Projo Politics Blog

With a dire warning about how global warming might damage the Ocean State, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has organized a local session of the Senate committee in charge of such environmental issues.

"This issue is real, time is of the essence, and action is called for," Whitehouse said in a news release announcing that he will convene a panel of experts on global warning at the University of Rhode Island later this month. If it is "left unchecked," Whitehouse said, global warming will change Rhode Island and the entire world "in ways we are only beginning to understand."

Democrat Whitehouse is a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which produced a global warming bill -- based on a complex system of anti-pollution taxes known as "cap and trade" -- that died in the Senate this year. He will act as chairman of what he bills as a "field briefing" of the panel, featuring an all-Rhode Island group of state officials, academics and environmental activists.

The session will begin Aug. 21 at 10:30 a.m. at URI's Corliss Auditorium on South Ferry Road in Narragansett.

 Tags  global warming URI whitehouse

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