The new federal administration is launching direct attacks on the health, safety, and pocketbooks of Massachusetts families. Our state legislators can push back by passing an uplifting environmental agenda that protects families from toxic substances, cleans the air we breathe, maintains our leadership in clean energy jobs, and defends overburdened communities from climate disruption and pollution. Here are Clean Water Action’s top priority bills for the 2025-26 legislative session:
An Act to protect MA public health from PFAS (SD.2403/HD.4087) (Senator Julian Cyr/Representative Kate Hogan)
The more these substances are studied, the more we learn about their adverse health impacts. PFAS do not break down in the environment, so they accumulate in waterways and in our bodies. Once there, they are linked to a wide range of negative health impacts including weaker immune systems and certain cancers. That’s why other states - including our neighbors in Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut – have passed bans on common products containing PFAS. Massachusetts should too, or we risk becoming a dumping ground for toxic products that are illegal to sell in neighboring states.
An Act relative to toxic free kids (SD.1507/HD.2454) (Senator Jo Comerford/Representative Jim Hawkins)
Kids' products shouldn’t contain toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and lead. The Toxic Free Kids legislation offers a simple solution – act quickly to ban the worst chemicals in products for children under 3, in children’s personal care products, and in items intended for kids' mouths, like pacifiers. Plus, require businesses to disclose toxic chemicals they add to children's products, and set up a process to evaluate and restrict toxic chemicals in products for children ages 4-12.
An Act to ensure cleaner air for communities overburdened by outdoor air pollution (SD.1086/HD.1924) (Senator Pat Jehlen/Representatives Christine Barber and Mike Connolly)
Your zip code should not determine whether or not you breathe clean air. This bill creates a technical advisory committee empowering community-based and environmental justice organizations to identify likely air pollution hotspots in the Commonwealth and provide recommendations for the installation of air filters in nearby buildings. The bill requires the Department of Environmental Protection to set up or expand air monitoring in pollution hotspots to establish a baseline of air pollution and sets targets for air pollution reduction.
An Act to improve indoor air quality for highly-impacted communities (SD.2074/HD.2787) (Senator Adam Gomez/Representatives Judith Garcia and Samantha Montaño)
Neighbors already breathing in polluted air outdoors are at a higher risk for adverse health impacts from polluted indoor air too. This bill would create a task force to develop a statutory and regulatory framework to identify, monitor, and remediate indoor air pollution and indoor mold contamination in schools, long term care facilities, correctional facilities, early childhood education facilities, public housing, and privately-owned residential buildings. It also directs DPH and DEP to issue indoor air quality monitoring regulations and procedures.
An Act supporting climate progress through sustainably developed offshore wind (SD.837/HD.3670) (Senator Dylan Fernandes/Representative Richard Haggerty)
Our state’s energy and economic future is in offshore wind. This bill, supported by both labor and environmental organizations, sets new, stronger targets for total energy generated by offshore wind, creates incentives for communities hosting clean energy facilities, mandates protections for local labor so Massachusetts workers benefit, and creates systems to protect sensitive areas and wildlife.
An Act promoting a just transition and clean energy workforce standards (SD.2305/HD.2367) (Senator Paul Feeney/Representative Marjorie Decker)
As our state transitions from fossil fuels to clean energy, it is critical that we ensure that Massachusetts workers benefit. This legislation requires using registered apprenticeship programs on clean energy infrastructure projects so that local workers can be trained for these family-sustaining careers. It will also establish a Just Transition Office to provide training and employment opportunities to former and current energy workers.
An Act protecting our soil and farms from PFAS (SD.2176/HD.3814) (Senator Jo Comerford/Representative James Arena-DeRosa)
Farmers across the nation are learning that the fertilizer they used may have contained high levels of PFAS, and they need our help to identify and remediate PFAS contamination to ensure that our food supply is safe. This bill bans the sale of fertilizer containing PFAS, creates a fund to support the testing of farmland for PFAS, supports farmers in transitioning to different practices to avoid PFAS contamination, and provides relief and remediation funding to farmers whose land is contaminated by PFAS.
An Act relative to chemical recycling (HD.3678) (Representative Jonathan Zlotnik)
There is a nationwide corporate lobbying effort to weaken the regulation of misleadingly named “chemical recycling” facilities where plastics are broken down into chemical components using high heat, high pressure, or solvents. But these facilities are major polluters of nearby communities and emitters of greenhouse gases. Worse, “chemical recycling” facilities don’t actually recycle mixed plastics back into new plastic; they often convert plastics into fossil fuel to be burned instead. This bill defends Massachusetts communities from dirty “chemical recycling” facilities by requiring any “chemical” or “advanced recycling” facility operating in Massachusetts to be a true recycling facility by achieving a 50% recycling rate, and it requires 30 years of liability funding in escrow as a safeguard for host communities. The real solution to plastic pollution is to first make and use less plastic.
