This article is featured in the 2026 Winter Carnival Issue.
Jan. 9 marked a year since Kelly Ayotte was inaugurated as the 83rd governor of New Hampshire. Following her first year in office, The Dartmouth sat down with four environmental advocates around the state to assess her record in environmental policy.
New Hampshire Sierra Club chapter director Catherine Corkery said the governor holds limited authority in overseeing environmental policies in the state.
The governor “is less empowered in New Hampshire than other states,” Corkery said. “New Hampshire policy-setting has traditionally been more focused on the legislature.”
Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water co-founder Laurene Allen, however, said there was an absence of leadership on environmental issues from the Ayotte administration.
“Since [Ayotte] has been elected, she’s steered clear of this topic,” Allen said. “Other states have come forward and made requests to the [Trump] administration as they’re trying to roll back [environmental protections], and New Hampshire has been silent.”
Ayotte did not respond to a request for comment.
Ayotte’s opposition to Dalton landfill project praised by some environmental advocates
Some environmental advocates in Coos county praised Ayotte’s opposition to a landfill project in the northern part of the state.
Last February, as part of her budget address to protect the state’s natural landscape and strengthen regulations, Ayotte “endorsed a one-year moratorium on new landfills,” according to the New Hampshire Bulletin. Ayotte’s position was a shift from Gov. Chris Sununu’s support for the construction of a landfill in Dalton, Coos County, by Vermont-based waste management company Casella.
The landfill, which was originally proposed in 2019, would be used for waste from New Hampshire and surrounding states, according to North Country Alliance for Balanced Change vice president Tom Tower.
“New Hampshire has an ample amount of capacity to serve its own solid waste needs for years and years to come,” Tower said. “The driver behind this is the need to dump what is out-of-state trash somewhere.”
Since 2019, the proposal has faced widespread opposition, and the NCABC has advocated against the project. Tower added that the landfill “isn’t a partisan issue” but rather a “common sense issue.”
“It’s a very attractive area for those who want to hike and fish and ski,” Tower said. “We want to preserve the way of life up there — why should the North Country end up being the dumping ground for a lot of New England’s trash?”
Tower noted that when Ayotte was running for governor, she “took a trip over to Forest Lake State Park” in Dalton and said that the “project will never happen on [her] watch” if she was elected as governor.
“We can’t say enough good things about how Governor Ayotte has stood behind this and the fact that she has made a commitment to ensure that this project will never happen,” Tower added.
In April 2025, Casella’s solid waste permit application was denied by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. The company subsequently initiated a lawsuit against the department, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin.
Some argue Ayotte shows ‘favoritism’ to fossil fuel industry as renewables debate continues
Other advocates framed Ayotte’s first year within broader legislative shifts around renewable energy in New Hampshire. Youth campaign organizer for 350 New Hampshire Pat Hart said the state legislature “has rolled a lot of environmental protections back [over] the last three years.”
“They’ve completely gutted the Renewable Energy Fund and energy efficiency funding within the state,” Hart said.
Ayotte previously expressed support for combined use of renewable and non-renewable energy. In a July 28, 2025 press release, Ayotte said she would “continue working with the legislature to promote an all-of-the-above energy strategy.”
Hart added that Ayotte’s approach is not “sustainable for us long term if we continue to invest in infrastructure that is based around fossil fuels.”
“We’re not only going to be continuing to put out carcinogens into the air and harming our citizens,” Hart said. “We’re going to be left behind economically once things globally transition to more renewable energies.”
Corkery said those rollbacks reflect a broader governing philosophy within the legislature to promote deregulation, adding that the legislature has “lost the script” in its “fervor” to deregulate.
Corkery cited the repeal of vehicle emissions and safety standards as a significant regulatory change. House Bill 2, which Ayotte signed into law in June 2025, repealed state-level vehicle emission inspection requirements after Jan. 31 that had previously aligned New Hampshire with stricter standards adopted by other states.
“Cars have become the largest single source of bad air,” Corkery said. “Air pollution and ozone and soot are major contributors to chronic health conditions, causing asthma, [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] and other chronic flare-ups and respiratory emergencies.”
Policymakers “are kind of hiding behind the safety standards,” she added.
Similarly, Hart said he would like to see the governor avoid “showing favoritism to the fossil fuel industry.”
Allen added that the Ayotte administration has an “immense opportunity” to provide “reputable” and “honest” feedback to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Trump administration.
“They can get that audience, [but] they’re not doing that,” she said.
Corkery said that she wants to see “less pollution in the air, in our water, in our communities, in our bodies, so that everyone can just relax about these stresses and really live their lives.”
“Imagine if the town of Merrimack did not have to worry about and pay for the forever chemicals that are in their soil and in the air and in their water,” she said.
