Lisa Song reports on the environment, energy and climate change.
She joined ProPublica in 2017 after six years at InsideClimate News, where she covered climate science and environmental health. She was part of the reporting team that revealed Exxon’s shift from conducting global warming research to supporting climate denial, a series that was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for public service. From 2013-2014 she reported extensively on air pollution from Texas’ oil and gas boom as part of a collaboration between several newsrooms. Lisa is a co-author of “The Dilbit Disaster,” which won a Pulitzer for national reporting. She has degrees in earth science and science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Critics call it the plastics industry’s Project 2025. Tucked into a federal recycling bill is a litany of regulatory rollbacks and other industry-friendly provisions that federal agencies under Donald Trump could adopt without congressional approval.
The California attorney general’s lawsuit, which cites ProPublica reporting, alleges that products made with Exxon’s process contain only a small fraction of the recycled plastic that they claim to have.
From Coke to Clorox, ProPublica contacted all 51 companies on the Consumer Brands Association board of directors to ask if they agreed with the group’s proposed redefinition of “recyclable” plastic. Most did not respond. None said they disagreed.
The plastics industry uses a controversial accounting method to inflate the recycled content it advertises in products. A new EPA policy won’t allow it for any products it endorses as a “Safer Choice.”
Companies whose futures depend on plastic production are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on plastic shopping bags and other items virtually guaranteed to end up in landfills and incinerators.
The plastics industry has heralded a type of chemical recycling it claims could replace new shopping bags and candy wrappers with old ones — but not much is being recycled at all, and this method won’t curb the crisis.
At a conference meant to address the plastic crisis, pro-plastic messaging was inescapable. Meanwhile, industry insiders — some positioned as government delegates — were given access to vital negotiations.
The regulation specifically targets ethylene oxide, which a ProPublica analysis found was the single biggest contributor to excess industrial cancer risk from air pollutants nationwide.
Despite years of air monitoring, inspections and millions in penalties for petrochemical plants, the air in Calvert City, Kentucky, remains polluted. The EPA’s inability to fix it is an indictment of the laws governing clean air, experts say.
The new rule comes after a 2021 investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune revealed the EPA’s yearslong failure to inform communities of the risks they faced from cancer-causing ethylene oxide emissions.
Help journalists at the investigative nonprofit newsroom ProPublica examine plastics from creation to recycling and disposal. If you’ve worked in or been affected by the plastics industry, we want to hear from you.
Ahead of a groundbreaking treaty to reduce plastic pollution, a group of independent scientists fear that the United Nations is legitimizing industry-backed proposals such as chemical recycling.
The EPA has proposed tougher air pollution rules for chemical plants and other industrial facilities after ProPublica found an estimated 74 million Americans near those sites faced an elevated risk of cancer.
After learning her gas stove was leaking methane, one reporter consulted public health experts to learn about the scope of the problem and what people can do to reduce these risks at home.
After years of resident complaints of toxic fumes and health issues, the EPA has funded Mississippi to conduct air monitoring in Pascagoula. This comes a year after a first-of-its-kind analysis by ProPublica into “sacrifice zones” across the country.
In a “remarkable” letter, the EPA accused Louisiana regulators of neglecting Black residents’ concerns about toxic air pollution and urged the state to move kids out of a school where monitors found extreme levels of a cancer-causing chemical.
Communities identified as “Sacrifice Zones” in a ProPublica analysis of toxic air pollution scored major wins this month. In one, the EPA will start monitoring the air. In another, a judge withdrew permits from a giant petrochemical complex.
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