Publication Items

It’s not just the heads of Trump administration environmental agencies who come from the industries they now are entrusted to regulate. The latest TipSheet explains that it’s also the political appointees below them — officials responsible for overseeing air, water, toxic chemicals, Superfund, forests and drilling — who are now likely examples of regulatory capture. A short list. Plus, more from our new Trump 2.0 EJWatch special section.

A coming lithium rush in Arkansas drew the notice of journalist Katie Myers, who used a grant from the Fund for Environmental Journalism to explore whether extraction activities near once-booming energy communities could avoid the economic and environmental impacts of another boom-and-bust cycle for a largely Black region with histories of land dispossession, plantation slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Lessons learned in the latest FEJ StoryLog.

Whether fires in California or flooding in North Carolina, climate disasters are revealing a major fault line in U.S. emergency response — a serious insurance shortfall that may lead to financial catastrophe. The new Issue Backgrounder explores the risks of underinsured disasters, the limits to the national flood insurance programs and FEMA aid, and the predictable scapegoating that has created solution gridlock.

In Part 2 of a two-part EJ Academy, SEJournal’s Emilia Askari examines changes artificial intelligence is bringing to journalism — among them possibilities for the analysis of data, including on climate and the environment. Plus, ways to use AI tools more effectively and how to track news organizations’ response to and use of AI. Also: Part 1, AI in the classroom.