Senate environmental committee advances multiple bills, including whale-awareness, receipt-safety and redemption-fraud measures

State Senator Pete Hartman, chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation, presided over a meeting on Oct. 26, 2025, in which the committee considered about 11 bills and took committee-level action on each, either reporting them out or referring them to finance.

The committee advanced a range of measures touching wildlife protection, renewable energy agreements, air‑quality permitting, retail receipt safety and a model redemption‑fraud task force. Committee members recorded motions and seconds and carried items by voice vote; the transcript records several bills as “reported” and several as “referred to finance” but does not include roll‑call tallies.

The most detailed discussion at the meeting concerned a bill described in the transcript as “2 2 9 2 a by senator Hartman,” which would amend the Environmental Conservation Law, Navigation Law and Vehicle and Traffic Law to create a whale‑awareness requirement. Committee discussion indicated the provision is tied to vessel size: the classroom/education requirement described in the hearing applies to smaller, privately licensed vessels, and a companion bill noted in the meeting will address larger commercial vessels. The transcript also records a committee speaker saying there were 11 whale strikes in 2023, the highest on record.

A bill recorded as “75078 by senator Hargreich” would require…