With an impending Trump presidency, we know 2025 will be a difficult year for our food, water, and climate — but we’re prepared to defend the strides we’ve made. Even better, we know we have built power at the state and local levels and have more victories in sight. 

We’re off to a great start. At the very end of last year, we won a huge victory in New York state that will have ripple effects across the country. After months of relentless advocacy, Governor Hochul signed the Climate Superfund Act into law. This will require oil and gas majors to pay $3 billion a year to fund climate adaptation and resilience projects. 

New York is now the second state to pass a law to make Big Oil and Gas pay for its outsized role in the climate emergency. And we’re not stopping there. In 2025, we’re pushing for similar bills in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Climate Superfund laws will finally start holding fossil fuel corporations accountable for the damage they’ve created. 

The momentum of these laws shows that people across the country have had enough. They see the rising costs of living and disasters borne from our corporate-controlled, climate-changed world. And they know how we create a better future. To defend all we hold dear — clean water, safe food, and a livable climate — we need bold policy to stop corporate greed and bring power back to the people.

That’s exactly what Food & Water Watch is fighting for in 2025 and beyond. Here are four more of our top priorities for this year.

1. Working Toward Clean Water for All

Clean drinking water is a human right. Yet, for so many people, it is out of reach. Contaminants like lead, microplastics, and PFAS “forever chemicals” are widespread in our drinking water sources. Without strong action, the rising health and clean-up costs will continue to fall on us.

Last year, the Biden administration issued two major drinking water protections: first, it finalized enforceable drinking water limits on six types of PFAS. Second, it finalized Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, mandating the replacement of all lead service lines in most communities over the next decade. 

In 2025, we’ll defend these rules from impending Trump rollbacks and push for even stronger protections. For example, we’re advocating for the PFAS Action Act, which would help stop the flow of PFAS into our water and hold polluters accountable for their harms.

We’ve also kicked off a campaign to get microplastics out of our drinking water. The first step is to get the EPA to start monitoring microplastics in our public drinking water. To address this crisis, we need more information on its scale and scope. 

At the same time, we know that the only way we’ll be able to stop the flood of microplastics is to stop plastic production at the source — by ending fossil fuels.

2. Protecting Our Communities From Factory Farm Pollution

For too long, U.S. policy has empowered Big Ag to pollute our water, tank rural economies, and threaten our health, all for the sake of profits. Iowa is one epicenter of this crisis, as industrial agriculture has boomed there in recent decades.

Weak regulations are failing to protect Iowans, who face growing cancer risks and other health threats. To make matters worse, herbicide maker Bayer is pushing a bill that would protect it against lawsuits filed because of its toxic product, Roundup. 

This year, we’re fighting to shut down this outrageous bill. We’re also pushing for the Clean Water for Iowa Act to rein in factory farm pollution and protect communities.

Iowa is not alone in suffering from Big Ag’s excesses. Across the country, state policies enable factory farms to pollute with impunity. 

In Maryland, state regulations allow factory farm pollution to go unchecked and unmonitored. We’re pushing the Maryland Department of Environment to finally change this. Meanwhile, Oregon faces a drinking water crisis caused by factory farm pollution. There, we’re working to pass a bill to protect precious groundwater sources from contamination. 

3. Fighting For a Fossil Fuel-Free Future

To ensure healthy communities and a healthy climate, we need to end all fossil fuel infrastructure. In New York, we’ll be fighting to shut down several pipeline expansions proposed for the state.

We’ll also turn to local law to prevent new projects before they even break ground. Our Municipal Ordinance Project has majorly curtailed fracking in Western Pennsylvania, one of the hearts of the fracking boom. In 2025, we’re working with more local communities to pass ordinances and stop new fracking.

At the national level, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry will likely get new wind thanks to Donald Trump, who has promised to overturn Biden’s pause on LNG. Gas companies are gunning for new infrastructure, from pipelines to processing facilities to export terminals, to profit from sending LNG abroad.

This buildout threatens to lock in decades of more fracking, gas, and climate pollution globally. It will also endanger the health and safety of communities on the frontlines of LNG infrastructure. This year, we’re doing all we can to prevent these projects from moving forward. 

4. Stopping Corporate Climate Scams

Increasingly, dirty industries are pushing new scams to preserve their profits while calling it “climate action.” In reality, these bogus technologies will make energy more expensive and lock in decades more pollution.

One of the biggest is carbon capture and storage (CCS), a failed technology meant to grab carbon from industrial plants and the atmosphere, then bury it deep underground. 

Despite CCS’s long list of problems, failed or failing projects, and astronomical costs, our leaders are pushing ahead with it — while making us subsidize it. We’re working with allies in Congress and at the grassroots to stop these developments.

In the agricultural industry, factory farms are pushing gas made from their waste as a “clean” fuel. Programs in New Mexico and California would lavish Big Ag with huge subsidies to make it, which would incentivize more polluting factory farms. But our staff in both states are working to stop these benefits.

Officials are also supporting expensive, energy- and water-intensive hydrogen power with huge taxpayer subsidies. Worse, these subsidies incentivize hydrogen made from fossil fuels and factory farm gas, as well as hydrogen production paired with CCS. This year and beyond, we’re working to end these subsidies and build opposition against new dirty hydrogen projects nationwide.

Building People Power Is Our Way Forward

No doubt, we face many challenges ahead. During a second Trump term, greedy corporations and their allies are poised to wreak even more havoc. Extremists at all levels of government are working to slash protections for our food, water, health, and climate for corporate profits. They’re working to pass policies that make our world more precarious and less safe. 

But in Food & Water Watch’s 20 years, we’ve learned how to keep winning against these forces. We’ve banned fracking in New York, Maryland, and California; stopped carbon pipelines in the Midwest; won improvements to factory farm regulations in court; and defended public water and sewer systems from corporate capture in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

These victories show that with people power, we can overcome long odds to win real improvements in people’s lives and the environment. We will fight the Trump administration in the halls of Congress, in the courts, and in the streets, while advancing tangible policies at the state and local level. Our strategy and our numbers are building the future we need right now. 

Our vision is bright. It’s one of clean, affordable energy for everyone; healthy water, food, families, and ecosystems; and prosperity for all people, not corporations. Together, we’re making this vision a reality in 2025 and beyond.