2025 DC Oversight & Performance Priorities

Blog written by Nature Forward Volunteer, Bronte Nevins. Edited by Jamoni Overby & Denisse Guitarra

The DC Council holds annual Oversight and Performance hearings. These hearings are an opportunity to give feedback on how DC has been protecting the environment and addressing climate change. At the hearings, you can also help shape budgetary and policy priorities moving forward.  

The schedule for 2025’s hearings is available here. You can sign up to testify through DC’s hearing management system here. You can submit written testimony and testify live. 

For 2025, Nature Forward has a key set of policy priorities are as follows:

• Bottle Bill: Nature Forward is a member of the 3R (Return, Refund, and Recycle) Coalition. The Bottle Bill would require customers to pay a 10¢ deposit when they buy a beverage container (including glass, aluminum, and plastic bottles). When the bottle is returned, the person returning the bottle gets 10¢ back. This bill would decrease litter, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing recycling, and provide job opportunities for DC residents. Currently, plastic bottles account for 60% of the trash choking the Anacostia River. States that have passed similar bills have found that refundable deposits can decrease the amount of bottle litter from 69-84%. Bottle return bills also create far more jobs than curbside recycling (up to 38 times more jobs). 

• Throne Bathrooms: DC has a current pilot to provide free public restrooms in high foot-traffic areas. Nature Forward supports extending this pilot into 2025 and investing in additional “Thrones” in neighborhood parks. By placing public bathrooms near streams and tributaries, the City will address E. Coli  pollution that affects the Anacostia River and the Bay. Currently, all the rivers and streams in DC are not safe to swim in, due to high concentrations of E. Coli. Both human and dog fecal matter contribute to E. Coli pollution in DC, and increasing the availability of public restrooms is one way to make progress on this issue.  

• Compost Pilot: DC has a pilot program to test food-waste curbside collection from 12,000 single-family homes (about 10% of the homes where the City picks up trash and recycling). No new participants are currently being added to the program, despite the City’s goal of diverting 80% of trash away from landfills and incinerators by 2032. Compost plays a key role in the fight against climate change. When food decomposes in a landfill, it releases methane (a greenhouse gas). When it decomposes in a compost heap, it instead sequesters carbon, helping fight against climate change. The food-waste from DC’s program is processed in Prince George’s County, and can thereafter be used by farmers in place of synthetic fertilizers. Nature Forward supports expanding this successful pilot and adding a larger proportion of DC residents to regular food-waste collection. 

• Lead Free DC: DC Water launched Lead Free DC in 2019. There is no safe level of lead exposure, according to the EPA and CDC. DC’s plan is to replace all lead service lines by 2030. To do this, DC Water has argued that the City needs to pass a mandate requiring all DC property owners to replace their lead service lines. Each year, DC Water selects a set of blocks in which they plan to replace pipes. You can use the Construction Dashboard to see the progress in your neighborhood and understand your eligibility for free or discounted pipes. At this year’s hearings, Nature Forward will advocate for continued community outreach for DC Water’s Free Lead Service Line Replacement program, the expedited comprehensive passage of the Lead Service Line Replacement bill by combining bills B25-0192 and B25-0195 by March 31, 2025 and for agency transparency and oversight of DC Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Amendment Act.

• Air Quality and Climate: In 2022, DC passed the Climate Commitment Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the City by 60% (relative to 2006 levels) by 2030, to require the City government to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, and for DC to reach carbon neutrality by 2045. DC received a climate action planning grant from EPA and released the Carbon Free DC plan in 2023, which outlines how the city plans to meet the 2022 commitment. The upcoming hearings will be a way to hold the city accountable for making progress on this plan. DC has an Interagency Taskforce working on how to implement the plan and has provided grants to other organizations to make policy recommendations. Under the Carbon Free DC plan, the city was supposed to undertake its first consumption-based carbon footprint analysis in 2024 and must prepare to adopt net-zero energy construction codes by 2026 (also required under 2022’s Clean Energy DC Building Code Amendment). Addressing buildings is key to the City’s climate change work, as 71% of emissions in DC come from heating, cooling, and powering buildings. To address new construction, DC has a Green Building Fund Grant Program to fund innovative practices. The Greener Government Buildings Amendment Act also already requires District-owned and -financed construction projects to adhere to net-zero standards. At DOEE’s hearing, Nature Forward will ask DC Council to protect the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SEFT) which funds the reduction of CO2 emissions from homes through the Healthy Homes Act, passed last year to provide 30,000 low-moderate income families with electrification retrofits. Council must ensure this fund is not raided, like it was last year for unrelated programs to meet DC’s reduction goals.
• Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF): Nature Forward will advocate to protect funding in the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund. This fund helps reduce CO2 emissions from DC homes by subsidizing electrification retrofits for 30,000 low to moderate-income families. Last year, this program’s funding was almost wiped out in order to finance other programs that do not support CO2 emission reductions. Nature Forward will fight for funding to this program to be maintained if not increased.

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