Rhode Island’s roughly four-hundred-mile shoreline and surrounding waters have been called the state’s greatest natural resource. The Coastal Resources Management Council plays a big role in protecting that coast and managing its development. But some critics of CRMC say the state agency is underfunded, understaffed, and at times dysfunctional. Three new bills being considered by state lawmakers aim to reform CRMC to address some of those concerns. Morning host Luis Hernandez spoke with Mike Woods, chair of the New England Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Woods is one of the people advocating for changes at CRMC.
TRANSCRIPT:
Luis Hernandez: So obviously, some of the big criticisms against this group have to do with the actual council, which is politically appointed. At times the members have made decisions that go against the recommendations of the agency’s professional staff. Do you think these criticisms are justified?
Michael Woods: So they, the Coastal Resources Management Council, or CRMC, as it’s commonly called, is the regulatory agency that’s tasked with managing Rhode Island’s coastal zone. What that means is the waters extending out to three miles from Rhode Island’s coasts, and then approximately 200 feet inland from coastal features. So tidal waterways like Narragansett Bay, but also things like the salt ponds in Greenwich Bay and some of the waters that flow in and out of the Seekonk River areas like that are all within CRMC’s jurisdiction. … I do think that, you know, there’s a couple pretty prominent and well-known cases where the council’s landed itself in hot water, hot water. One of those is the Champlin’s Marina case, which ultimately was recently resolved in the Rhode Island Supreme Court. But that took about two decades to resolve the way that the permit was granted and researched and negotiated, and some of the deals were made in a non-transparent or non-public way. And that was one of the places where I think they, you know, they sort of landed themselves in hot water with the way that they handled themselves. And another example, is a relatively recent one. It has to do with leasing the submerged ground for one of the offshore winds developments. And they, you know, it’s still sort of I think, unresolved, but what it looks like is that they may have actually overstepped the statutory authority that the legislature gave them, and went, you know, above what they were actually authorized to do in defiance of the legislature – which, of course, isn’t going to make our general assembly happy because they never gave them the power to do what they ultimately did.
Hernandez: Alright, you’re bringing up the General Assembly, and lawmakers right now are considering three bills, based on recommendations made last year by a special house commission that took a close look at the CRMC. One bill creates a full-time attorney dedicated solely to the CRMC. Right now they use part-time legal counsel. A second bill empowers the executive director to hire a hearing officer that decides on things like appeals, if the governor doesn’t appoint one. You’ve chosen to focus your energies on advocating for a third bill. Tell us a little bit about it, and why the push for it.
Woods: Yeah, so actually, I want to mention two bill numbers because typically, legislation is introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House bill is number 6034, introduced by Representative Tanzi, and the Senate bill is 722, introduced by Senator Gu. And what these bills seek to do is to sort of flip flop, if you will, the decision-making power, the statutory authority that I mentioned. They would empower the staff to be the decision-making body in a structure that’s similar but independent of Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management, where a director would be appointed by the governor and offered advice and consent through the Senate, and would ultimately be the decision maker for the agency. And in turn, it would make the politically-appointed body, which would still exist, an advisory group to the director – sort of similar, if you will, to the Marine Fisheries Council that advises DEM’s director on marine fisheries issue. And it’s also worth noting that the other two bills relating to staff attorney, as well as the hearing officer are incorporated in that, that larger swapping of powers. So in supporting that bill, we’re actually supporting all three efforts. But we wanted to make clear in our advocacy that we wanted that big change in addition to the other two, as opposed to one of the smaller changes, you know, which would partly address some of the issues but not really address the full picture.
Hernandez: Do any of these have a chance of moving forward?
Woods: Yeah, well, I think that restructuring CRMC, which is a really important agency that oversees some really important responsibilities of the General Assembly’s, is always going to be a complicated thing to do. Typically, these efforts take years, and we’re hopeful that we’re going to be able to get something done, whether it’s a small step or a large step, this year. But ultimately, what it’s going to require is for everybody that’s interested in this issue, you know – whether you come from the business world or from the public world, where you just enjoy going to the beach and having a clean place to just spend your weekend – it’s going to require those people to reach out to their representatives and government and make sure that the government knows that this is an important change that would benefit Rhode Islanders. So we’re hopeful.
