Rhode Island

Zippy website that weirdly fails to provide a complete lobbyist-client list and fails to make information about particular bills or subject areas very accessible or intelligible.

The topic of environmental legislation is broken down into several subcategories in the search menu, which makes it hard to capture all such lobbying and leads to frustratingly small search results, such as just 13 entities appearing under Environment. Clicking on one of these, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, leads to a laundry list of 54 subject areas and 151 different bills. So instead of arriving at a list of environmental bills on which NFIB lobbied, and having links to these bills, a site user would be forced to look up all 151 individually.

On the plus side, the site provides clear search options for lobbyists, clients, firms, and subjects that can all be downloaded in csv format. There’s also an option to view data by client that automatically loads on the homepage.

The United Nations has warned that a two-degree rise in global temperatures would be “catastrophic” for humanity. Rhode Island crossed this threshold in 2020–becoming the first U.S. state to do so–with mounting impacts on the health of Rhode Islanders. Health impacts include more dangerously hot days that can exacerbate existing health conditions, greater concentrations of ground-level ozone and increased instances of asthma and other respiratory diseases, and the increased spread of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.

In 2024, two of the state’s largest health care interests, the Hospital Association of RI and the Rhode Island Primary Care Physicians Corporation, employed Capitol Communications Group, which also lobbied for NRG Energy, operator of gas-fired and coal-fired power plants. Lobbyists for this firm disclosed working on dozens of subject areas during the 2024 session, but disclosed just one bill for the session’s final month.

Best feature: lobbyists required to report whether they are Supporting, Opposing, or Watching legislation.

Worst feature: the site oddly fails to provide an integrated list of all lobbyists and all of their clients.

Additional Findings