PROVIDENCE — Watching environmental bills in the General Assembly can make one feel like a Buddhist.

Bills are born at the start of the session, sometimes modified with a substitution, obtain a big, often well-attended committee hearing, then vanish until they are reincarnated the following year, and the cycle repeats.

The Rhode Island environmental lobby notched two impressive, consecutive wins at the start of the decade, passing the Act on Climate in 2021 followed by the 100% Renewable Energy Standard the next year. But looking at the top legislative priorities this year feels like slipping backward.

The Environment Council of Rhode Island (ECRI), a coalition of dozens of environmental groups, released its 2026 legislative priorities April 14 as part of its annual lobby day, and they don’t look that much more different than previous years.

“We hope to build on that progress and ensure the state doesn’t backtrack on the progress we’ve already made,” said James Crowley, an attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation and president of ECRI’s board of directors.

ECRI’s priorities this year fall into four main categories, some of which are repeated from recent years. The group is backing legislation in the General Assembly (two bills in each chamber) that would push the state to create its first building energy benchmarking program, modeled on Providence’s own ordinance, and building performance standards.

The bills fill a critical policy gap in achieving Act on Climate mandates. The building sector combined contributes about a third of all emissions produced in Rhode Island, and the state — in theory anyway as long as President Donald Trump is in office — has plans to square away electricity consumption and vehicle emissions.

ECRI is also backing, for the third year in a row, the Save RIPTA package of legislation, introduced in January by the Providence Streets Coalition. The package includes eight separate bills to increase RIPTA’s funding, push funding into the Transit Master Plan, and reverse the devastating cuts inflicted on the state’s only transit network last year to close its budget gap.

The agency’s drivers and riders have borne the brunt and paid the true cost of the cuts, according to Liza Burkin, board president of the Providence Streets Coalition, at ECRI’s recent event.

“The governor’s budget proposes to cover the majority of RIPTA’s deficit,” Burkin said. “It’s maintaining current service levels which we know are not enough. It wasn’t enough before the service cuts, and it’s definitely not enough after.”

Environmental groups are also backing legislation from Rep. Megan Cotter, D-Exeter, to add $17.5 million back to the Green Bond for conservation and open space funding. The bond, which will appear on the ballot in November, is typically used to fund a variety of different environment-related projects around Rhode Island, but Gov. Dan McKee’s proposal this year left out conservation program funding (again) and instead had $10 million for energy efficiency infrastructure.

It’s the first time energy efficiency has appeared on the ballot. The governor has proposed slashing many of the state program charges that appear on utility bills every month in a bid to lower energy costs since they remain sky-high for the fourth year in a row. Energy efficiency programs, under the governor’s budget, would remain capped at $75 million a year, and program plans would be approved every three years instead of annually.

The governor’s proposal also freezes the current value of net metering credits, one of two programs through which the state finances solar farms and other related projects, a move which at least one solar developer has said would end its business in Rhode Island.

ECRI’s fourth priority isn’t tied to a particular piece of legislation, but rather defending the progress and status of renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. The cheapest kilowatt-hour for Rhode Islanders, as advocates like to say, is the one they don’t use.

“These programs have been around for a long time, and they provide savings for Rhode Islanders,” said Sam Ross, a director at Dunsky Energy. “They’ve been doing that for their whole history.”

This year’s proposals come on the heels of a difficult year and a half for environmental advocates. The second Trump administration came in like a wrecking ball, rescinding millions in federal grants, declaring near-open war on Revolution Wind and other offshore wind farms and other environmental priorities.

“What happens in Washington has a direct impact on what happens here in Rhode Island,” said House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, D-Warwick.

Shekarchi brought up the example of the federal money Rhode Island set aside for a green port in East Providence. The city’s South Quay was slated to become an offshore wind hub, and at the time state officials were expecting a much more bullish American economy in the sector.

But the election of Trump threw a wrench in those plans, said Shekarchi, and the state money slated for South Quay had to go somewhere else before it expired.

“It’s a difficult time,” Shekarchi said. “It’s a balance of the powers of the government, and it’s a balance of the state budget.”