2025 State Legislative Round-Up

In Vermont 

LCC had two key areas of focus for the 2025 Vermont legislative session. Our top priority was reducing excessive use of road salt, which has led to a gradual increase of salinity in Vermont waters including Lake Champlain and its tributaries. We had hoped for passage of S.29, a bill which would establish the Chloride Contamination Reduction Program, a voluntary system of best management practices for commercial and municipal salt applicators, with an increased level of liability protection for program participants. This program, which would be housed at the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (VT ANR) would reduce harms to water quality and aquatic biota from excess chloride while balancing the need to use road salt for public safety. Legislators on the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, the House Environment Committee, and the Senate and House Transportation and Judiciary Committees all spent time hearing witnesses and discussing proposed legislation on the road salt issue, but neither S.29 nor H.86, a companion bill on the House side, was enacted. Because 2025 was the first year of the 2025-2026 Biennium, bills that did not pass before the legislative session paused in May can still be considered and enacted in 2026, the second year of the biennium, so we are hopeful that one of the two bills will be enacted next year. 

LCC also closely followed legislation shifting enforcement authority over farm pollution runoff from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets (AAFM) to VT ANR to better address nutrient discharges and reduce phosphorus that feeds cyanobacteria blooms. This legislation was a follow-up to the petition we, along with the Conservation Law Foundation and Vermont Natural Resources Council, submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) two years ago arguing that Vermont’s current agriculture enforcement practices, which leave much of the enforcement to AAFM rather than ANR, violate the federal Clean Water Act. After investigating, EPA agreed that the current state enforcement system is inconsistent with the federal Clean Water Act and notified Vermont that, without changes in state statute, it would consider taking over enforcement and water quality permitting in the state.  

The bill that passed the Vermont House and Senate and was signed by the Governor, S.124, will not offer as stringent protection of water quality from farm runoff as the advocates had sought. However, it is a step in the right direction and provides the groundwork for more gradual changes to the enforcement system. Nutrient discharge from agriculture remains the largest source of phosphorus into Lake Champlain that fuels cyanobacteria blooms and it is our hope that proper enforcement will further curb this runoff. 

In New York 

The Adirondack region has been a leader on the issue of road salt reduction, with the 2020 Randy Preston Salt Reduction Act establishing the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force, and the Task Force’s 2023 report assessing conditions and making recommendations, as well as the New York Department of Transportation and Department of Environmental Conservation’s Pilot Program Summary Report, issued in August of 2024. Legislation was introduced in both the New York Senate (S06976) and the New York Assembly (A04481) to create a state-wide New York Road Salt Reduction Council and Advisory Committee, as well as following up on other Adirondack Salt Reduction Task Force recommendations. The Senate bill passed the Senate in June and was referred to the Assembly’s Transportation Committee. LCC will continue to track the progress of legislation on this important issue for Lake Champlain.