Wins on climate, steps toward healthier waters, and successful protection of your environmental rights
New Haven, CT – The 2025 Connecticut State Legislative Session was a positive one for our environment. After several years of inaction, the legislature passed two climate bills, working to get us back on track toward our climate goals. Bills to advance environmental justice and healthier waters also crossed the finish line, and we successfully fought back attempts to roll back the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act for the second year in a row.
Much of this session’s progress originated in the Environment Committee, and we thank co-chairs Senator Rick Lopes and Representative John Michael Parker and vice-chair Senator Jan Hochadel for their tireless efforts, along with the countless legislators who co-sponsored important bills, and advocates and residents who raised their voice for a healthier, safer Connecticut over the last five months.
Below, Save the Sound policy experts respond to the outcomes of the session.
Combatting Climate Change
The state took a step toward getting back on track with our climate goals this session, passing a pair of bills that will update the state’s resilience planning and start planning for pathways to achieve substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Julianna McVeigh, Climate and Resilience Campaigns Manager for the Doherty Climate and Resilience Institute at Save the Sound, said, “This session, Connecticut took a step toward reducing the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, and protecting our residents from its impacts. This is the beginning of our state getting back on track toward its climate goals and reclaiming a leadership role in our region. These bills lay the groundwork for future climate action by creating comprehensive plans, and we hope to see the legislature build on this momentum in coming years.”
SB 9 passed both houses in a bipartisan Senate vote of 28-8, and House vote of 115-33, giving towns better tools to protect residents from the impacts of climate change, strengthening our infrastructure against sea level rise, and equipping residents with essential information about flood risk. The bill also requires the state water plan’s next update to consider the impacts of climate change on our water resources. Update: This bill was signed into law as Public Act 25-33 by Governor Lamont on June 11, 2025.
The legislature also worked towards stopping greenhouse gases at the source by passing HB 5004 in a bipartisan Senate vote on the last day of session. This bill, a version of which Save the Sound and Connecticut Coalition for Climate Action partners have been working for two years, updates Global Warming Solutions Act targets, supports the green economy through workforce development and sustainable business incentives, and paves the way for clean energy, heat pumps, and solar canopies that will make our state a healthier, safer, and more affordable place to live.
In order to ensure that the benefits of our clean energy and energy efficiency programs are reaching all households, the bill also directs DEEP to conduct a study on the the renter utilization of the state’s energy efficiency and clean energy programs, including identifying any barriers to participation and making recommendations to address any such barriers.
But it was not all good news on the climate and energy front. Introduced late in the session, SB 1560 attempted to derail the positive approach framed by the chairs of the Energy and Technology Committee and legislative leadership in SB 4.
“Fortunately, working with Energy and Technology Committee leadership, coalition partners, and energy efficiency business leaders, we successfully fought off an attack on energy efficiency programs funded through the systems benefits charge,” said Charles Rothenberger, Connecticut Director of Government Relations for Save the Sound and the organization’s Doherty Institute for Climate and Resilience. “We thank Senator Needleman and Representative Steinberg and legislative leadership for their tireless efforts throughout the legislative session to debunk attempts to blame the summer spike in electricity bills on the state’s clean energy and energy efficiency programs, and to defend these programs against efforts to eliminate them.”
Unfortunately the final version of SB 4, which includes positive policies such as support for thermal energy networks and expanded demand response programs, lowers clean energy purchasing requirements in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). It also, however, make a positive change to the RPS by eliminating certain categories of emitting resources, such as landfill gas and biomass, from eligibility. We anticipate continued discussions regarding the RPS as part of the state’s Integrated Resources Planning process.
Protecting Our Water & Lands
In a win for our waters, House Bill 7174 establishes a working group on riparian protection. “Keeping a buffer of natural vegetation along our streams and rivers is the most affordable pollution filter there is,” said Bill Lucey, Long Island Soundkeeper. “It cools the water and attracts more native birds and fish while creating migration corridors for turtles and wildlife like mink; it stops litter and pollutants; it reduces flood damage and erosion. We’re confident the work of this task force will build understanding of these benefits so we can create workable protections for Connecticut.” A related measure to improve migratory access for fish past dams did not get a vote; Save the Sound will return to the effort next year.
We advocated successfully for a requirement that everyone serving on a town Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) complete an eight-hour training. Inland wetlands commissioners are volunteers who serve a vital land protection function in their communities. Currently, only one member of each IWC must be trained for this important job.
Measures to protect pollinators by banning the use of neonicotinoids were included in SB 9 but fell far short of what is needed to protect the streams and rivers of Long Island Sound. Some headway was made banning their use on turf, but we are concerned about the rise of a commonly used alternative, Acelepryn, which is toxic to marine invertebrates and already banned on Long Island.
Rodenticides remained a major issue, and SB 9 helped by closing a loophole that allowed homeowners access to second-generation poisons. More work is needed to ban the prophylactic use of both first- and second-generation rodenticides, and to restrict them to indoor use only.
Efforts to improve public notification of sewage releases into Connecticut’s rivers and Sound stalled again, with lawmakers and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection unable to reach agreement on the cost of an upgraded system. The state is legally obligated to notify the public of such spills.
We tracked 16 proposed conveyances of state land and successfully helped block the most concerning: an attempt by a private campground in Plymouth to gain ownership of approximately five acres of Mattatuck State Forest.
We were also pleased to see a long-overdue increase in funding for the Community Investment Act, which supports land conservation through two key state grants as well as farmland protections, affordable housing, and historic preservation.
Thanks to the efforts of our partners at Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, this session’s bonding package includes $25 million for the Kinneytown Dam removal project, which will restore fish passage on the Naugatuck River, protect downstream residents and the Metro-North rail line from the risk of catastrophic dam failure, and revitalize habitat along a stretch of river in Seymour and Ansonia.
Advancing Environmental Justice
This session, our team and fellow environmental justice advocates sought to eliminate a provision in Connecticut’s environmental justice law which allowed Environmental Justice Communities of 10,000 residents or fewer to petition for a town referendum to override denials of permits for polluting facilities that would have been built in their neighborhoods. We recognized that this provision stemmed from historic environmental inequities that have disproportionately impacted small towns and were concerned about the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP)’s ability to enforce the updated law equitably.
In the last two days of session, an amendment was added to HB 7004, a Planning and Development bill, that increases the population limit on this type of appeal to 16,000. This gives more towns the option to hold such a referendum, and also allows them to conduct such a referendum to override a permit approved by DEEP. HB 7004 was passed by both chambers and heads to the Governor’s desk.
Alex Rodriguez, Environmental Justice Specialist, Save the Sound, said: “The legislature has voted to expand residents’ ability to say no to new polluting facilities in their neighborhoods. While we appreciate the intent of this bill, it gives us pause that this advanced through both chambers without a public hearing where residents of all state-designated environmental justice communities could effectively convey their concerns.”
We also saw wins for transportation equity this session. Partnering with a coalition led by high school students, Save the Sound advocated for SB 1243, a bill that would have provided free or reduced fare public bus passes to students and veterans. The reduced fare focus of this legislation was included in SB 1377, requiring the DOT commissioner to provide up to a 50 percent fare discount for veterans and riders under 18. School districts can also now opt in to redistribute their existing budgets to buy discounted passes for students.
Rodriguez added, “Reducing dependence on private cars and utilizing mass transit are essential to meet the state’s climate targets and laws and to protect our health. SB 1377 encourages use of mass transit by reducing financial barriers to public transportation for people age 18 and younger, seniors, veterans, and persons with disabilities. This will reduce transportation-related emissions statewide. We thank Senator Christine Cohen, Representative Aimee Berger-Girvalo, and Senator Tony Hwang, along with all the high school students we worked with to build bipartisan support for this initiative, and we look forward to the Governor’s signing of this bill.”
Not all environmental justice bills got through however. Efforts to combat single-use plastic and waste, which is often incinerated in state-designated Environmental Justice Communities, stalled on the last day of session.
Defending against Rollbacks and Harm
“For the second year in a row, we had to mobilize to stop a bill to roll back the ability of citizens to participate in land use proceedings involving housing developments to raise environmental issues under the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act,” said Roger Reynolds, Senior Legal Director. “We organized a coalition and generated overwhelming opposition to successfully stop the bill from moving forward. We are hoping this is the last of these bills, but we will be vigilant and are ready to return next year if necessary.”
Reynolds added, “We also won modifications to a Governor’s permitting bill to ensure that it did not weaken the ability of citizens to request hearings and challenge environmental decisions under the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act and that it remedied negative provisions that had been made in the last moments of the 2024 session.”
We also thank our supporters who helped keep SB 887, An Act Exempting Certain Cookware from PFAS Requirements, from getting out of committee and weakening last year’s important health-protecting bill. “Cooking with pans that release PFAS when they hit 500 F is unnecessary when many alternatives exist. To protect our waters, our bodies, and Long Island Sound, we have to stop the daily use of PFAS,” said Soundkeeper Bill Lucey.
To sum it all up
We saw many environmental wins this session which wouldn’t have been possible without the tireless efforts of legislators who stood up for a healthier climate and cleaner waters and defended environmental rights. We thank these environmental champions, including but not limited to the aforementioned leadership of the Environment Committee; Senate President Martin Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff; Speaker of the House Matt Ritter and House Majority Leader Jason Rojas; Senators Saud Anwar, Christine Cohen, Tony Hwang, and Norm Needleman; and Representatives Hector Arzeno, Aimee Berger-Girvalo, Aundre Bumgardner, Patrick Callahan, Brandon Chaffee, Mike Demicco, Doug Dubitsky, Joe Gresko, Maria Horn, Eleni Kavros Degraw, Mary Mushinsky, Geraldo Reyes, Jonathan Steinberg, Laurie Sweet, and Steven Winter; and all the co-sponsors of HB 5004 and SB 9.
We urge Governor Lamont to promptly sign the public acts passed this session that will combat the impacts of climate change, protect the health and safety of our residents, and defend the integrity of our region’s vibrant ecosystems.
As always, there is still more to be done to protect our environment in the coming months and years. Save the Sound’s advocates, partners, and members across the state will continue to work towards cleaner waters, healthier ecosystems, and stronger climate protections to bring Connecticut the future we all deserve.
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