ecoRI News reporter and Blab Lab host Colleen Cronin talks with Terry Gray, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, about how the incoming Trump administration may impact Rhode Island’s climate goals and policies.

Subscribe and listen on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

Please share any questions or ideas with Colleen by emailing her at [email protected]

This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Colleen Cronin 

Welcome to the Blab Lab, a monthly podcast from the reporters of ecoRI News, where we unpack the critical environmental issues facing southern New England. I’m reporter Colleen Cronin, and today I’m here with podcast regular Terry Gray, director of the Department of Environmental Management. We’re going to talk about what the next four years of climate policy might look like after president-elect Donald Trump takes office again. Terry, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Terry Gray 

Hey, it’s great to see you, Colleen.

Colleen Cronin 

Good to see you, too. I appreciate you coming on the show right before the holidays. Very excited to talk about this today, very interested in it. We’ve been talking a lot in our newsroom about, you know, new administration, new policies, perhaps, and how we’re going to cover them. Before we kind of get into that. I was wondering, could you just start by talking about what federal involvement there is currently in Rhode Island, because we’re going to talk today about how federal policy affects Rhode Island. But maybe people don’t even realize how it does on the environmental side, and for you guys at DEM.

Terry Gray 

In terms of federal involvement with environmental policy and climate policy in Rhode Island, I think the biggest thing we really have taken advantage of is the funding opportunities. And there’s a lot of grant funding that’s come in through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as well as the Inflation Reduction Act. Big, big money, in particular related to energy projects. So the Office of Energy Resources has really seen a lot of different funding for renewable energy, for energy efficiency, for [electric vehicle] expansions, and it’s been a big help to move us toward our climate goals. DEM has also gotten some funding for climate planning. A carbon pollution reduction grant fund is funding our work toward the 2025 Climate Action Strategy that’s required under the Act on Climate. So those are the big ones.

Colleen Cronin 

Funding is a big federal factor, but policy-wise, you know, does policy that comes from the EPA or other federal agencies, how does that end up trickling down? And how has it been during this current administration?

Terry Gray

We work very closely with our counterparts at EPA on all the major programs. So clean air, clean water, site cleanup. We also work with them very closely on environmental justice, and of course that involves permitting and compliance issues, so their presence really is a big backstop for a lot of the work that we do, and it helps to really kind of make our regulatory programs as effective as they can be.

Colleen Cronin

One thing that I think about is like PFAs regulations, which, like the EPA sort of sets, and then Rhode Island, you know, sort of follows suit, basically, right?

Terry Gray 

One thing that we really don’t have the ability to do is a lot of sort of first-generation research. So, for instance, what are the impacts of PFAs on the environment? And there’s thousands of types of PFAs, so we really rely on EPA to really kind of look at some of that cutting-edge research and develop what the health effects are and then what the cleanup standards should be for those compounds.

Colleen Cronin 

So, you know, you talked about funding, you talked about how policy from the federal government affects DEM, but how was that different? And was it different under the last Trump administration?

Terry Gray  

Well, I think one of the things that the first Trump administration really focused on was really kind of a backing off on the work that we had started on climate. And remember, this is eight years ago. It was really preliminary climate work in a lot of ways, so that kind of put a foot on the brakes a little bit for a momentum that was starting to build. We continued to work at the state level on climate change. There was a lot of debate about the Act on Climate and all the statutes that were considered, but the federal guys were not at the table.

Colleen Cronin

Yeah, I know that there were also some regulatory rollbacks during the last Trump administration. Did that end up impacting Rhode Island at all?

Terry Gray 

Not a lot. And the reason why was that we have really strong environmental laws in the state, so we don’t rely on federal statutes all the time as the primary authority for our programs. So for instance, the Clean Water Act provides a lot of very broad authority, but we have the state Water Pollution Control Act, we have the state Wetlands Act. We have a lot of other laws that can take primacy if the federal rules get rolled back a little bit.

Colleen Cronin 

I guess I’m curious what you think could be coming this time around?

Terry Gray 

Well, I actually think the biggest danger zone is with clean air. There’s been a lot of interpretations in the Clean Air Act over the past few years about the importance of controlling carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and you know, a lot of that’s done through regulatory findings by EPA that then kick in a lot of the control standards that are proposed by the Clean Air Act. And I think if those interpretations change, or if there’s legal challenges that go forward and kind of reset the foundation of a lot of those programs, that the regulation of greenhouse gases could really be in jeopardy.

Colleen Cronin  

Is that where Rhode Island comes in?

Terry Gray

So the Act on Climate provides very broad regulatory authority for the state, which is good, but there are some things that can only be regulated on a macro scale. One of them is vehicle emissions. And we have, under the current interpretation of the Clean Air Act, we have a choice. We can either follow how EPA regulates vehicles, which is primarily by driving up the miles per gallon over time so that the vehicles can get fuel efficiency standards. Or we can follow different models, like the ones that California sets. We can’t deviate. We can’t create a Rhode Island model. Or we can’t follow the Massachusetts model or anything like that. It’s either California or the federal model, and the federal model is the basis for our Advanced Clean Cars regulations and our Advanced Clean Trucks. So if there’s some kind of regulatory interpretation that changes, that doesn’t allow us to follow that California model, we’re going to have some issues with respect to really kind of implementing that program.

Colleen Cronin

So, then I’m thinking that sort of twofold, right? Because that’s both just air being cleaner, a public health problem, and then also emissions wise, I’m sure that that impacts our greenhouse gas inventory. Are there things that Rhode Island’s trying to do to, you know, get ahead of some of these changes.

Terry Gray

I think so far are really our focus has been looking at the grant funds that we’ve received under the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, and we’ve been working with our federal partners, not just EPA, but NOAA and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the USDA to really kind of make sure that those funds are locked down and and safe. They were granted to us with an expectation that we were going to implement programs and do good work with those programs. So we just want to make sure that that gets moving so that they’re not looked at as kind of dead money and rolled back.

Colleen Cronin

Where does that stand? I know that a lot of the big federal money from the big bills that Biden passed ended up going to red states. So there seems like there could be a vested interest for everybody in keeping this money out there, right?

Terry Gray   

The challenge here is sometimes you have to sort out the rhetoric from the reality. And the rhetoric seems to say that the Inflation Reduction Act was a waste of money and it’s not doing anything. But the reality is states all across the country, blue states, red states, purple states, they’re all benefiting from the investments that came out of that act, so that there’s probably going to be a pretty broad pushback if there’s too much of a rollback.

Colleen Cronin   

Okay, so the Act on Climate will still be in effect, like we’re talking about, even if federal regulations change. So in some ways, like you’re saying, you know, it seems like that’s protected the very least, which is our biggest piece of getting our emissions down and reaching our climate goals. But you know, federal funding does support the Act. How do you see the Trump administration helping or hurting the Act on Climate, even though it’s not itself a federal policy?

Terry Gray

So I think one of the things we need to consider is we’re probably going to not have high expectations for additional climate funding, right? That’s pretty unlikely that’s going to happen. So assuming that we can hold on to and obligate the money that we have now, a lot of those go to fund incentive programs. So for instance, EV infrastructure, heat pumps, rooftop solar, those types of things are all being funded by federal grants that the Office of Energy Resources is implementing. We are going to be modeling what it takes in terms of adoption of a lot of those activities in order to meet our goals in 2030, 2040, and 2050. It’s going to come clear, I think, how close we can get to those goals just based on incentives. And so now the big question is, if the incentive programs go away and there’s some kind of a gap, what are we going to do to address that?

Colleen Cronin

I would think that maybe state funding for some things could be an option. Is that something you’re talking about with the legislature and the governor?

Terry Gray 

Not yet. But, you know, I don’t think it’s outrageous to think that way. It’s been a pretty active debate in the General Assembly for the past couple of years in terms of what the EC4 really kind of needs to meet the goals in the Act on Climate and budget is a big piece of that. So we’ve gotten some budget money, but not a lot, and I think that conversation will continue. The question of state incentives is a big one. I mean, California, of course, is in a whole different league than we are, but they just announced that if federal tax incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles went away, the state would replace those. I don’t know if we’re going to be in a position to really do that with the budget that we’re working with and the size that we’re talking about, but that that shows that states are starting to think along the lines of what you said. The other piece is, if you can’t necessarily use an incentive to meet your goals, then maybe you can use some of the other regulatory tools to kind of push people in that direction. And we really haven’t thought too deeply about that, but it’s an obvious other contingency, if we need to do that.

Colleen Cronin

And, you know, people are going to be able to litigate the Act on Climate soon, too, for not meeting our goals. So it sort of has to get done, one way or another, it seems.

Terry Gray

Thanks for reminding me! Yes, no, that’s absolutely true, and that’s top of mind in a lot of ways.

Colleen Cronin 

I went to an EC4 meeting recently after the election, and I heard you talk about how, even though decreasing carbon emissions might be potentially not a huge priority for the Trump administration, climate resiliency and the form of emergency preparedness was, you know, pretty high on the list last time around for them. You know, can you explain a little bit more about why that’s the case? Or if you don’t necessarily know the inner workings of the Trump administration’s brain, you know what that means and what that could mean in the next administration.

Terry Gray

So, it’s funny Colleen, because in a lot of ways, working with our federal partners can be tricky, and sometimes words matter, and you can talk about the same thing, but use different terminology, and that that’s kind of dictated by whatever the philosophical difference is in a lot of ways. So going way back to George W. Bush when he was president, one of the one of the messages that came out pretty quickly in that administration was, we’re not talking about climate. Okay, well, we’re not talking about climate. So we started to talk about preparing for natural disasters, resilience, not so much about climate change and sea level rise, but more about more frequent storms, more significant weather events. If you look out across the country, everybody’s facing that. So you’re talking about droughts. We’re talking about, you know, massive forest fires, really weird storms, hurricanes, that type of thing. So I think that’s a common language and when people sit down and we prepare for natural disasters, we share stories with people from Oklahoma and Texas and California and everywhere else.

Colleen Cronin 

You may not have to say the word climate change there for there to be some climate change awareness.

Terry Gray

I think everybody has to prepare for the impacts of climate change, whether or not you brand it as an impact of climate change or not, the atmosphere is changing. There are clearly more frequent, more severe storms that impact everybody, and that’s just a common thing that everybody has to prepare for.

Colleen Cronin   

We talked a lot about a second Trump term in terms of how it could hurt the state’s climate goals. I’m curious if there’s any ways you think it could enhance the goals, or there might be, you know, a surprise priority that could come in the Trump administration that might help us.

Terry Gray   

So one of the things that that came through with the last Trump administration, and has already been sort of talked about at a rhetorical level, is empowerment of states and the idea that, OK, states need to make decisions on their own, and we need to support states for doing that, and that extends to environmental issues as well. So the idea that we might get a little bit more support to implement some of these federal programs and a little bit more independent sometimes, and implementing the federal programs, I think is something that we should watch for. It may be positive. I’d love to see more funding come to some of our core programs about clean air, clean water and site cleanup. They’ve been flat for a long time, and they could use some investments.

Colleen Cronin 

Could you actually tell me a little bit about the U.S. Climate Alliance?

Terry Gray

Sure.

Colleen Cronin

What is it? And why is Rhode Island a part of it?

Terry Gray 

So, the U.S. Climate Alliance is an alliance of 22 states and two territories that came together when President Trump, under his first administration, withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord. And the reason for this is these 22 states and governors were very like-minded in the fact that the United States still has to participate in the international discussions about climate change, and instead of having a federal presence now you’ve got this coordinated sub-national presence at the table, at the COP and different international dialogue on climate. So that’s how they came together. Now it’s getting more energized, and that’s one of the reasons I invited Casey Adams to the EC4 meeting, is just to show that we’re not in this alone, and we’re not we’re not opting out of the worldwide discussions on climate.

Colleen Cronin

Thank you so much, Terry, for coming on the show and talking about this. We’re definitely going to keep having these conversations with you as we see more how a new administration plays out. But thank you so much.

Terry Gray

Okay, thank you, Colleen.