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Rare Toad, Clean Energy Face Off in Clash of US Green Priorities

March 2024

Bloomberg Law

A halted geothermal project in the middle of Nevada highlights the complexity of environmental review, a process the Biden administration seeks to streamline.

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Podcast episode 

Documentary video by Andrew Satter

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Photo credit: Andrew Satter

Clean Energy Traffic Jam Snarls Grid Access in Key Solar Market

December 2023

Bloomberg Law

Why is there some 2,000 gigawatts of clean energy sitting in line across the country? California spotlights the fact there’s now too much interest in building and buying renewable energy generation in the Golden State for the power grid to keep up.

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Photo credit: Lauren Justice / Bloomberg

Cities Grapple for ‘Magic Formula’ to Access Billions in Energy Funds

July 2023

Bloomberg CityLab

An unprecedented $538 billion promises to help the neediest communities transition to clean energy. But local officials in places like Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., say they’re ill-equipped to navigate the federal funding maze.

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Photo credit: Daniel Moore

America’s Nuclear Waste Capital Wants More of It, Against State Wishes

May 2023

Bloomberg Green

Burying the country’s nuclear weapons waste brought an economic lifeline to Carlsbad, New Mexico. State leaders worry it’s become a dumping ground.

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Photo credit: Daniel Moore

A 550-Mile Power Line Shows Clean Energy Permitting Battles

March 2023

Bloomberg Green

The largest US renewable energy project promises to deliver wind energy to 3 million people and is supported by Washington policy-makers. But the SunZia project's circuitous, 17-year saga is a window into the approval process for building long-haul transmission lines that US energy officials argue are urgently needed to integrate remote wind and solar farms critical to the nation’s future.

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Photo credit: Minesh Bacrania

The Race for US Lithium Hinges on a Fight Over a Nevada Mine

September 2022

Bloomberg Green

North America's largest lithium mine promises to meet climate goals and national security imperatives by producing a crucial ingredient for electric vehicle batteries. But an unlikely coalition of tribes, ranchers and environmental groups are decrying the Biden administration's backing of the mine, arguing it's a threat to air, water and cultural resources.

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Photo credit: Daniel Moore

Along Gulf Coast, A 'Global Epicenter of LNG' Tests Biden's Climate Strategy

April 2022

Bloomberg Law

In Southwest Lousiana, regulators have approved an unprecedented building boom of liquefied natural gas export terminals. A nacent environmental justice movement has pushed back against any more fossil fuel infrastructure, but powerful global market forces and entrenched support for industry could prove challenging to overcome.

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Photo credit: Daniel Moore

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Conor Lamb sees himself as tight-lipped juror as impeachment inquiry rages on Capitol Hill

November 2019

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, a Pittsburgh-area moderate Democrat, could be one of the key votes in a tightly divided House as the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump ensues on Capitol Hill. But he prefers to avoid the media circus and pursues what he believes can be bipartisan progress--and even friendship.

Photo credit: Michael Santiago

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Can $1 billion from an Indian conglomerate bring back American steel?

March 2019

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

JSW Steel, an Indian company, pledged hundreds of billions of dollars to restart a steel furnace in Ohio that had been mothballed a decade earlier. The venture to revive the former Wheeling-Pittsburgh plant in Mingo Junction is the boldest — and strangest — experiment yet amid President Trump's pledge to "bring back" the American steel industry.

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**FIRST PLACE in BUSINESS STORY category

2020 Keystone Press Awards

Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association

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Photo credit: Stephanie Strasburg

As Little Blue Run is covered up, looming contamination beneath the surface

September 2018

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The closure of the largest coal ash impoundment in the country, sprawling 1,000 acres in Pennsylvania-West Virginia border, is complicated. As crews spend the next 10 years capping the surface, my investigation broke ground that there are more than 100 monitoring pointed that have been deemed contaminated by a plume of coal waste material spreading underground—and no one can guarantee there won't be more pollution. 

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Photo credit: Andrew Rush

Buying into Pakistan, stepping warily into the trade winds

April 2018

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pakistan, viewed through a U.S. lens, is an enigma. It is considered an unpredictable friend in the best of times and a harborer of terrorism in the worst of them. A 10-day trip sponsored by the U.S. State Department sought to dispel myths and promote better ties with the South Asian country of 208 million people.

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Photo credit: Daniel Moore

Power Struggle: Herman's last stand

July 2017

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

After a dozen years leading the workers union at Pennsylvania's largest coal-fired power plant, Herman Marshman found himself in a fight not just with the company but with union members who didn't want to lose more than they already had. 

Photo credit: Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette

The Night Shift: At 4 a.m., a struggle to keep going

May 2017

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

After the sun goes down, these people are on the clock keeping the lights on, stocking the shelves, and cleaning offices and hospitals. They are a peculiar subset of the American workforce. Over a few months, I got an inside look at the nightly struggles and triumphs of people who do critical, often mundane night shifts under the cloak of darkness.

 

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**FIRST PLACE in FEATURE STORY category

2018 Keystone Press Awards

Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association

Photo credit: Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette

World Power: Echoes of Pittsburgh's past, exploring life in India's Steel City

October 2016

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Jamshedpur, quite possibly the largest and most enduring company-owned town in the world, is the birthplace of Indian industry. In the oppressive humidity and downpours of monsoon season, it shows uncanny parallels to Pittsburgh. 

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Part two of a reporting project funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

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Photo credit: Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette

World Power: From Pittsburgh to India, the race to reinvent the electric grid

October 2016

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

How can the world bring a basic amenity of modern life — electricity — to 1.3 billion more people while also keeping pledges to fight climate change? A growing number of companies and researchers are racing to ensure new power doesn’t mean new pollution. 

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Part one of a reporting project funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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Photo credit: Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette

The boom and bust of Pennsylvania's coal towns

March 2016

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The state of hundreds of company-built towns in the Pittsburgh area offers a glimpse at the existential struggle ahead for areas dependent on the coal industry.

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**FIRST PLACE in "News Feature Story" category

2017 Keystone Press Awards

Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association

Photo credit: Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette

How the West has won

May 2014

Dateline Baltics — Kent State University

An essay on how young Estonians feel toward the Western culture and the complicated identity crisis created by shifting borders. Reported from the Estonia's border with Russia during the Russian annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Published online as part of Dateline Baltics, the project of the International Storytelling course at Kent State University. 

Photo credit: Jacob Byk/Dateline Baltics

Post-9/11 veterans wait longer for benefits, VA encourages workers to tackle easier claims first

February – August 2013

News21/The Washington Post

Seven-month investigation at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in Phoenix revealed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs encouraged their claims processors to focus on disability claims that were easier, thus contributing to the highly scrutinized backlog of claims and increasing wait times for veterans. Published in print in The Washington Post Aug. 25.

Photo credit: Mary Shinn/News21

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