STATE HOUSE – The House Environment and Natural Resources Committee meets Wednesday for a vote on legislation concerning emergency closure orders of aquaculture activities, and for hearings on several other matters.
The committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday, May 18, at the rise of the House session (sometime after 4:30 p.m.) in Room 101 on the first floor of the State House, when it has scheduled a vote on:
· 2022-H 7540 — This bill sponsored by Rep. Deborah Ruggiero (D-Dist. 74, Jamestown, Middletown) allows the director of the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) to issue an emergency order requiring the temporary or permanent suspension of aquaculture activities in an affected area.
The committee has scheduled hearings on:
· 2022-H 8205 — This bill sponsored by Rep. Thomas E. Noret (D-Dist. 25, Coventry, West Warwick) would require dam owners or operators with storage capacity over 1,400 normal storage acre feet of water to obtain DEM permits to raise or lower the water level. It would not applicable to public water supply system dams.
· 2022-H 8133 — This bill sponsored by Rep. June S. Speakman (D-Dist. 68, Warren, Bristol) creates a task force to study the issue of PFAS chemicals in firefighter gear, to monitor development of alternatives to this gear, to develop a timeline for replacing gear statewide and to develop a strategy for funding the replacement gear from state or federal funds.
The meeting will be televised by Capitol Television on channels 15 and 61 for high definition on Cox Communications, i3Broadband (Formally Full Channel) on channel 15 and on channel 34 on Verizon. Livestreaming will be available at https://www.rilegislature.gov/CapTV/Pages/default.aspx.