PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs will live to fight another day, House lawmakers announced Friday.

The programs were on the chopping block, when Gov. Dan McKee announced, as part of his fiscal 2027 budget proposal, rollbacks to energy efficiency investments and caps to the state’s net metering solar program.

House leadership unveiled their own version of the budget late last week, with many of the changes and adjustments to those programs stripped out. The only significant cut is lowering the cap on net metering projects from 275 megawatts (MW) to 175 MW by 2031; a small change given solar companies are nowhere near close to planning projects that exceed 100 MW.

Still included in the budget is the governor’s proposal for an alternative compounding tariff. Net metering project developers can opt in for the tariff that will compound at 2.75% annually for 25 years starting in 2028.

The state’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES) remains intact, including its original timeline of reaching 100% of retail electricity sold sourced from renewable energy by 2033. The governor had proposed pushing back the final deadline by 17 years to 2050, a move that threatened to upend years of careful climate planning by state agencies.

House lawmakers are including the governor’s bid to expand the eligible pool of renewable resources. For the first time next year, if the budget passes as is, both hydropower and nuclear power will be added to the list of renewable energy resources that comply with the RES.

The Public Utilities Commission will also study the RES and any impacts associated with changes to it, and report back to the General Assembly by next year.

“In putting together this budget we were really focused on the future,” House Speaker Christopher Blazejewski said during Friday’s press briefing. “About children and families, not just what Rhode Island looks like today but going forward.”

Coming into 2026 it looked like a bloodbath for the state’s climate priorities, between the governor’s proposed cuts and a structural deficit in the state budget of around $100 million. Rhode Island has also experienced its fourth straight winter of high energy rates for gas and electric, and a governor keen to lower utility bills by any means necessary.

But environmental advocates notched another win this year, defending much of the progress on climate and environment regulations made in the past five years. Preserving energy efficiency and renewable energy was a key legislative goal of the Environment Council of Rhode Island, a coalition of the state’s chief environmental nonprofits and advocates.

So was making the Green Bond greener. This election cycle’s Green Bond will total $55 million, and look markedly different than what McKee originally proposed in January. Gone is the $10 million set aside for energy efficiency programs; instead lawmakers increased bond funding for facilities improvements within the Department of Environmental Management and the Resilient Rhody program, and added $3 million for farmland preservation and $3 million for open space acquisition programs.

“Our caucus spoke over and over again about making the Green Bond greener,” Blazejewski said. “And we did just that.”

Two key changes for public transit in Rhode Island also came with the House’s reworked budget. Lawmakers added another $5 million, on top of the governor’s proposal, to the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority to close its budget shortfall. The allocation will not be enough to reverse the service cuts implemented by the agency last year, however.

The director of the Department of Transportation will no longer chair the RIPTA board under the House version of the budget. A longtime ask of transit advocates, who strongly opposed the law that empowered the RIDOT director when it passed the Legislature a few years ago, House leadership said they viewed the RIPTA board chairmanship as “a conflict of interest.”

One last thing of note: House lawmakers are looking to jump start an energy benchmarking plan for state and municipal buildings. Under the program written into Article 11 of the budget, all state department and agencies will have to start tracking and reporting their energy usage for buildings greater than 25,000 square feet in size.

The program would be run by the Office of Energy Resources and begin March 31, 2029. Municipal buildings can voluntarily follow the state’s program, with OER providing “technical and financial assistance.”

The House Finance committee voted the budget onto the House floor, where it is expected to receive a full vote Friday, June 5.