"Top-ranking Congressional Democrats are calling on a federal watchdog to review whether Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt broke the law by making a video for a private group opposing an Obama-era clean-water rule."
"When Jeremy Boutor moved to a master-planned community in Houston’s booming energy corridor, he saw it as idyllic. ... Then, Hurricane Harvey changed everything. As the downpours began and Boutor studied maps flashing on his TV screen, he realized that his home wasn’t at risk of flooding just because of record rainfall; it was also located inside one of two massive reservoirs that had been built west of Houston decades ago to protect the city."
"A North Dakota jury has convicted an environmental activist who targeted an oil pipeline a year ago." A man who filmed the protest was also convicted.
"As of Wednesday, half of Puerto Ricans had access to drinking water and 5 percent of the island had electricity, according to statistics published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on its Web page documenting the federal response to Hurricane Maria. By Thursday morning, both of those key metrics were no longer on the Web page."
"States could soon respond quicker to chemical accidents armed with information EPA has. But first, they’ll have to prove they can protect chemical makers’ trade secrets."
"In the Trump administration's list of dos and don'ts, 'climate change' is out and 'resilience' is in. The word choices by administration officials -- and the extent to which they're going to avoid referencing global warming altogether -- are notable in the aftermath of recent severe hurricanes and in the face of questions about what could have caused them."
"Hurricane Harvey flooded more than a dozen Superfund toxic waste sites when it devastated the Texas coast in late August. An EPA report predicted the possibility of climate-related problems at toxic waste sites like those in Texas, but the page detailing the report on the agency's website was made inactive months before the storm."
Leaking is back. Today, all the best stories are based on leaks. Journalists are discovering that if the EPA press office puts out a story, it probably isn't news and may not even be true.
For some while it's been pretty clear that reporters have only slim chances of getting useful help from the US EPA press office — or the equivalent at many (not all) other agencies. If you expect nothing from the press office, you will rarely be disappointed. But don't be afraid of them; that's what they want. Here are some pro tips to aid your reporting.
Here is a list of resources mentioned in the Oct. 6, 2017, concurrent session on "Working Around PIOs Who Don’t Live Up to Their Titles" at the SEJ Annual Conference in Pittsburgh.
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