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Cuts to Rhode Island energy-efficiency plan bad for residents, study says

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Monday, September 22, 2025

Funding for Rhode Island’s energy-efficiency programs could be cut by more than $42 million next year in an effort to rein in residents’ soaring power bills. That rollback would deprive the state of more than $90 million in benefits and potentially eliminate hundreds of jobs while creating only modest up-front savings, a new analysis finds. Rhode Island Energy, the utility that administers the state’s energy-efficiency offerings, has proposed to slash spending on that front by 18% compared to last year and more than 30% compared to the budget originally projected in the nonbinding three-year plan introduced in 2023. If approved, the cuts will save the average household $1.87 per month, according to Rhode Island Energy. The result of these changes, according to climate action nonprofit Acadia Center, would be more expensive electricity and more exposure to volatile natural gas prices in the long run. “Energy efficiency is a tool for suppressing supply costs, for suppressing infrastructure costs in the long-term,” said Emily Koo, Acadia Center’s program director for Rhode Island and one of the authors of the group’s analysis. ​“I am not seeing our leaders think beyond the immediate.” Rhode Island has traditionally been a leader in energy-efficiency programming. Over the past 15 years, the state has repeatedly placed among the top 10 states in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s annual energy-efficiency scorecard. Since 2009, the state has spent more than $2 billion on efficiency incentives and services, yielding more than $6 billion in environmental and social benefits. Now, however, the dynamics of energy markets are creating new obstacles. Nationwide, electricity costs have gone up at twice the rate of inflation over the past year, and gas prices have increased by more than four times the inflation rate. Rhode Island, like other New England states, has the added difficulty of already having some of the highest electricity rates in the country. Add in cold Northeastern winters, and the state is girding for an expensive season ahead. As in neighboring states, regulators, elected officials, and utilities in Rhode Island are scrambling for ways to provide some relief for residents and businesses. These efforts have increasingly looked to the bill fees that fund renewable energy incentives and energy-efficiency programs as possible targets for quick, if small, bill reductions. In Maine, for example, leaders from both sides of the aisle have sought to lower incentives for customers and community solar developments that send power back to the grid, and in Massachusetts, utility regulators ordered energy-efficiency administrators to cut $500 million from a planned $5 billion three-year budget. Now, Rhode Island Energy is proposing rollbacks of its own, saying that its latest plan prioritizes customer affordability. The company has the support of the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers, which points to the growth in accounts with overdue utility bills to bolster its argument that the changes will provide needed relief to consumers. “There is simply a financial limit as to how much cost the ratepayers can bear,” the department wrote in its public comments on the proposal.

Funding for Rhode Island’s energy-efficiency programs could be cut by more than $42 million next year in an effort to rein in residents’ soaring power bills. That rollback would deprive the state of more than $90 million in benefits and potentially eliminate hundreds of jobs while creating only modest up-front…

Funding for Rhode Island’s energy-efficiency programs could be cut by more than $42 million next year in an effort to rein in residents’ soaring power bills. That rollback would deprive the state of more than $90 million in benefits and potentially eliminate hundreds of jobs while creating only modest up-front savings, a new analysis finds.

Rhode Island Energy, the utility that administers the state’s energy-efficiency offerings, has proposed to slash spending on that front by 18% compared to last year and more than 30% compared to the budget originally projected in the nonbinding three-year plan introduced in 2023. If approved, the cuts will save the average household $1.87 per month, according to Rhode Island Energy.

The result of these changes, according to climate action nonprofit Acadia Center, would be more expensive electricity and more exposure to volatile natural gas prices in the long run.

“Energy efficiency is a tool for suppressing supply costs, for suppressing infrastructure costs in the long-term,” said Emily Koo, Acadia Center’s program director for Rhode Island and one of the authors of the group’s analysis. ​“I am not seeing our leaders think beyond the immediate.”

Rhode Island has traditionally been a leader in energy-efficiency programming. Over the past 15 years, the state has repeatedly placed among the top 10 states in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s annual energy-efficiency scorecard. Since 2009, the state has spent more than $2 billion on efficiency incentives and services, yielding more than $6 billion in environmental and social benefits.

Now, however, the dynamics of energy markets are creating new obstacles. Nationwide, electricity costs have gone up at twice the rate of inflation over the past year, and gas prices have increased by more than four times the inflation rate. Rhode Island, like other New England states, has the added difficulty of already having some of the highest electricity rates in the country. Add in cold Northeastern winters, and the state is girding for an expensive season ahead.

As in neighboring states, regulators, elected officials, and utilities in Rhode Island are scrambling for ways to provide some relief for residents and businesses. These efforts have increasingly looked to the bill fees that fund renewable energy incentives and energy-efficiency programs as possible targets for quick, if small, bill reductions. In Maine, for example, leaders from both sides of the aisle have sought to lower incentives for customers and community solar developments that send power back to the grid, and in Massachusetts, utility regulators ordered energy-efficiency administrators to cut $500 million from a planned $5 billion three-year budget.

Now, Rhode Island Energy is proposing rollbacks of its own, saying that its latest plan prioritizes customer affordability. The company has the support of the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers, which points to the growth in accounts with overdue utility bills to bolster its argument that the changes will provide needed relief to consumers.

“There is simply a financial limit as to how much cost the ratepayers can bear,” the department wrote in its public comments on the proposal.

Read the full story here.
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Should Portland expand or reduce fuels held at the energy hub on the Willamette River?

The city of Portland has unveiled four options for regulating development at the controversial fuel hub on the Willamette River in Northwest Portland.

The city of Portland has unveiled options for regulating development at the controversial fuel hub on the Willamette River in Northwest Portland. The effort to chart a future path for the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub, a 6-mile stretch along U.S. 30 between the Fremont Bridge and the southern tip of Sauvie Island, has been years in the making, dating back to Portland’s ban on fossil fuel terminal construction a decade ago. It also comes in response to mounting concerns about the earthquake risks of fuel spills at the hub. And it follows intense pushback from environmentalists and some city residents over the city’s approval of Zenith Energy, a company seeking to convert from fossil fuel loading and storage to renewable fuels – such as biodiesel and renewable diesel – and sustainable aviation fuel. The four proposals released this week range from allowing for the expansion of renewable and aviation fuels at the hub to prohibiting all fuel storage expansion and reducing existing storage tank capacity at the terminals. More than 90% of Oregon’s fuel supply comes through the hub, which is home to Zenith and 10 other fuel terminals and more than 400 active storage tanks with the capacity to hold at least 350 million gallons of fuels, mostly gasoline, diesel, liquified natural gas and renewable fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol.Though the proposals would affect all the companies, Zenith is the flashpoint because it’s undergoing a state air quality permit renewal subject to public comment and city and state scrutiny. Zenith also could potentially expand the volume of the fuels it now handles because renewable fuels produce less pollution, allowing the company to store more of them without going over the proposed permit limits. The city chose the alternatives based on feedback from neighborhood and environmental groups, industry and labor representatives including Zenith and seismic experts from Portland State University, said Elliott Kozuch, a spokesperson with the city’s community and economic development service area. Numerous studies have shown the fuels could spill and explode if the soil under the tanks liquifies during a Cascadia-sized earthquake. And though renewable fuels, also called biofuels, release fewer hazardous air pollutants, they’re chemically similar to fossil fuels and hence carry similar risks of spillage and explosion.City officials believe the process to regulate development at the hub is needed to update Portland’s Comprehensive Plan – a long-range policy document that guides how the city will grow and develop – and strengthen the ban on fossil fuel expansion, Kozuch said. The city also hopes to promote safety upgrades to keep residents safe in the event of a mega-earthquake, Kozuch said.Portland in 2016 banned new fossil fuel terminal construction or expansion at the hub, after Canadian company Pembina Pipeline Corp. announced plans to construct a propane-export terminal in the city. It also limited fuel tanks to 2 million gallons. The prohibition was appealed to the state Land Use Board of Appeals several times and readopted by the City Council twice more with clarifications in 2019 and 2022. In the meantime, a fight ensued over Zenith, with the city in 2021 denying the company’s land use approval but the following year giving it the green light for five more years of crude oil storage as long as it transitions to all-renewable fuels by 2027. A lawsuit is now challenging that approval while the new City Council has directed the mayor to launch an investigation into how the city handled Zenith’s approval. The alternatives for the energy hub’s future mirror those tensions.Alternative 1 allows for the expansion of renewable and aviation fuel – although it requires additional city oversight and a higher standard for safety. This alternative would also expand the current prohibition on expansion of fossil fuel storage capacity to cover expansion of fossil fuel loading infrastructure such as pipes and valves. Alternative 2 allows for a limited expansion via a volume cap on storage capacity of renewable and aviation fuels. It also requires terminals to install spill mitigation measures and ground improvements to reduce risk in the event of an earthquake before expansion is permitted. Alternative 3 prohibits all fuel expansion – including the expansion of storage tank capacity and loading infrastructure – thus removing the exemptions for renewable and aviation fuels. Alternative 4 is the most stringent of all, calling for a drawdown of the amount of fuel held at the hub. Not only does it prohibit all fuel expansion, but it also requires all fuel terminals to reduce their storage by 17%. To Nancy Hiser, a Linnton resident and community advocate who has for years warned about the dangers of an earthquake-caused spill at the terminals, only the fourth alternative is acceptable. “Every gallon of fuel held at the hub adds risk to my community and everyone in Portland. Reducing the fuel held there reduces our danger,” said Hiser, who is among a group of community advocates that has been meeting with city officials since May to push for the fuel reduction. “The other three alternatives will allow an increase in the amount of fuel held at the hub, and therefore, will only increase our current risk.”The public can submit comments on the alternatives through Oct. 17. Residents can also learn about the project via four virtual events and an in-person open house. Following public hearings and testimony, the city’s Planning Commission will vote to forward the draft with any amendments to the Portland City Council, which will hold additional public hearings prior to the plan’s adoption. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Energy
Chemicals
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Problem Solvers Caucus proposes bipartisan energy deal

The Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats, is taking a swing at an energy deal that has eluded Congress in recent years. The caucus on Thursday morning released a framework for a deal that’s meant to speed up energy projects. A spokesperson confirmed that so far, no actual legislation has been...

The Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats, is taking a swing at an energy deal that has eluded Congress in recent years. The caucus on Thursday morning released a framework for a deal that’s meant to speed up energy projects. A spokesperson confirmed that so far, no actual legislation has been drafted. Speeding up the approval process for energy projects — which has come to be known as “permitting reform” — has been a hot topic in Washington for several years, as industries including energy have pushed for cutting back environmental reviews in favor of faster projects. Members of both sides of the aisle have expressed support for speeding up projects they approve of, with Democrats pushing for faster approval of renewables and powerlines while Republicans have championed faster fossil fuel approvals. But they have yet to get an agreement across the finish line. "By cutting through red tape, we can meet energy demand, lower costs, strengthen national security, and create high quality jobs, while being responsible stewards of the environment. The urgency is real, and the appetite for change is bipartisan," said the framework provided by the caucus. The Problem Solvers’ Caucus is made up of the most moderate members of both parties. While the agreement is a sign that there could be a path forward on the issue, it does not necessarily mean that the deal will get enough buy-in to cross the finish line. The Senate in particular, where 60 votes are needed, could prove difficult, as key members have said they will not move a deal forward if the Trump administration continues to block new renewable energy development. The new bipartisan proposal seeks to speed up approvals for energy projects in general by restricting who can sue to prevent them and setting a statute of limitations for suing over a project to as little as 150 days. While any energy project can prompt a lawsuit, fossil fuel projects are frequently challenged by environmental advocates. It seeks to bolster the buildout of power lines, which could be crucial for getting more renewable energy onto the grid, by requiring the Energy Department to act on applications within 90 days, as well as by allowing some individual lines to be designated as being in the national interest.  It would also bolster nuclear energy by ending mandatory Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearings if “no stakeholders raise objections.” It also seeks to limit state authority to block projects that run through their waters, which blue states have used in the past to block fossil fuel projects such as pipelines. And it seeks to speed up the approval for geothermal energy, which involves drilling into the Earth’s surface to access hot water reservoirs.

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Water

Defending the Earth is deadly work. A new report illuminates how much.

Nearly 150 land and environment defenders were killed or disappeared last year, most for standing up to mining and logging.

Since the 1990’s, Martin Egot has protected his tribe’s ancestral homelands near Nigeria’s Cross River National Park. Egot, who is Indigenous Ekuri, helped establish the Ekuri Initiative, an organization dedicated to protecting parts of the rainforest. In 2009, the Ekuri Initiative successfully pushed the Cross River government, a state in Nigeria, to put a moratorium on logging activity in community-controlled areas of the rainforest, and were able to enforce the logging ban by deploying eco-guards: Ekuri men who patrol the rainforest to deter developers and illegal loggers.  But in 2023, the Nigerian government lifted the moratorium to allow logging. Then, later that year, a local timber company arrived without proper permits. The Ekuri eco-guards confiscated the company’s logging equipment, but their actions caused army personnel to enter the village, firing their weapons. There were no reported injuries, but the violence all but ended the Ekuri Initiative as eco-guards are unable to compete with private and government security forces hired to protect logging companies moving into the area. “In Cross River, the forest is almost completely gone everywhere else,” said Egot. “What we still have is found around the communities. So there’s a whole lot of pressure.” The violence that Ekuri environment and land defenders face isn’t uncommon. This week, Global Witness, an organization that investigates environmental and human rights abuses, released a new report documenting 146 cases of homicides and kidnappings of environmental and land defenders in 2024 – an average of three people killed or disappeared every week. The report’s authors say attacks occurred after speaking out or taking action to defend their lands, with many opposing mining, logging, and other extractive industries.  One third of the collected incidents happened to Indigenous peoples, while Afro-descendants, people with ancestral ties to enslaved Africans, comprised two cases this year. Most Afro-descendants reside in South America, like Brazil, and are stewards of biodiverse land. Since the organization began tracking violence against land and environment defenders in 2012, there have been a total of 2,253 cases.  “All these years reporting on the realities of defenders across the world, highlight, to me, the disproportionate nature of the attacks that Indigenous peoples in particular, and Afro descendants, are having to suffer year in and year out,” said Laura Furones, the report’s author.  According to the study, Colombia is considered the deadliest country for land and environment defenders with the highest number of lethal attacks with 48 cases, a third of the total, global amount. However, 80 percent of kidnapping and murder cases occurred in Latin America. Global Witness attributes the high rates of lethal violence to countries with weak state presence that enable corruption and unbalanced legal systems making resource conflicts more deadly. In Asia, the Philippines saw the highest number of killings and disappearances with most violence linked to government bodies.  It’s estimated that around 54 percent of the world’s critical mineral deposits needed for green energy and AI needs – cobalt, lithium, nickel, and copper – are located on or near Indigenous lands, often driving violence. “Amid rampant resource use, escalating environmental pressure, and a rapidly closing window to limit [global] warming to 1.5C, [industries] are treating land and environmental defenders like they are a major inconvenience instead of canaries in a coal mine about to explode,” said Rachel Cox, a senior campaigner at Global Witness. In Nigeria, Egot says he hopes to restore the Ekuri Initiative, and find ways to introduce more jobs to the region, including as eco-guards, as a way to curb logging in his community’s homelands. “We are calling on international communities to continue to talk to our state, our government, because Nigeria signs to a whole lot of environmental treaties,” he said. “So these treaties that they sign into, do they actually respect these treaties? Do they follow up on these treaties? This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Defending the Earth is deadly work. A new report illuminates how much. on Sep 17, 2025.

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As data centers go up, North Carolina weighs how to handle energy demand

In small communities across North Carolina, data centers are already sparking conflict over land use, water use, and quality of life. Now, the debate over the facilities’ voracious need for electricity — and whether it can be met with clean sources — is heating up in the state capital of Raleigh. For months, North…

In small communities across North Carolina, data centers are already sparking conflict over land use, water use, and quality of life. Now, the debate over the facilities’ voracious need for electricity — and whether it can be met with clean sources — is heating up in the state capital of Raleigh. For months, North Carolina’s predominant utility, Duke Energy, has forecast ballooning demand from large customers like data centers: immense buildings that house the computing devices powering AI and other software that’s become part of everyday life. Early last year, Duke projected these ​“large loads” would need an additional 3.9 gigawatts of capacity, equal to about four nuclear power plants and enough to serve millions of households. By May of this year, the company’s prediction had swelled to almost 6 gigawatts. The eye-popping estimates helped lead regulators to approve Duke’s current plan to build a massive new fleet of gas plants, alongside some clean energy investments, despite a state law requiring the utility to decarbonize. The projections are certain to factor into the next iteration of Duke’s long-term blueprint, a draft of which is due in the coming weeks. The forecasts have ​“thrown everything out of whack,” said Nick Jimenez, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. That’s why his organization asked the state’s Utilities Commission to host a technical conference on large loads. Electricity-demand projections undergird virtually every Duke case before the panel. But at a technical conference, commissioners could grapple exclusively with the issues vexing energy experts across the country: How can data center demand be predicted with the most accuracy? Will the tech giants pay their fair share of grid upgrades and other costs? What will power the new facilities, and will it be carbon-free? In June, the Utilities Commission granted the law center’s request and then some by opening an entire proceeding to debate these questions. Stakeholders had the summer to submit written comments, with responses due from Duke early this month. In-person presentations are scheduled for Oct. 14. It’s not clear if the process will culminate in a discrete order from the commission, or simply inform the myriad other Duke cases before it. But Jimenez praised regulators for being proactive. ​“You need a proceeding to get your arms around some of these issues,” he said. ​“I think that’s really smart and forward-looking.” The data center boom In the race against other states to attract economic development, Duke and North Carolina officials keep confidential exactly which entities hope to draw power from the electric grid. And skeptics question whether all of the new facilities behind predictions of unprecedented demand growth will pan out. But there’s little doubt that data centers are on the rise, propelled by the AI explosion. Researchers say they could account for 44% of U.S. load growth by 2028, and there’s ample evidence that North Carolina is following the national trend. In June, Amazon Web Services announced a $10 billion, 800-acre computing campus in Richmond County, east of Charlotte, billed as the largest single capital project in North Carolina history. To the west of Charlotte, the development of a ​“data center corridor” is underway: Apple says its Catawba County site is included in its $500 billion U.S. expansion plans, and Microsoft envisions four new data centers nearby. Google is considering growing its facility in neighboring Caldwell County. Not all communities are welcoming data centers with open arms. The town council of tiny Tarboro, an hour east of Raleigh, just voted to reject a $6.4 billion facility. In Apex, southwest of the city, opposition is mounting to a proposed ​“digital campus” that would displace 190 acres of farmland. Still, early this month, Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat and former attorney general, issued an executive order creating an ​“AI Accelerator” and a council designed to make the state ​“a national leader in AI literacy, governance, and deployment to the benefit of our residents, communities, and economy.” Stein did note the technology’s downsides, including ​“the uncertainty around AI systems and their associated energy and water needs.” But his edict also reflects the seeming common wisdom of the moment: AI and its requisite facilities are multiplying and expanding, bringing economic opportunities that can outweigh their challenges. “We can come to the table” In the open docket before regulators, experts say that with the right policies in place, clean energy, efficiency, and related strategies can meet the moment. ​“We can come to the table,” said John Burns, general counsel for Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, a trade group representing developers, manufacturers, and others in the clean energy industry. In their comments, Burns and others particularly promoted ​“load flexibility,” a form of demand response in which data centers curtail their electricity use when the grid is strained by lots of energy consumption. Load flexibility is feasible because data centers don’t run at maximum capacity 24/7, said Tyler Norris, former special adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy and a doctoral fellow at Duke University, which has no connection to the utility. “You never actually run the chips and the servers to 100% of their rated nameplate power,” he said. ​“You wouldn’t want to, because they overheat and they don’t perform as well when they’re running that hard.” Norris is the lead author of a February paper showing that Duke’s two utilities in the Carolinas could accommodate 4.1 gigawatts of load if data centers shave just 0.5% off their peak usage annually. In a simple example, the facilities could operate at half their maximum capacity for 88 hours over the course of a year. A load-flexibility arrangement between Duke Energy and data centers could, in theory, avert the construction of several gigawatts of new gas plant capacity and expensive and time-consuming transmission upgrades. Last month, Google announced demand-response agreements with the utilities Indiana Michigan Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority. In formal comments to the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Norris called the tech giant’s move the ​“first documented case where AI data center flexibility is explicitly integrated into U.S. utility planning.”

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Land Use
Water

Portland rolls out $100M tree expansion, relaunches contract with Friends of Trees

New tree planting and tree care programs will launch this year, with funding via the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund.

The city of Portland is launching a major expansion of its citywide tree planting and tree care efforts, including restarting its relationship with the well-known nonprofit Friends of Trees. The initiative, announced Monday by Portland Parks & Recreation’s Urban Forestry division, aims to plant a total of at least 15,000 trees over the next three years, more than doubling Portland’s annual plantings, which currently stand at about 3,500 per year. Over 6,700 trees are planned for planting this coming season. The effort will be funded via $40 million from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, the climate justice fund seeded by a 1% tax on large retailers in the city. Urban Forestry is also launching pilot projects for two other programs via $70 million from the climate fund, including a street tree maintenance program and another program to provide free yard tree care services to low-income households. Portland has experienced a canopy decline in recent years, likely due to housing development and extreme weather. City officials have identified an imbalance of tree cover across the city – a problem, given that trees are the first defense against heat waves and bad air quality. The plan calls for the city to pay for planting 660,000 trees over the next 40 years, particularly on the far east side of Portland where lower income and many people of color live.To expand its tree planting, Urban Forestry will partner with 12 contractors and 13 community-based organizations, including Friends of Trees, the venerable Portland-based nonprofit that for more than a decade had brought together hundreds of volunteers to plant roughly 40,000 street trees all over Portland. That ended in 2022 after 14 years when the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services abruptly ended its $5.8 million planting contract with Friends of Trees, prompting protests from many Portlanders. The move came as Urban Forestry said it was developing its own tree-planting program instead. But the city seems to have partly gone back to the community planting model. Urban Forestry has just announced a $1.8 million partnership with Friends of Trees for planting 750 new street and yard trees in Portland over the next two planting seasons. The money also will pay for three years of care and watering for each tree planted. As before, the new contract with Friends of Trees will include intensive community outreach and volunteer training, with the first community planting event scheduled for Dec. 6. The nonprofit’s outreach includes sending thousands of multilingual, returnable postcards to residents in priority neighborhoods, delivering door hangers and flyers with signup info, tabling at community events and disseminating information through its expansive network of volunteers and community partners. The group also spreads the word about planting by hosting events like bilingual tree walks and tree-themed bike rides. Friends of Trees’ executive director Yashar Vasef said past differences with the city have been resolved. The nonprofit and Urban Forestry have recently partnered on other tree planting efforts, including a $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded to a Portland-area coalition as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, he said. “We’re really excited,” Vasef said. “This is going to look like our traditional model, with community members planting trees together.” Residents can, once again, request a tree from Friends of Trees and the organization will gather volunteers and engage them in mass plantings in different areas of the city. People separately also can request street trees on the city’s website. They also can receive up to three free trees to plant in their yard – but must plant the trees themselves. In addition to Friends of Trees, the other tree-planting contractors are: Bridgetown Construction and Landscaping, Pac Green Landscape, Seagraves Landscape, SymbiOp, Wyeast Gardens, A Plus Tree, Andres Landscape, Cascadian Landscapers, SaveATree, Super Trees and Multnomah Landscape. Additionally, the 13 partner organizations will provide multilingual outreach to help connect diverse communities with free trees. Some will assist with registering community members to sign up for free trees at in-person events and others will post program information on social media, in newsletters and through other channels of communication with particular communities. The other two programs starting up now will focus on tree care, with initial rollout and pilot projects planned for this fall and winter. The $65 million from the Clean Energy Fund will pay for Urban Forestry to develop a program to care for Portland’s street trees that will shift responsibility for maintenance away from adjacent property owners. And another $5 million will allow low-income households to qualify for free yard tree care and arboriculture-related technical mentorship from professional tree care providers. — Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

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