Disasters

"Ten years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Interior Department agency that regulates offshore energy development is fractious, demoralized and riddled with staff distrust toward its leadership, according to multiple accounts from current and former employees."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday announced that the cleanup of hazardous waste sites and other pollution spills may be slowed or paused during the coronavirus outbreak."

"Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers."

"An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response."

"OPEC and its allies locked in a historic oil supply accord Sunday after Saudi Arabia, under pressure from the US, agreed to give Mexico a looser production quota, ending a four-day stalemate that threatened to escalate a price war in the midst of the coronavirus crisis."

"Threatened and endangered animals may become additional casualties of the pandemic."

"Scientists say the Trump administration’s proposed program to cut down trees to gain an upper hand over wildfire and protect the sage-grouse bird may in fact do the opposite: increase the wildfire threat and risk ecosystem “collapse.”"

"After the fossil fuel industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars undermining climate science, it’s easy to see how epidemiology came next."