electric-only heating and AC) or the impact on our power supply of changing the grid over from a reliable, constant fuel source to an unreliable, intermittent one (routine rolling blackouts) while simultaneously adding enormous demand to it or the impact (sky-rocket) on residents’ and businesses’ electric bills of being compelled to purchase power only from renewable energy sources.

In the presumably deliberate absence of this information, accordingly, combined with our observation of the experience of other states who converted even a small portion of their grid to renewables, we can assume the worst on all of those fronts.

If you, like so many of us, do not think this is a good idea, feel free to share your concerns with your state representative before Tuesday.

A Key Chart on Economic Climate Change

Our state and federal governments are using their regulatory and policing power to shut down an industry sector to make themselves and their fashionably green friends rich and powerful at the expense of our rights, our prosperity, and increasingly our lives.

Center Calls on McKee to Withdraw R.I. from Raimondo’s TCI Gas Tax Scheme

The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity calls on the newly sworn-in Governor of Rhode Island, Daniel McKee, to officially withdraw the Ocean State from the regional gasoline cap-and-trade scheme, known as the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI).

“For years as Lieutenant Governor, Dan McKee expressed verbal support for the small business community. Now is the time for the Governor to take action and to separate himself from his predecessor’s anti-business policies. The Governor should immediately put to rest any notion that his administration will impose a job-killing, budget-destroying gasoline tax on businesses and families who are struggling to recover from the pandemic,” commented Mike Stenhouse, the Center’s CEO. “Today, our Center calls on the Governor to take executive action to formally withdraw Rhode Island from the TCI compact.”

In December, former Governor Gina Raimondo signed-on Rhode Island, just one of three states to do so, to the TCI Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU). Implementation of TCI would lead to a significant increase in automobile and diesel gasoline prices, while also systematically limiting regional supplies of vehicle fuel.

In calling on Governor McKee to eschew the costly TCI gas tax, the Center points to research and polling that shows why TCI is poor public policy:

  • Rhode Islanders are not “bad guys” that should be punished for driving their vehicles, as one gov’t official in Mass. expressed
  • The regressive TCI gas tax would disproportionately harm low-income families
  • The high economic costs and job losses would further hamper our state’s faltering economy, with virtually no environmental benefit in return
  • An overwhelming majority of polled Ocean Staters do not support TCI, once they understand the high costs
  • A TCI gas tax would make our state even less competitive, by weakening our already worst-in-the-nation business climate

Later this week, the Center will announce a public campaign to petition the Governor and state legislative leaders to reject the TCI compact.

More information about the proposed TCI gas tax can be found on the Center’s TCI webpage: RIFreedom.org/NoTCItax. The Center is one of over two-dozen organizations in the northeast working cooperatively to defeat TCI in their respective states.

[This is a public statement released by the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity today.]

Redhanded: Radical Environmentalists Want to “Break Your Will” To Pass TCI

The shocking words they admit they can’t say publicly… were just made public. They say, if YOU heat your homes or drive passenger cars, YOU are the “bad guys.”

Whether it is “you,” “the person up the street,” or “the senior on fixed income”… the radical environmentalists who support TCI say it is you who they want to “turn the screws on” and “point the finger at,” so they can “break your will” to force you to “stop emitting.”

See the alarming video of the MA Undersecretary for Climate Change talking about the abusive TCI scheme: https://youtu.be/muxVGmgykA4

Learn more by clicking here now to read about how the TCI Gas Tax is bad for Rhode Island families.

Green on the Grid:  Texas is a Huge Red Flag

Count me among those somewhat surprised to learn that the electric grid of the State of Texas, perhaps best known for oil production (and proud of it), incorporates wind turbines in its electric grid. In fact,

… wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of energy in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies last year

But as you have probably seen, this “green energy” source has turned into a big Achilles heel for Texas’ electric grid in the cold front that has descended on that state and much of the country. As of yesterday,

Frozen wind turbines have caused almost half of Texas’s wind generation capacity to go offline in the midst of an “unprecedented storm”.

The Lone Star state is under a state of emergency after freezing conditions swept the region, causing dangerously icy roads and leaving nearly 3 million people without power.

Update: frozen wind turbines led to a drop in Texas’ wind power from thirty one gigawatts to six and there are currently 3.4 million power outages. The situation is getting worse, not better.

Texas, and other states, has resorted to rolling blackouts. In below-freezing temperatures, this is literally a life-threatening situation for states like Texas which rely on electricity for heat (and lots of other critical activities).

A small but vocal group of advocates, promoted by many gauzy-eyed members of the mainstream media, have for years been pushing to transition to green energy away from fossil fuel.

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Outgoing and Incoming

My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for February 8, included talk about:

  • The Center’s poll on TCI
  • The outgoing governor’s farewell (but I won’t get out) address
  • The progressive legislator’s privilege
  • The incoming governor’s well-meaning bungles

I’ll be on again Monday, February 15, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.

TCI Gas Tax: Hurting Families While Accomplishing Little

One doesn’t have to be a climate-change skeptic to wonder why our elected officials would pursue an agreement that hands over some of their authority in order to impose a significant burden on the people they represent for a small benefit to others… all just as Rhode Islanders struggle to regain their feet from the COVID lockdown that the same governor imposed through executive order.

Providence Government’s Fight Against Residents

At a press conference of the city government to announce new policies, what could it mean for a speaker to pledge to “fight” and “take back our city”?

TCI: The Next Step in Government by Fiat

The governor gave herself unprecedented power to make us do and not do things for our own good (from her perspective) with COVID-19, and there was never any reason to believe she would restrict that philosophy to the pandemic if she could get away with pushing the envelope. Well… she’s pushing the envelope.

Power Outages Wouldn’t Be So Common in a First-World State

The first step to fixing this problem is to be honest about it. Until we’re willing to do that, the outages will continue, and the haves will continue to invest in very non-green personal household generators.

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