PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s federal stimulus aid will include more than $116 million to create “green” jobs, make the state cleaner and more energy efficient and to preserve precious coastal and marine resources.
“We can protect the environment while creating economic growth and job creation,” U.S. Sen. Jack Reed told a news conference this afternoon at the Save The Bay Center overlooking Narragansett Bay. Joining him for the Providence news conference were Jonathan Stone, the new executive director of Save The Bay, and Anthony B. Simeone, executive director of the R.I. Clean Water Finance Agency.
Reed – Rhode Island’s senior senator – is a supporter of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) that was signed into law on Feb. 17 (READ MORE) and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee that helped to craft the legislation.
Nationwide, he noted, the measure allocates more than $20 billion for investments in a cleaner, greener economy, including $500 million in “green” job training.
Locally, ARRA’s $1.1 billion in total aid for the Ocean State – formally accepted on Feb. 26, by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri (READ MORE) – includes more than $44 million for energy conservation and renewable energy projects and another $36 million for drinking water and sewage treatment projects:
• $23.96 million to promote energy efficiency and renewable-energy projects.
• $20.07 million to help weatherize the homes of low-income Rhode Islanders and install updated heating and air-conditioning equipment that will save energy and reduce utility bills.
• $26.5 million to repair or replace aging sewer lines and wastewater treatment plants and upgrade the local stormwater-control infrastructure.
• $19.5 million to build or modernize Rhode Island drinking-water systems.
Moreover, the Fiscal Year 2009 Consolidated Appropriations Act – the stopgap spending measure approved earlier this month to keep the federal government operating through the end of the current fiscal year (READ MORE), which allotted $666,050 to support Rhode Island’s landmark Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) – provides additional money for local clean-energy and clean-water projects:
• $12.7 million for clean-water and drinking-water projects across the Ocean State.
• $8.4 million for a variety of energy and water projects, including flood-protection funding to help stem soil erosion and pollution runoff into local streams and Narragansett Bay.
• $4.2 million to study, monitor, restore and protect Narragansett Bay, and to support environmental education efforts by Save The Bay and other nonprofits.
• Another $1 million for weatherization assistance.
Altogether, Reed said, “we are investing over $70 million in clean-water infrastructure, so that our cities and towns can scale back pollution that would otherwise reach the Bay. This is labor-intensive work that will help create construction and civil engineering jobs for unemployed and underemployed workers throughout the state.
“This bill will also help make our state more energy efficient,” Reed said. “By investing in new, clean-energy technologies today, we will help consumers, businesses and taxpayers save on their energy bills for years to come and [will] decrease our dependence on foreign oil.”
Moreover, the senator noted in a statement, the federal recovery package includes $170 million – to be awarded as competitive grants, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – that will finance habitat-restoration efforts by nonprofit environmental groups nationwide.
Stone – in comments before Reed took center stage – told the gathering that, for nearly four decades, Save The Bay has “worked very hard on ensuring the long-term health of the environment in Narragansett Bay and its surrounding waters, and we’ve worked very hard to ensure the quality of life for all the people who live on or near the water. …
“That long-term view requires investment,” he said. “And we have observed and learned – as all of us who live in Rhode Island know – that a healthy Bay is a healthy economy. We depend on the health of Narragansett Bay … we depend on industries and businesses that surround the Bay, for a healthy economy. The investments that we’re talking about today are short-term investments that benefit the long-term health of the Bay.”
Save The Bay, founded in 1970, is a nonprofit education and advocacy organization dedicated to improving the Rhode Island economy, environment and quality of life by protecting, restoring and exploring the Narragansett Bay and its watershed. To learn more, visit www.SaveBay.org.
The R.I. Clean Water Finance Agency (CWFA) is the administrator of the State Revolving Funds for wastewater and drinking water projects. For more information, visit www.ricwfa.
Information about the federal government’s financial stabilization efforts – including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) – is available at www.recovery.gov. Information from the new R.I. Office of Economic Recovery and Reinvestment (OERR) is available at www.recovery.ri.gov.
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