"On the 30th anniversary of the first presidential executive order on environmental justice, a report from the fencelines in the booming Southeast Texas petrochemical corridor."
For years, high-risk U.S. industrial facilities fell under a federal anti-terrorism program to ensure their potentially lethal chemicals would not become terrorist targets. But when the program expired last year, something unexpected happened. Veteran chemical industry reporter Jeff Johnson has a behind-the-scenes look at the maneuvering over how best to secure the country’s dangerous chemical stores.
"Jaguars once roamed throughout the American south-west, but they were hunted to local extinction by the 1960s. In the 1990s, the elusive cat began to occasionally reappear in the rugged Sky Islands mountain ranges in New Mexico and Arizona. Now, a series of sightings in the region over the past year marks the endangered predators’ tentative return."
"Frigid weather this month caused industrial facilities across Texas to release unplanned air pollution as machinery froze, power went out and icy conditions blocked service crews."
"The average life expectancy in predominantly nonwhite communities along the Houston Ship Channel, the site of largely unregulated petrochemical production, is up to 20 years less than nearby predominantly white communities, according to a report released Thursday by Amnesty International"
"A federal judge is being asked to issue a stop-work order on a $10 billion transmission line being built through a remote southeastern Arizona valley to carry wind-generated electricity to customers as far away as California."
Climate change is fueling the frequency and severity of wildfires, but a little-known Clean Air Act rule lets environmental agencies downplay the impacts of wildfire smoke. A collaborative investigation into this loophole connected dots that even the experts didn’t know about. Journalists Dillon Bergin and Molly Peterson explain their reporting process and offer advice for following your own local leads.
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