CD1 candidates, face-to-face and on the record

CD1 candidates take on abortion, climate and affirmative action in first in-person forum

By Kevin G. Andrade, Rhode Island Current

Photo by Steve Ahlquist

Democratic candidates for Rhode Island’s open congressional seat squared off in a wide-ranging debate dominated by questions of abortion access and the climate crisis.

About 50 people gathered at the Weaver Library as 10 of the 12 Democrats running in the 1st Congressional District race vied for votes ahead of the Sept. 5 primary by sharing their views on equality, affirmative action and even fiction. 

“Who is your favorite fictional character,” queried Rev. Donnie Anderson, chair of the Rhode Island Democratic Women’s Caucus, the host of the event.

“Belle,” responded Stephanie Beauté, a technology professional. “She likes books and she doesn’t need a boy.”

Candidates received only 90 seconds for an opening statement, 45 seconds to respond to questions, and 60 seconds for a closing statement. They were prohibited from speaking or referring to each other directly over the forum’s 75 minutes. 

The forum was the second, following a virtual event Wednesday hosted by Raymond Baccari, Jr., a Rhode Island College student and YouTuber, and Ryan Lukowicz, a South Kingstown High School senior and podcaster.  

Participants Monday included: Gabriel Amo, Beauté, Walter Berbrick, state Sen. Sandra Cano, Don Carlson, Spencer Dickinson, Providence City Councilman John Gonçalves, Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos, state Sen. Ana Quezada, and J. Aaron Regunberg.

Allen Waters, a former Republican, declined to participate because Anderson is a transgender woman. Woonsocket Rep. Stephen Casey did not respond to invitations, according to Anderson. 

Fighting climate change is wildly popular but most Americans don't know that

A new study finds support for climate action is underestimated by nearly every sector of American society

Princeton University, Engineering School

Most Americans support action to address climate change but public perception doesn't reflect this. Illustration by Bumper DeJesus/Princeton University

Just after the U.S. Congress passed the nation's most substantial legislation aimed at battling climate change, a new study shows that the average American badly underestimates how much their fellow citizens support substantive climate policy. While 66-80% of Americans support climate action, the average American believes that number is 37-43%, the study found.

"It's stunning how universal and shared that idea is, among every demographic," said Gregg Sparkman, the paper's first author who did this work as a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton and is now an assistant professor at Boston College.

The research, co-authored by Elke Weber, the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment and professor of psychology and the School of Public and International Affairs, was published in Nature Communications today.

The study found that conservatives underestimated national support for climate policies to the greatest degree but, liberals also believed that a minority of Americans support climate action. The misperception was the norm in every state, across policies, and among every demographic tested, including political affiliation, race, media consumption habits, and rural vs. suburban. 

The actions that the researchers surveyed were major climate policies that could play a role in the United States mitigating climate change, including a carbon tax, siting renewable energy projects on public lands, sourcing electricity from 100% renewable resources by 2035, and the Green New Deal. The trend of Americans largely underestimating such support held true for every single policy.

The study showed a link between consuming conservative media and high levels of misperception, even when controlling for personal politics. The researchers also found that living in a red state, and having less exposure to climate marches or protests was linked to a greater discrepancy between estimates of popularity and actual popularity of climate policies. 

According to the paper, supporters of climate action outnumber opponents two to one, but Americans falsely perceive nearly the opposite to be true. Sparkman said that this underestimation of support is problematic because people tend to conform to what they think others believe, which would weaken actual support for such policies.

Sponsors of the Rescue Rhode Island legislative package say it offers hope for the future.

Public Backs Package of Bills That Would Tackle Pollution, Food Insecurity, Affordable Housing

By CAITLIN FAULDS and BRIAN P. D. HANNON/ecoRI News staff

The Rescue Rhode Island Act addresses many of the issues young advocates of the Green New Deal support, including clean air and water. (ecoRI News)

Callers to a recent House committee hearing on a trio of bills addressing industrial pollution, affordable housing and food insecurity ranged from a mother who described her child’s illness from lead exposure to teenagers fearful for their environmental and economic futures.

The House Finance Committee convened May 25 to take public testimony on the Green Justice Zone Act, the Housing Construction Act and the Food Security and Agricultural Jobs Act, collectively known as the Rescue Rhode Island Act.

Testimony offered by phone because of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions lasted more than three hours despite preregistered residents and advocates having only 2 minutes each for comments. Callers overwhelmingly supported the bills as means to address a variety of concerns, including racial injustice, employment, utility costs, local farming, the climate and health repercussions of industrial waste.

The bills were filed separately but received a joint hearing from the committee that will decide whether to send them to the full House for consideration. Committee members voted at the outset of the hearing to hold the bills for further study, which is standard procedure for new legislation and isn’t an indication of likely success or failure.

Governor McKee: Sign the Act On Climate Into Law

Environmental community calls for urgent and decisive leadership on climate

Kai Salem, Environment Council of Rhode Island

McKee has already threatened to veto the bill. The
environment is NOT a McKee priority so he needs a push

The Environment Council of Rhode Island, on behalf of its 70 organizational and individual members representing over 50,000 Rhode Islanders, calls on Governor to sign the 2021 Act On Climate (H5445-sub A and S78-sub A) into law.

On March 23^rd, the House of Representatives passed the Act On Climate with a bipartisan majority (53 – 22) after nearly four hours of debate. 

Supporters of the bill believe Rhode Island needs to take this critical step in planning for and addressing climate change with science, accountability, and enforceability.

The prior week the Rhode Island State Senate also passed the 2021 Act On Climate with overwhelming support, 33 – 4. It’s now Governor McKee’s turn to show Rhode Islanders that he can lead the Ocean State through the many crises we face, including the climate crisis.

The Act On Climate is the most important climate bill passed by the General Assembly in Rhode Island history, preceded only by the 2014 Resilient Rhode Island Act.

Carbon reduction bill Act on Climate passes RI Senate

Poised to pass House

By  Steve Ahlquist, UpRiseRI

Charlestown's state rep and resident ass-hat Blake "Flip" Filippi
thinks this climate bill will end American democracy. - Will Collette

On March 16 the Rhode Island Senate passed the 2021 Act on Climate bill, which will update Rhode Island’s climate-emission reduction goals and to make them enforceable. 

Specifically the 2021 Act on Climate (S0078A) would make the state’s climate goals, as outlined in the Resilient Rhode Island Act of 2014, more ambitious and updated with current science. 

Under the bill, Rhode Island would develop a plan to reduce all climate emissions from transportation, buildings and heating, and electricity used economywide in the state to 10 percent below 1990 levels this year, 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2040 and net-zero by 2050.

The act would require the state’s Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4) to update its plan for carbon reduction every five years, and include in it measures to provide for an equitable transition that addresses environmental injustices and public health inequities, as well as supports to ensure strong and fair employment as fossil-fuel industry jobs are replaced by green energy jobs. 

It also adds food security as an element to consider as the state continues to evaluate its plans to address climate change and requires the creation of an online transparent public dashboard to track emissions reductions and sources of energy annually.

After 2025, if the state does not meet its targets and comply with the act, the people of Rhode Island would be able to seek action in Providence Superior Court.

The Environmental Council of Rhode Island (ECRI) had made passing the 2021 Act on Climate their sole legislative priority this year. The bill “is a long overdue update to the 2014 Resilient Rhode Island Act to address climate-warming carbon emissions,” said ECRI in a press release. 

Windmills: The New Scapegoat

Attacking the solution, not the problem

By Robert C. Koehler for Common Dreams

By Nick Anderson

The cornerstone of every social structure is its belief system, and those who control and benefit the most from the system have one primary job: Keep its myths and scapegoats viable.

That explains the emergence, in recent weeks, among right-wing politicians and media hacks, of a truly bizarre and unexpected scapegoat: the evil windmill!

In the wake of the winter storm that shut down the Texas power grid and deprived much of its population of electricity, warmth and drinkable water, these hacks and pols have been desperate to divert public awareness from basic facts, such as the utter failure of the state’s deregulated power grid to winterize and remain functional in difficult weather, and— ultimately far worse—the looming ecological collapse caused in large part by ongoing fossil fuel extraction and consumption.

Hence, as a Reuters fact-check analysis pointed out: “On Feb. 14, (Tucker) Carlson began telling his viewers that ‘a reckless reliance on windmills is the cause of this disaster,’ claiming that ‘the windmills froze, so the power grid failed.’ The following day, (Texas Gov. Greg) Abbott said in an interview that the crisis in Texas ‘shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.’”

And Naomi Klein wrote: “Since the power went out in Texas, the state’s most prominent Republicans have tried to pin the blame for the crisis on, of all things, a sweeping progressive mobilization to fight poverty, inequality and climate change. . . . Pointing to snow-covered solar panels, Rick Perry, a former governor who was later an energy secretary for the Trump administration, declared in a tweet ‘that if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas—and lots of it—for decades to come.’”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Charlestown had its own experience with scare tactics being used by anti-wind energy forces. Using fake science, they portrayed wind turbines as causing everything short of cancer (it was Donald Trump who took that last big leap into pseudoscience). Charlestown taxpayers paid $2.1 million, plus tons of legal costs, to block commercial wind energy development. One lasting legacy is that Charlestown's land use ordinances virtually ban ANY device - regardless of size or technology - that converts wind into electricity, including small household devices. Those rules were enacted in Charlestown in November 2011. Read the details HERE. - Will Collette

Proposed Rescue Rhode Island Act, a vehicle for change

Progressive Act Addresses Environmental, Social Justice

By CELIA HACK/ecoRI News contributor

More than 500 community members flooded Zoom last Tuesday night to witness the launch of the Rescue Rhode Island Act, a $300 million legislative package meant to simultaneously address climate change, racial injustice, and economic inequality, among other crises.

The act will put forth three bills to the General Assembly: one to spur green and affordable housing construction; one to expand locally-sourced food production; and one to protect clean air and water.

“We have the power to ensure that every single person in Rhode Island — Black, Brown, White, Indigenous, and immigrant — has a dignified job with a living wage, can afford a comfortable home with enough food, and can walk or play outside with clean air,” said Sen. Tiara Mack, D-Providence, one of the bill’s sponsors.

The legislation is championed by three newly sworn in senators — Mack, Sen. Jonathon Acosta, D-Central Falls, and Sen. Kendra Anderson, D-Warwick — and Reps. David Morales, D-Providence, and Brianna Henries, D-East Providence.

All five ran as a part of the Rhode Island Political Cooperative, which required members to support the adoption of a Green New Deal. The Rescue Rhode Island Act bears close resemblance to the policy, which Robert Hockett, professor of law at Cornell University and a leading architect of the congressional Green New Deal resolution, affirmed.

Renew Rhode Island, a newly-formed coalition co-chaired by Monica Huertas, executive director of The People’s Port Authority, and Emma Bouton, an organizer with the Sunrise Movement, is backing the proposed legislation.

The group has at least 15 member organizations, including organized labor, frontline communities, and environmental, racial, and social justice groups. Thirteen more groups indicated their support for the Rescue Rhode Island Act.

The coalition is working within the regional Renew New England alliance, formed in early 2020, which aims to pass similar legislation in the five other New England states.

This “unprecedented” regional effort will “create a model for the rest of the country” to address racial, economic, and environmental justice, Mack said.

If we want to fix the economy, there is a way

Trickle-Down Economics Doesn’t Work but Build-Up Does

By Robert Reich

How should the huge financial costs of the pandemic be paid for, as well as the other deferred needs of society after this annus horribilis?

Politicians rarely want to raise taxes on the rich. Joe Biden promised to do so but a closely divided Congress is already balking.

That’s because they’ve bought into one of the most dangerous of all economic ideas: that economic growth requires the rich to become even richer. Rubbish.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith once dubbed it the “horse and sparrow” theory: “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

We know it as trickle-down economics.

In a new study, David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King’s College London lay waste to the theory. They reviewed data over the last half-century in advanced economies and found that tax cuts for the rich widened inequality without having any significant effect on jobs or growth. Nothing trickled down.

Meanwhile, the rich have become far richer. Since the start of the pandemic, just 651 American billionaires have gained $1 trillion of wealth. With this windfall they could send a $3,000 check to every person in America and still be as rich as they were before the pandemic. Don’t hold your breath.

VIDEO: How 2020 exposed America

To Watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbE8gfoYrec&feature=emb_title

Income and jobs that won’t disappear

Our recovery needs to be green

By  Rhode Island Progressive Democrats

Rhode Islanders are hungry and having trouble paying their bills. 180,000 workers have lost their jobs. 

We’re in a recession, and economists believe we’re on a path toward a depression.

The White House and Senate majority aren’t helping us like they should, and our state government is barely staying afloat. 

How many more Rhode Islanders will suffer and struggle before we find our way out of this economic downturn?

We have no doubt that we’ll recover from this, but we also know that we’ll come out of this in worse condition than when we went in because that’s how it works in Rhode Island. Our economy is fragile and blows to our economy only make it less strong.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The world is changing, and we can seize that change and use it to make our lives better.

Fossil fuels are crashing, and our economy, which is tied to fossil fuels, is falling with it. At the same time, clean energy is rising. There’s strength in clean energy, and by grabbing onto it, we can pull ourselves up, gain huge economic benefits, and start creating a stronger Rhode Island.

If Rhode Island builds a new, state-owned clean energy system, we can have an economic boom that will benefit every citizen in the Ocean State. 

VIDEO: Some REAL solutions to the climate crisis

 To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuXURo0FUjM&feature=emb_title

Are we asking the wrong questions?

The Humongous Costs of Inaction

By Robert Reich 

In the February 19 Democratic debate, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg charged that Senator Bernie Sanders’ policy proposals would cost $50 trillion. Holy Indiana.

Larry Summers, formerly chief White House economic advisor for Barack Obama, puts the price tag at $60 trillion. “We are in a kind of new era of radical proposal,” he told CNN.

Putting aside the accuracy of these cost estimates, they omit the other side of the equation: what, by comparison, is the cost of doing nothing?

A Green New Deal might be expensive, but doing nothing about climate change will almost certainly cost far more. If we don’t launch something as bold as a Green New Deal, we’ll spend trillions coping with the consequences of our failure to be bold.

Medicare for All will cost a lot, but the price of doing nothing about America’s increasingly dysfunctional healthcare system will soon be in the stratosphere.

A new study in The Lancet estimates that Medicare for All would save $450 billion and prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths each year.

Investing in universal childcare, public higher education and woefully outdated and dilapidated infrastructure will be expensive too, but the cost of not making these investments would be astronomical.

American productivity is already suffering and millions of families can’t afford decent childcare, college or housing – whose soaring costs are closely related to inadequate transportation and water systems.

Focusing only on the costs of doing something about these problems without mentioning the costs of doing nothing is misleading, but this asymmetry is widespread. 

Chronic problem in the environmental movement still hurts

Green New Deal and R.I. Climate Efforts Lack Color

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

Bella Noka, a Narragansett Indian Tribe member and a
member of the Indigenous Transition steering committee,
said society long ago stopped listening to Mother Earth.
(Michael Roles)

Four of the six people sitting at a table near the front door of a busy coffee shop politely pointed out the inadequacies of the Green New Deal and the country’s timid efforts to address a centuries-old system that continues to marginalize people of color.

The affable quartet noted that indigenous people like them have been largely shut out of efforts, both locally and nationally, to address the climate crisis and the connected issue of economic inequality.

“The smartest person in the room needs to get out of the room,” said Bella Noka, a Rhode Island resident and Narragansett Indian Tribe member. 

“We need to listen to the child in the corner. We need to listen to everybody.”

The Green New Deal makes a lone mention of indigenous people, but, according to Cristina Cabrera, a member of the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation, few, if any, helped craft the document and few have been asked for their thoughts on the issues it addresses. 

She noted that efforts at the local level to decarbonize don’t include indigenous people.

Cabrera said climate and social policy are being increasingly shaped by corporations and the politicians they help elect, which creates a revolving door of corporate interests in government. 

She noted that corporations enjoy the status of personhood but Mother Earth does not. She said these influences are visible in the Green New Deal.

People actually LIKE progressive ideas

The irony of the centrist-progressive debate

By Jim Hightower 

With dozens of Democratic candidates, scores of televised debates, and swarms of reporters and pundits descending on the tiniest blip in polls, this campaign already feels never-ending. But at long last, we’re beginning what matters: Voting!

This year, in addition to decisions about candidates, voters will be making a decision about the future of our society. The question we face is whether we will continue the same-old politics of enriching and empowering the few at the expense of the rest of us, or will we pivot to implement transformative structural changes.

As you would expect, Trump and his sycophantic congress critters are howl-at-the-moon opponents of Medicare for All, the wealth tax, tuition-free college and trade school, the Green New Deal, universal child care, and the full package of populist policies that would begin reversing the scourge of inequality that continues spreading throughout our land.

But what about Democrats? Sadly, many of them are opposed, too.

Not grassroots Dems, of course — not the hard-hit, workaday people who need these reforms. But there’s a gaggle of don’t-rock-the-corporate-boat Democrats (mostly old-line pols, consultants, high-dollar donors, and other Washington insiders) who are declaring that the party must abandon proposals for big systemic changes.

What a concept: actually make law enforcement possible

A short, simple bill that strengthens Rhode Island’s commitment to fighting climate change

By  Steve Ahlquist for UpRiseRI

NOAA reports the hottest January EVER recorded on earth

The Act on Climate 2020 bill was introduced in the Rhode Island General Assembly last week, and the bill enjoyed the immediate support of a large number of environmental advocacy groups, including Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and Climate Action Rhode Island (CARI).

As explained by CLF Senior Attorney Jerry Elmer to a packed house at a recent CARI meeting, the Act on Climate 2020 (House Bill 7399 and Senate Bill 2165) is a short, simple bill that strengthens Rhode Island’s commitment to fighting climate change through the establishment of a statewide greenhouse gas emission reduction mandate. 

The bill would require Rhode Island to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 100 percent by 2050 and bring Rhode Island into line with the mandatory, enforceable greenhouse gas emission reductions already in place in neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Will there be more off-shore wind farms?

Pending Federal Report Key to Offshore Wind's Future

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

Six gigawatts of offshore wind energy have been proposed for the East Coast. (Engineering News-Record)

The forthcoming report from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on the cumulative environmental impacts of the Vineyard Wind project will determine the future of offshore wind development.

BOEM’s decision isn’t just the remaining hurdle for the 800-megawatt project, but also the gateway for 6 gigawatts of offshore wind facilities planned between the Gulf of Maine and Virginia. 

Another 19 gigawatts of Rhode Island offshore wind-energy goals are expected to bring about more projects and tens of billions of dollars in local manufacturing and port development.

Some wind-energy advocates have criticized BOEM’s 11th-hour call for the supplemental analysis as politically motivated and excessive.

Safe boat navigation and loss of fishing grounds are the main concerns among commercial fishermen, who have been the most vocal opponents of the 84-turbine Vineyard Wind project and other planned wind facilities off the coast of southern New England.

Last month, state Sen. Susan Sosnowski, D-New Shoreham, gave assurances that the Coast Guard will not be deterred from conducting search and rescue efforts around offshore wind facilities, as some fishermen have feared.

“The Coast Guard’s response will be a great relief to Rhode Island’s commercial fishermen,” Sosnowski is quoted in a recent story in The Independent. “We have many concerns regarding navigational safety near wind farms, and that was the biggest.”

Nearly all Americans want to get off fossil fuels

The vast majority of people in the world’s largest fossil fuel producing country want to phase them out.

By Basav Sen 

Late last year, The Washington Post reported a remarkable poll finding: Nearly half of American adults — 46 percent — believe the U.S. needs to “drastically reduce” fossil fuel use in the near future to address the climate crisis. Another 41 percent favor a more gradual reduction.

In short, almost 90 percent of us support transitioning off fossil fuels — including over half of Republicans, whose elected officials overwhelmingly support the industry.

This is remarkable. The U.S. is the world’s largest oil and gas producer, third largest coal producer, and the only country to leave the universally adopted Paris Climate Agreement. Yet nearly all of us want off these fuels.

You’d expect a media outlet to treat this as the immensely newsworthy (and headline-worthy) finding that it is — especially if that outlet commissioned the poll!

Yet The Washington Post buried these numbers in the 14th and 15th paragraphs of the story. Their headline? “Americans like Green New Deal’s goals, but they reject paying trillions to reach them.”

This assertion, while not outright false, is misleading.

The poll had a single vaguely worded question about the price tag for a national climate action plan, which asked whether respondents supported raising federal spending by unspecified “trillions.” Two-thirds of respondents said no.

Pollsters gave respondents no specifics on the amount of “trillions” we’re talking about, or how they would compare to the overall federal budget, huge existing line items like the military and fossil fuel subsidies, or the country’s GDP.

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

Naomi Klein: Gearing up for the Political Fight of Our Lives

By Tara Lohan

Millions of people from more than 150 countries are expected to take part in a global climate strike — an effort spurred by students who have been striking weekly to demand action on climate change.

In the United States, activists hope meaningful policy will follow protest. 

Naomi Klein’s book On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal makes the case for one specific way forward — the proposed Green New Deal. It’s a plan to slash global emissions along with addressing other issues of economic, racial and gender justice.

“Young people around the world are cracking open the heart of the climate crisis, speaking of a deep longing for a future they thought they had but that is disappearing with each day that adults fail to act,” she writes in the book.

For years Klein — author of bestsellers such as The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything — has been sounding an alarm about the growing climate crisis, but also peeling the curtain back on the machinations of the powerful interests that are profiting from the fallout.

Her latest, a collection of essays and speeches spanning 10 years along with timely new material, provides a compelling look at how we got to where we are and where to go next. We spoke to Klein about why the Green New Deal is gaining momentum, why justice is at the core of climate action, and what’s at stake in the 2020 election.

The "good news" in Trump's terrible environment speech

Even Trump seems to understand people are concerned about climate change.

By Jill Richardson 

It’s hard to find the nuggets of good news in the media these days. Many people are so burnt out on the Trump news roller coaster, which goes around the clock, changes frequently, and often shocks and outrages, that the least painful option is to skip the news entirely.

Here’s some good news: Americans are starting to wake up about the climate crisis. 

More than half of Americans believe human-caused climate change is happening. More than six in ten Americans disapprove of Trump’s record on the climate. And while only 6 percent of Republicans see climate change as the single most important issue in the 2020 election, 27 percent of Democrats believe that it is.

It appears that the debate over the climate is shifting. Trump recently made an (awkward, cringey) speech about the environment, touting his own environmental record and falsely claiming — lying, really — that the U.S. is outperforming other nations in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

For the record, the Trump administration stripped scientific climate data off government websites, pulled out of the Paris accord, and rolled back Obama-era fuel efficiency standards on vehicles. 

Yet now he’s out talking about his excellent record on the environment? I suppose it’s good that he thinks he needs people to believe he has a good record there — even if that’s not a test he can pass by any measure.

Shame

R.I. Lawmakers Slink Into Summer Having Jilted Environment and Public Health

By FRANK CARINI

Photo by Steve Ahlquist

The recent decision by the Energy Facility Siting Board was a victory for common sense. The board’s three members didn’t put on a show. 

Instead, they simply explained why energy from the proposed fossil-fuel power plant wasn’t needed. They also called out the developer’s deception.

Unfortunately, this kind of reason is the rare exception rather than the rule on Smith Hill. 

The 2019 session of the General Assembly once again proved way too many Rhode Island lawmakers have a blatant disregard for the voiceless and the vulnerable. 

They are ignorant about climate change. They don’t give a damn about the future, even if they have children and grandchildren. 

Paltry campaign donations can make them look the other way as air quality is threatened, forestland clear-cut, and taxpayers scammed.

Nature is crying for mercy, but far too many of our lawmakers only hear the ka-ching of campaign dollars.

The fiscal 2020 state budget had $1 million set aside for a Cranston chiropractor who practices pseudo-medicine. Since 2004, Rhode Island lawmakers have steered at least $1.88 million, often laundered through the state Department of Education, in taxpayer money to a University of Vermont graduate with a degree in zoology who provides an “innovative treatment for brain-based disorders” — presumably in humans.