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?
