With flood-ravaged Midwestern states in the news, it’s time to ask whether your own community is ready for the “big one.” This week’s TipSheet offers a 10-point Resiliency Checklist to focus your reporting. Track the vulnerability of infrastructure like drinking water and sewage plants, roads, bridges and levees, the adequacy of flood insurance and much more.
SEJ's own James Bruggers, long-time member, former board member and president of the SEJ board, was the last full-time environmental reporter at a Kentucky newspaper when he left to join the InsideClimate News team. The New Yorker's Charles Bethea interviewed Bruggers and SEJ's E.D. Meaghan Parker for his story on the continued demise of newspapers and staffers reporting on coal country — and the innumerable costs of that lack of coverage.
"If it's been a few years since you shopped for a light bulb you might find yourself confused. Those controversial curly-cue ones that were cutting edge not that long ago? Gone. (Or harder to find.) Thanks to a 2007 law signed by President George W. Bush, shelves these days are largely stocked with LED bulbs that look more like the traditional pear-shaped incandescent version, but use just one-fifth the energy."
"Environmental groups and women from Alaska and Louisiana say the Environmental Protection Agency has dragged its heels on issuing rules for oil spill dispersants, and they’re ready to sue to demand them."
"Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler is reportedly recusing himself from agency reviews of a proposed mine whose developer his former law firm represented."
"Global energy experts released grim findings Monday, saying that not only are planet-warming carbon-dioxide emissions still increasing, but the world’s growing thirst for energy has led to higher emissions from coal-fired power plants than ever before."
"Coal-fired power plants in the Southeast and Ohio Valley stand out. In all, 74% of coal plants cost more to run than building new wind or solar, analysts found." "Not a single coal-fired power plant along the Ohio River will be able to compete on price with new wind and solar power by 2025, according to a new report by energy analysts."
"Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed sweeping energy legislation on Friday that calls for New Mexico’s major electric utilities to get 100 percent of their power from carbon emission-free sources by 2045."
"The last lifeline for the Navajo Generating Station coal-fired power plant near Page was cut Thursday night when Navajo lawmakers voted to end their efforts to acquire the plant and keep it running."
On March 25, 2019, the Society of Environmental Journalists joined the Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press (RCFP) and 35 other journalism organizations in filing an amicus brief in support of the Argus Leader in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader, which is currently before the US Supreme Court.
This case involves the interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act's "trade secrets" exemption — something environmental reporters run up against frequently.
