How industry influence continues to derail environmental progress in the NYS Assembly
We must keep pushing the Assembly to protect communities and clean water
June 23, 2025
Jeremy Cherson
Associate Director of Government Affairs
jeremyc@riverkeeper.org
Urgent environmental issues remain unresolved as the 2025 State Legislative Session ends, with industry opponents such as the American Chemistry Council, Dupont, Chevron, Exxon Mobile, NYS Business Council, Coca-Cola, 3M, Pepsi, Kratz Heinz and their allies derailing commonsense protections that would benefit public health and the environment.
Because of the NYS Assembly’s large size, with 150 members compared to the Senate's 63, legislation often stalls throughout the year and leads to a sprint to pass legislation at the end of session.
This year, Riverkeeper observed a disturbing shift: industry groups leveraged long-standing procedural weaknesses and internal dysfunction in the Assembly to derail environmental legislation. Their strategy relied on fearmongering and misinformation — backed by aggressive influence campaigns. Industry spent heavily on targeted local newspapers, radio, and digital ads, flooded voters with high-volume direct mail, and hired nearly a dozen of the most influential lobbying firms in Albany to block progress on clean water and public health protections.
While the State Senate passed numerous Riverkeeper and environmental community priorities, their efforts to push back against the all-out assault on clean water, environmental, and public health protections from the Trump administration were left on the cutting room floor by Assembly leadership and Assemblymembers reluctant to go on the record for a vote. By yielding to pressure from chemical and plastics industry lobbyists, the Assembly fell short in countering the environmental backsliding coming from D.C.
The most glaring failure was Assembly leadership’s refusal to allow a vote on the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act — a nation-leading bill to cut plastic waste by 30% over 12 years and remove toxic chemicals from consumer packaging. For the second year in a row, the Senate passed this critical bill while the Assembly missed an opportunity to act.
This continued obstruction keeps New Yorkers vulnerable to toxic chemicals, like PFAS, and erodes public trust. Despite bipartisan support and a growing body of science linking PFAS to cancer and immune system damage, Assembly leadership allowed three major PFAS bills to die without a vote. These included a bill to require polluters to disclose PFAS discharges into waterways like the Hudson, a five-year halt on spreading PFAS-laced sewage sludge on farmland, and a ban on PFAS chemicals in everyday products. At a time when the Trump administration is unleashing an unprecedented assault on environmental and public health protections, it is deeply disappointing to see bipartisan support cast aside in favor of appeasing industry lobbyists.
The singular bright spot on Riverkeeper’s agenda for the end of session was the passage of a pilot program (A1004-b) sponsored by Senator Shelley Mayer and Assemblymember Amy Paulin authorizing four municipalities (New Rochelle, Larchmont, Mammaroneck, and Pelham Manor) to consolidate their sewer systems under Westchester County management. This move will improve system efficiency, save costs for ratepayers, and reduce sewage overflows into local waterways.
We are grateful for the leadership of environmental champions in the Assembly, including Environmental Conservation Committee Chairwoman Deborah Glick and dozens of Assemblymembers including Dana Levenberg, Phara Souffrant-Forest, Steve Otis, Anna Kelles, Claire Valdez, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, Linda Rosenthal, and Sarahana Shrestha who kept the faith and pushed as hard as they could against the influence of big-money interests. We are also grateful for the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chairman Pete Harckham for moving many critical clean water and environmental policies through the Senate.
Riverkeeper’s End-of-Session Watch List:
- Rain Ready New York - A7467-A (Passed Senate; Died in Assembly Committee)
- Road Salt Pollution Reduction Council - A4481 (Passed Senate; Died in Assembly Committee)
- Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act - A1749 (Passed Senate; Died on Assembly Floor)
- PFAS Discharge Disclosure Act - A5832B (Passed Senate; Died on Assembly Floor)
- Get PFAS Out of Consumer Products - A7738 (Passed Senate; Died on Assembly Floor)
- 5-Year Moratorium on Toxic Sewage Sludge Spreading - A6192-D (Passed Senate; Died on Assembly Floor)
- Climate Resilient New York Act – Office of Climate Resilience - A8088-A (Passed Senate; Died in Assembly Committee)
- New Rochelle Sewer District Consolidation - A1004-B (Passed Senate and Assembly)
This is not the update we hoped to share — but transparency matters. State policy can often feel mystifying and inaccessible, especially when powerful industry interests dominate the conversation. It’s not easy to be an environmental advocate in this space — but that’s exactly why Riverkeeper is here and why your messages to lawmakers are so important.
While industry lobbyists high-five and embrace their lawmaker allies, we remain committed to showing up, staying present, and working alongside our legislative allies to push past industry influence and fight for the science-based protections New Yorkers deserve.
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