Parts Per Billion

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Air Quality Gadgets Fly Off Shelves in Smoky, Hazy West Sep 16, 2020

Show notes

One sign of how bad the wildfires have gotten along the West Coast is that the newest must-have tech gadget there is a personal air quality sensor.

These devices send data on air quality to any smartphone or computer and, with wildfire smoke blanketing cities up and down the coast, manufacturers say demand is off the charts.

On this episode of Parts Per Billion we speak with Laura Bliss, a reporter with Bloomberg's CityLab. She reported on the rapid adoption of these devices in communities affected by wildfires and about the way they're responding to a desire for real-time data that federal regulators can't provide.

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EPA Racial Justice Plan Has Interestingly Timed Debut Sep 09, 2020

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EPA chief Andrew Wheeler rolled out a new plan recently that addresses issues of environmental justice, when pollution disproportionately affects low-income communities and people of color.

On this episode of Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Law's Stephen Lee joins us to explain what's in this plan and why the timing of its rollout, just a couple months before Election Day, may not be a coincidence.

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Markey Win Shows Green New Deal Far From Irrelevant Sep 02, 2020

Show notes

Prospects for the Green New Deal legislative package were looking dim after it was introduced in Congress early last year. But since then it's had some surprising ripple effects.

For example, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) used his early support of the Green New Deal to fend off an intra-party challenge from Rep. Joe Kennedy III. Markey beat Kennedy by more than 10 percentage points in their state's Sept. 1 primary.

On this episode of Parts Per Billion, environment reporter Dean Scott explains how Markey used his environmental credentials to hold onto his seat and how the Green New Deal may play a significant role on Capitol Hill for years to come.

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California Fighting Massive Wildfires With Blackouts Aug 26, 2020

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California's power companies are trying to stop wildfires by imposing targeted blackouts in high risk areas. Their hope is that this will prevent a downed live wire from sparking a conflagration.

This strategy was effective a tamping down fires last year, but in the year of Covid-19, many worry the solution will be nearly as bad as the problem.

On this episode of our podcast, Parts Per Billion, California correspondent Emily C. Dooley talks about how power companies are struggling to ensure people fighting the pandemic don't lose power, and also about whether there may be a long-term solution that doesn't require ad hoc power shutoffs.

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Arctic Drilling a Bittersweet Prize for Oil Industry Aug 19, 2020

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Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a decades-long dream of the energy industry, is closer to reality than ever before after the Trump Administration announced it will start auctioning off drilling rights as early as this year.

But these drilling rights could easily be slow-rolled—or even outright canceled—if Democratic nominee Joe Biden becomes President next year, according to Jennifer A. Dlouhy, an environmental reporter with Bloomberg News. And beyond that, the oil industry is facing record-low prices, with many firms struggling to simply stay in business, Dlouhy said. Will anyone even want to drill in the Arctic?

Dlouhy joins our podcast, Parts Per Billion, to talk about what exactly the Trump Administration did with ANWR and why so much of the refuge's future depends on the outcome of this November's elections.

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Investigating the Killing of an Environmental Activist (Podcast) Aug 12, 2020

Show notes

Parts Per Billion is on a short vacation this week. But while we’re gone, we wanted to share with you the first episode of a new podcast from our colleagues at Bloomberg News.

The podcast is called Blood River and it’s about the search to find the killers of Honduran environmental activist Berta Caceres, who was assassinated in her home country in 2016. Blood River follows a four-year quest to find her killers – a twisting trail that leads deep into the country’s circles of power.

You can subscribe to Blood River on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

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Biden Win Would Be Game Changer for Climate Lawsuits Jul 29, 2020

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We don't know what environmental policy will look like under a potential Biden administration, but we do know that the Democratic presidential candidate has signaled he wants to get much more involved in a series of high profile climate change lawsuits.

On this episode of Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Law's Ellen M. Gilmer looks at what it would mean if a Biden Justice Department starts assisting cities and states in their legal fight against fossil fuel giants.

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Introducing: Blood River Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

The killers of Berta Caceres had every reason to believe they’d get away with murder. More than 100 other environmental activists in Honduras had been killed in the previous five years, yet almost no one had been punished for the crimes. Bloomberg’s Blood River follows a four-year quest to find her killers – a twisting trail that leads into the country’s circles of power.

Blood River is out now.

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Polluted Town Says EPA Declaring Premature Victory Jul 22, 2020

Show notes

Much of the town of East Chicago, Ind., is a federal Superfund site, having endured decades of pollution from a now-shuttered lead smelter.

Recently, the EPA said cleanup work there has been successful and is moving to take a large swath of East Chicago off of its Superfund list, a compilation of country's most polluted sites. However, some residents of the town, which is predominately Black and Hispanic, say they weren't consulted on this decision and don't think their community is safe yet.

On this episode of our podcast, Parts Per Billion, Bloomberg Law's Sylvia Carignan talks about how the EPA's Superfund program works and why some disadvantaged communities feel that it has too much of a top-down orientation.

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EPA Funding May Get Snarled in Campaign Brinkmanship Jul 15, 2020

Show notes

Funding for the EPA, the Interior Department, and all other federal agencies expires on Oct. 1, the end of the government's fiscal year. But House Democrats may have a strong incentive to try to push this deadline past November's elections into the lame duck session of Congress.

On this episode of Parts Per Billion, Capitol Hill reporter Kellie Lunney talks about how lawmakers are crafting spending bills for environmental agencies and also explains the complicated game theory at play in this pivotal election year.

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