As the clock ticks down toward the end of the 2025 legislative session, environmental issues have moved to the forefront. Last week, the state Senate approved a new Commissioner for the Department of Environmental Conservation. The DEC is a sprawling agency that plays a leading role in a range of issues from permits for hunting and fishing, to overseeing state water quality, climate change, and the state’s mounting trash disposal problem.
The approval of a new DEC Commissioner came at the same time as top environmental issues were emerging during the session.
One of the top issues that has been the subject of keen attention is the NY Home Energy Affordable Transition (HEAT) Act. This legislation aligns utilities’ policies on providing power to residential consumers with the state’s climate mandates.
New York’s current laws promote gas system expansion by mandating a gas utility’s obligation to provide gas service to any new customer upon request while requiring that existing customers subsidize their new service connections within 100 feet of a main gas line. That subsidy – estimated to be $200 million annually – would be eliminated by the legislation. The bill also protects ratepayers from the necessary transition costs in moving to a “greener” power supply by capping home energy bills for all customers at 6% of income.
It has been reported that negotiations between the state Senate and Assembly on the bill have been ramping up and may be moving toward agreement over the next few weeks of the session.
Another top issue facing the state is what to do about its mounting trash disposal crisis. According to the DEC, Americans now generate twice as much waste as they did 50 years ago. What to do with the trash that we all produce? Right now, the number one place that residential trash goes to is a landfill; number two is export for disposal; number three is burning; and the last is to be recycled. There is no evidence that the problem is getting better. In fact, the state’s residential recycling rate has been dropping over the past decade.
The state’s capacity to tackle this problem is dwindling. Again according to the DEC, “New York’s 25 municipal solid waste landfills have a combined landfill capacity of between 16 and 25 years.”
If the state’s landfills are filled to capacity in a decade or so, what will happen? At the end of 2023, the DEC issued its “New York State Solid Waste Management Plan” to tackle that emerging problem. Among its recommendations, the DEC highlighted the need for a “producer responsibility” approach and urged action to, among other things, expand the state’s bottle deposit law and reduce packaging wastes.
Those two legislative proposals are actively under consideration in Albany.
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA) legislation will reduce plastic packaging to dramatically reduce waste, as well as phase out some of the most toxic chemicals used in packaging; improve recyclability of packaging; and slash greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastic. It will also make polluters pony up by establishing a modest fee on packaging paid by packaging producers, generating new revenue to help defray waste costs for local taxpayers.
Last week, that legislation was approved by the state Senate and advocates are slugging it out as the bill moves through the Assembly.
The packaging bill does not cover beverage containers that fall under the state’s Bottle Deposit Law. That’s the law that requires a nickel deposit on certain carbonated beverages and bottled water. When you return the container, you get your nickel back. The DEC describes the Law as a “tremendous success.” When the law kicked in 42 years ago in 1983, carbonated beverage containers were found everywhere; now the overwhelming majority of these containers are redeemed under the program. But many beverages – most notably non-carbonated sports drinks – didn’t exist four decades ago and are not covered by the law today.
Legislation to modernize that law was reported out of the state Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee last week and may be considered as part of any overall agreement on reducing packaging wastes.
The new DEC Commissioner has a golden opportunity to weigh in on these and other important issues. Many of the top issues at the end of the session fail in the final stretch as time runs out. The ones that are approved get a last-minute push from important advocates. The 2025 session is an opportunity for the Hochul Administration – and its new DEC chief – to weigh in and move lawmakers toward approval of these important bills.
But the legislative clock continues to tick toward its midnight. Now is the time to act.