§ 46-23-2. Coastal resources management council created - Appointment of members. (a) There is hereby created the coastal resources management council. The coastal resources management council shall consist of ten (10) members. Nine (9) members shall be appointed by the governor, with advice and consent of the senate, and one member shall serve ex officio. All current appointments to the coastal resources management council made by the governor with advice and consent of the senate are hereby validated and ratified and those appointees shall serve for the remainder of their term.

(1) Six (6) of the members shall be appointed or elected officials of local government: three (3) of whom shall be appointed or elected officials in a municipality of fewer than twenty-five thousand (25,000) in population, three (3) of whom shall be appointed or elected officials in a municipality of more than twenty-five thousand (25,000) in population. The populations are to be determined by the latest federal census. Elected or appointed municipal officials shall hold seats on the council only so long as they remain in their elected or appointed office. Each municipal appointment shall cease if the appointed or elected official shall no longer hold or change the office which they held upon appointment. At least five (5) out of the six (6) appointed or elected members must be appointed or elected in a coastal municipality. When the governor submits his or her appointments to the senate for advice and consent, the governor shall specify the appointed or elected office that each municipal appointment holds; the population of the municipality represented; and the member being replaced.

(2) Three (3) members shall be appointed by the governor from the public, with the advice and consent of the senate, one of the public members and his or her successors shall reside in a coastal municipality.

(3) All members shall serve until their successors are appointed and qualified; during the month of January, the governor shall appoint, with the advice and consent of the senate, a member to succeed the members whose term will then next expire for a term of three (3) years commencing on the first day of February next following and until their successor is named and qualified. A member shall be eligible for successive appointments. No more than two (2) persons on the council shall be from the same municipality. A vacancy other than by expiration shall be filled in the manner of the original appointment but only for the unexpired portion of the term.

(4) The director of the department of environmental management, or their designee, shall serve ex officio. The ex-officio member shall not be counted as serving from any particular municipality.

(b) In addition to the foregoing voting members, the council may include a varying number of other members who may serve in an advisory capacity without the right to vote and who may be invited to serve by either the governor or the voting members. These advisory members may represent the federal agencies such as the navy, coast guard, corps of engineers, public health service, and the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, and such regional agencies as the New England River Basins Commission and the New England Regional Commission and any other group or interest not otherwise represented.

(c) There may be established a coastal resources advisory committee which committee, appointed by the executive director of the coastal resources management council, may include, but not be limited to, representation from the following groups: one of whom may be a representative of the university of Rhode Island graduate school of oceanography and the college of resources development, one of whom may be a representative of the Sea Grant National College Program, one of whom may be a representative of the army corps of engineers, one of whom may be a representative of the federal environmental protection agency's Narragansett Bay laboratory, one of whom shall be a representative of the coastal resources management council, one of whom may be the director of the department of environmental management; one of whom may be a member of the Rhode Island Marine Trade Association and one of whom may be a representative of a regional environmental group. The council shall have the authority to appoint these additional members to the advisory committee as is deemed necessary or advisable by the advisory committee or the council. It shall be the responsibility of the committee to advise the coastal resources management council on environmental issues relating to dredging and permitting related thereto, including, but not limited to, those issues defined in §§ 46-23-18.1 - 46-23-18.3, inclusive.

(d) The council shall have the authority to form committees of other advisory groups as needed from both its own members and others.

History of Section. (P.L. 1971, ch. 279, § 1; P.L. 1990, ch. 461, § 10; P.L. 1996, ch. 271, § 2; P.L. 1996, ch. 281, § 2; P.L. 1998, ch. 457, § 1; P.L. 1999, ch. 105, § 5; P.L. 1999, ch. 354, § 54; P.L. 2001, ch. 180, § 155; P.L. 2018, ch. 87, § 1; P.L. 2018, ch. 99, § 1.)