Government

"Roadmap For Trump’s FEMA Reforms Set For Release Thursday"

"The Trump administration is set to unveil its plan this week to reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a proposal that is sure to be contentious but is not expected to go as far as earlier calls to eliminate the agency completely."

Source: The Hill, 12/11/2025

"Democratic Senators Demand U.S. Park Police Suspend Hiring Spree"

"Democratic senators are demanding the U.S. Park Police suspend their D.C. recruitment blitz and accuse the Trump administration of “hijacking this federal police force for its own authoritarian purposes,” according to a letter sent to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Monday morning."

Source: Washington Post, 12/10/2025

PEER Warns that OIRA Chief Jeffrey Clark’s “Acting” Role Is Illegal

"In a new letter to U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is warning that  Jeffrey Clark’s role as “Acting Administrator” of the Office of information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) and actions he has taken could be in legal jeopardy."

Source: PEER, 12/09/2025

Top Environment and Energy Topics To Watch in 2026

Explore our 10th annual Journalists’ Guide to Environment + Energy, as we scour the beat to identify 15 top stories to put on your radar for 2026. Our updated format for the special report provides a quick read and a broad scope — with insights on climate change and environmental justice, bird and insect declines, data centers and deep sea mining, deregulation and PFAS and much more. Get started here.

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From Words to Frames — Writer Learns To Wield Power of Visual Storytelling

When writer Gulnaz Khan saw how global warming drove both natural loss and spiritual breaks for surrounding human communities, it started her on a PBS documentary series exploring sacred sites around the world threatened by climate change. But she also undertook another odyssey, one from writer to visual storyteller. What she learned on her journey from text to screen, in the new EJ InSight column.

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Chesapeake Bay Leaders Agree on Longer Timeline and Tribal Role in Cleanup

"The revised watershed agreement extends pollution-reduction targets and bets on voluntary measures to achieve cleanup goals that have remained elusive for decades."

Source: Inside Climate News, 12/05/2025
December 9, 2025

SEJ Webinar: Silenced Sources — When Fear of Retaliation Muzzles Facts

Join Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Association of Healthcare Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists for this webinar at 2 p.m. EST, on what happens when whistleblowers, researchers, students and federal employees are intimidated into staying quiet.

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Citizen Pollution Monitors Face Industry Pushback, Legal Threats

A steep decline in the enforcement of environmental laws means the monitoring of pollution by citizens is more important than ever. But as the latest TipSheet notes, some states have passed laws that severely constrain the use of citizen monitoring or the sharing of findings. Get the backstory, along with top reporting angles and resources for finding monitoring in your area.

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Orphans and Zombies — Reporting on Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells Across the Country

For more than a century, oil and gas companies have been drilling — and abandoning — wells across the country, leaving hundreds of thousands to potentially leak pollutants into the air, water and soil. Climate and environment reporter Martha Pskowski looks at how funding and regulatory issues are impacting efforts to identify and plug these wells, and offers resources for drilling into their story.

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