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\nNovember 2, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dear Senator Reed, Senator Whitehouse, Congressman Langevin and Congressman Cicilline:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We of Climate Action Rhode Island (CARI) are a large group of concerned citizens intent on helping our state and indeed, the world, to rapidly transition off of fossil fuels. Our concern is based on the need to maintain a livable climate for our children and for the health and vitality of the planet. Each one of you applauded our efforts at calling out the EPA\u2019s gagging of scientists last week at our protest outside the State of Narragansett Bay event at Save the Bay.<\/span><\/p>\n Our present concern is the rebuilding of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Before Hurricane Maria, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico had the most expensive electricity in the United States due to the fact that they burned imported oil. \u00a0Our interest is that these territories should rebuild with 100% renewable energy for the sake of the climate, for the islands’ own resiliency and for reduced costs to the citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n It has come to our attention that this will not happen, not because they are not in prime locations for solar and wind, but because federal funds from FEMA to repair storm damage, including energy, can only be used to <\/span>replace <\/b>what was destroyed. This precludes building something better, more sustainable and more sensible!<\/span><\/p>\n A few quick facts from the EIA:<\/span><\/p>\n We of CARI are calling on you, the Congressional delegation of Rhode Island, to demand that the restrictive and short-sighted FEMA directives be suspended immediately in the rebuilding of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. \u00a0These regulations are draconian in light of the climate catastrophe we are facing. \u00a0The island nations are in an ideal position to become energy sustainable in their reconstruction process. Thank you for your help in this grave concern.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sincerely,<\/span><\/p>\n Mary Pendergast for the members of Climate Action RI \u2022 350 RI<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CARI member Mary Pendergast wrote this letter to Rhode Island’s Congressional delegation requesting action to allow FEMA recovery funds to be used for renewable-energy infrastructure in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":704,"featured_media":208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/rhodeisland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n