Cheers to a Successful 2025!

Thanks to our members, we had a successful 2025! With the challenges ahead of us in 2026, we’ll need your continued support!

In 2025, we celebrated our 40th anniversary with a series of major victories. Here’s what we’ve been up to this year:

• Saving the horseshoe crab—After years of advocacy, NYS passed a law to ban harvesting of horseshoe crabs, helping to ensure that this critical species is saved from local extinction.

• Moving offshore wind forward—We worked to put an end to the stop-work order on the Empire Wind offshore wind project, and supported a successful legal challenge to an illegal halt on all federal permitting of new wind power projects. 

• Fighting cuts to federal environmental funding—Despite efforts to slash federal clean water funding by as much as 90%, we’ve worked to build strong bipartisan support to maintain critical clean water infrastructure funding.

• Protecting our Great Lakes and Long Island Sound—We led the charge to maintain full federal funding for restoration of these essential waters.

• Fixing our sewage and drinking water infrastructure—We helped to secure $500 million in NYS to prevent sewage spills into waterways and to remove dangerous emerging contaminants from drinking water.

• Setting an all-time high for the NYS Environmental Protection Fund: We successfully advocated for a $425 million NYS EPF, which will help restore the Great Lakes and Long Island Sound, build community parks, save family farms, and so much more in every part of the state.

While we celebrate all the success we’ve achieved with your support, we recognize there is so much more work to do in the year ahead. At the federal level, the administration is working to roll back drinking water standards for dangerous PFAS chemicals, stop the advancement of clean, renewable energy, slash critical environmental funding, and more. We’re fighting back.

At the state level, we’ll work to get dangerous PFAS chemicals out of products like cookware, fix the state’s solid waste crisis, advance wind and solar power, and maintain nation-leading investments in protecting clean water.  

We’re grateful to our members and need your continued support to get this critical work done. Please consider making an end-of-year donation today!

Happy Holidays,

All of us at CCE

Christmas Comes Early for Horseshoe Crabs! Governor Hochul Signs Landmark Legislation to Protect Horseshoe Crabs

CCE applauds Governor Hochul for signing the Horseshoe Crab Protection Act which will phase out harvesting horseshoe crabs from New York waters.

For immediate release: December 20, 2025
For more information, contact:
Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director, 516-390-7150, aesposito@citizenscampaign.org

Albany, NY – Governor Hochul has signed the Horseshoe Crab Protection Act, which prohibits the taking of horseshoe crabs from state waters for commercial and biomedical uses.  The bill will phase out taking horseshoe crabs over a three-year time frame and completely banning the antiquated practice by 2029.  Horseshoe crabs are a keystone species in the food web that have walked the earth for 350 million years, but populations are in decline in the Northeast. This decline also threatens many species that depend on horseshoe crab eggs for food including several bird species and fish such as striped bass, weakfish, flounder and more.   The Senate and Assembly passed legislation for the last two years that would prevent the taking of this crucial species for commercial or biomedical uses. The Governor vetoed the bill last year. This year, recent data shows further declines in horseshoe crab populations specifically in Long Island Sound.  By signing the bill, New York has joined efforts with both New Jersey who banned harvesting in 2008 and Connecticut who banned it in 2024. 

Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director for Citizens Campaign for the Environment, issued the following statement:
“Christmas came early for the Horseshoe Crabs! This is an amazing holiday gift, and Governor Hochul has given us a big reason to celebrate! Horseshoe crabs have walked the Earth since the time of the dinosaurs, and we want to make sure they don’t go extinct. The Horseshoe Crab Protection Act will prevent the taking of horseshoe crab for commercial and biomedical purposes, allowing horseshoe crab populations to rebound and New York to protect this historic species for future generations. This is an incredible holiday gift to our ecosystem and to the communities who love this important species.   CCE applauds Governor Hochul, Senator Holyman and Assemblywoman Glick , for working together with environmental stakeholders, and scientific experts to ensure that the Horseshoe Crab Protection Act was signed into law this year.”

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Protect Our Drinking Water from Dangerous PFAS “Forever Chemicals”

The federal government is rolling back critical drinking water protections--urge Governor Hochul to take action and protect the drinking water of all New Yorkers

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicated that they intend to weaken the first-ever federal drinking water standards for dangerous PFAS chemicals. EPA intends to delay implementation of drinking water standards for two PFAS chemicals (PFOA & PFOS), while completely scrapping protections for four others (PFHxS, PFNA, GenX, PFBS). Rolling back these standards would put at least 1.3 million New Yorkers at risk to higher levels of dangerous PFAS chemicals in their drinking water!

Regardless of what the federal government does, Governor Hochul has the authority to maintain strong limits on PFAS in drinking water and protect the health of all New Yorkers—we need her to act!

Exposure to PFAS can lead to higher rates of kidney and testicular cancer, higher cholesterol levels, thyroid problems, adverse developmental effects and decreased immune response in children, and other serious health impacts.

New York State has authority to enact state regulations that will provide strong limits on PFAS in drinking water. Email Governor Hochul today and urge her to ensure New Yorker’s water is protected from dangerous PFAS chemicals!

Sincerely,
All of us at CCE

Highlights and Happenings: November 2025

Help CCE build on our success, and support our campaigns to protect public health and the environment in NY and CT. 
Make a contribution today.

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Highlights

Urging Governor Hochul to Save the Horseshoe Crab—Time is Running Out!
Horseshoe crabs have existed for over 350 million years, having shared this planet with the dinosaurs. Sadly, the species is now vulnerable to local extinction unless action is taken soon. In order to save the horseshoe crab and the species that depend upon them, Connecticut passed a ban on harvesting them in 2023. This year, the New York State Legislature passed a bill to ban harvesting horseshoe crabs. Governor Hochul now has until the end of 2025 to decide whether to veto the bill or sign it into law. Email Governor Hochul today and urge her to sign this important bill into law! 

Suffolk Legislature Honors CCE for 40 Years of Work 
We were thrilled to be recognized by the Suffolk County Legislature for 40 years of safeguarding Suffolk County’s drinking and coastal waters and protecting our natural environment. A huge thank you to Legislator Steve Englebright for this incredible honor. We’re excited to continue this important work together! 

NYLCV Honors CCE 
A sincere thank you to the New York League of Conservation Voters for recognizing us as the 2025 Education Fund Honoree at this year’s Long Island Cocktail Party. We are incredibly proud of our work educating the public on the benefits of offshore wind in our community and we are grateful for the recognition. We look forward to working together with our partners at NYLCV to transition away from dirty polluting fossil fuels and embrace renewable energy in NY! 

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Happenings

Advocating for the Great Lakes in Washington, D.C. 
In November, we traveled to D.C. with a team of environmental groups and student researchers to meet with members of New York’s Congressional Delegation (pictured above with Representative John Mannion). We explained the ongoing threats to the health of the lakes, ranging from legacy toxic contamination, to sewage, to microplastics, and called on members of Congress to support efforts to protect and restore the health of our Great Lakes through reauthorization of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. 

Fighting to Fund Clean Water Protection in New York 
We joined NYS Senator Pete Harckham and our environmental partners in November to urge Governor Hochul to include $500 million for the Clean Water Infrastructure Act (CWIA) in the 2026 state budget. The CWIA program allows communities to upgrade sewers and septic systems, replace lead drinking water pipes, install treatment technology for emerging contaminants, protect source water, and more. Since 2017, New York has provided over $6 billion for this important program, which has provided significant results for New York’s environment and economy. 

Learning about Whales & Sharks 
Last month, we hosted a South Shore Estuary Reserve meeting featuring an excellent whale and shark panel discussion. We learned a lot from our speakers, Dr. Artie Kopelman from Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island, Rob DiGiovanni from Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, Dr. Merry Camhi as our local shark expert, and Carl Lobue from The Nature Conservancy, who provided informative presentations and cultivated an engaging discussion on whale and shark conservation. Thank you to the Marine Nature Study Area in Oceanside for hosting us at their new educational facility and tour of the nature preserve! 

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Lunch and Learn: Success of South Fork Wind
It's officially been one year since South Fork Wind, America's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, began its operations. To highlight its success, Orsted joined us and our Wind Works partners for a Lunch and Learn webinar followed by Q & A. This was a great opportunity to learn more about how the South Fork Wind Farm is powering 70,000 homes and strengthening our energy grid. If you missed it, you can check it out here. 

Yes to Wind Economic Roundtable 
As part of the #YesToWind National Offshore Wind Week of Action, we brought together industry leaders to highlight how offshore wind is powering economic growth, creating good-paying jobs, and strengthening New York’s clean energy supply chain. We had a fantastic panel discussion with the Long Island Federation of Labor, Haugland Group, Institute for Workforce Advancement, and Port of Coeymans Marine Terminal. You can watch a video of the event here.