Protecting Massachusetts Rivers: Our 2025-2026 Legislative Priorities

The start of 2025 began a new two-year legislative cycle in Massachusetts and Mass Rivers will be there through it all to advocate for strong environmental and climate policies that will protect and restore our rivers. 

The Importance of Advocacy for Healthy Rivers

Strong laws and regulations are critical tools for protecting and restoring our rivers. Without clear environmental protections and a legislative focus on ensuring climate-resilient communities, our waterways face unchecked pollution, habitat destruction, unsustainable development, and public safety and health risks. 

Speaking up - through advocacy and lobbying - ensures that lawmakers prioritize clean water, promote ecological restoration, build climate-resilience, and help us ensure a sustainable water future. But no single organization can do this work alone—we build coalitions that bring together scientists, advocates, and communities to amplify our voices and push for lasting change. 

Our 2025-2026 Legislative Priorities

Dry streambed at Sucker Brook, Pepperell. (November, 2024 by Utkir Adkhamov)

• Drought Management Bill (S586/H1003)

  • Massachusetts currently responds to drought with a confusing patchwork of conservation measures which vary by municipality, limiting their effectiveness. This inconsistent response puts our water supplies, agriculture, and ecosystems at risk. Yet droughts are becoming longer, more frequent, and more severe, threatening our rivers, drinking water, farms, and fisheries. We need a coordinated response that ensures water savings when our rivers and water supplies need it most. 

  • This bill would give the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs the authority during drought to require uniform conservation measures for non-essential outdoor watering and would make watering rules consistent and clearer for the public.  This would be a win for more sustainable water supplies, the environment, and public safety.

    
    

• Environmental Bond Advocacy

  • Approximately once every five years the legislature passes an Environmental Bond Bill, funding a variety of capital costs that support the state’s environment and climate resiliency programs. The Healey-Driscoll Administration is expected to file its version of this bill in Spring 2025. 

  • Mass Rivers has been working closely with partners to advocate for investments that support climate resilience, including increasing the budget for the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program, water quality monitoring funding, and water future planning. We will continue to advocate when the bill is introduced into the legislature.

    
    

• Nature for All Bill (H901/S597)

  • One of the most important ways to help our rivers and streams is to protect the land around them. As part of the Massachusetts Coalition for Nature, we support this bill that would dedicate funding from the existing tax on sales of sporting goods to be used for the conservation and restoration of land, water, and urban greenspace.

  • This funding source would help the state better meet the natural and working lands goals of conserving 30% of land by 2030 in the Clean Energy and Climate Plan. 

left to right: Senator Becca Rausch, Katharine Lange, Joe Dorant, and Senator Jamie Eldridge at a green budget briefing for FY25.

• Operating Budget Advocacy

  • We advocate for investments in our state environmental agencies each year, with a focus on rivers and water. This work has yielded significant results for two agencies that focus on water quality, streamflow protection, and habitat restoration - the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) and Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Ecological Restoration (DER). These two agencies’ annual operating budgets have increased from $32 million to $54.3 million (MassDEP) and $2.1 million to $5.5 million (DER) since FY2020. Want to know how we do this and what the state environmental agencies are doing with increased budgets? Read our blog >>

Other bills we support:

• An Act Providing for the Establishment of Sustainable Water Resource Funds (S1443/H2324)

• An Act Investing in Natural & Working Lands (H1005/S549)

• An Act Accelerating Wetland Restoration (H1052/S557)

• An Act Pertaining to Regional Resilience and Flood Protection Entities (S658/HD3411)

Join us to advocate for the passage of these bills and to help ensure healthy rivers!

Ask your legislators to cosponsor the Drought Bill and sign up for our newsletter to receive other Action Alerts with ways YOU can speak up for your rivers.