Despite decades of work to educate more Black lawyers, the percentage of Black associates and partners in firms across the U.S. remain very low, and well below those of other professional careers. Big Law firms across the board are ramping up social justice efforts as the nation engages in a renewed dialogue on race and equality. But some have accused firms of using minorities as “diversity props” to impress clients and misrepresent their inclusiveness to potential employees. So what are law fir...
Nov 27, 2020•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast President-elect Joe Biden will begin his first term in a much weaker position than former President Barack Obama faced when beginning his first term. Regardless of the outcome of January's Senate runoff elections in Georgia, Biden will not enjoy the large majorities in Congress that Obama did. On today's episode of Parts Per Billion, we hear from Bloomberg Law reporter Dean Scott about how this situation will be the primary factor shaping Biden's environmental agenda. Learn more about your ad-ch...
Nov 25, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Trump administration may need every single minute of its four-year term to accomplish its goal of opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. On today's episode of Parts Per Billion, we hear from Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer A. Dlouhy about how the administration is in a race against the clock to auction off leases in this environmentally sensitive area of northeastern Alaska. Jennifer says there's so little time that it's possible the auctions may take place on Inau...
Nov 18, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's the morning after the elections and we don't know who the next President of the United States will be. But, despite that, we do have some idea of how things might change for the federal agencies that regulate the environment. On this special episode of our weekly environmental podcast, Parts Per Billion, we speak with three Bloomberg Law reporters about exactly how environmental policy could shift and about who would be on the shortlist to lead the EPA and the Interior Department. Learn mor...
Nov 04, 2020•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast The European Union is on a continent-wide push to reduce its carbon emissions. But some environmentalists say this goal is threatened by a nearly 30-year-old treaty enacted in response to the fall of the Soviet Union. On this episode of our weekly podcast, Parts Per Billion, we hear from Stephen Gardner, Bloomberg Law's Brussels correspondent. He explains how a treaty meant to spur energy investment in post-Soviet republics has turned into a powerful tool of Europe's fossil fuel industry. Learn ...
Oct 28, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Several states—including the biggest, California—have moved to partially or fully ban the use of nonstick chemicals known as PFAS in firefighting foam. But many of these bans won't take effect for years or, in some cases, many years. On this episode of Parts Per Billion, we talk with Bloomberg Law California correspondent Emily C. Dooley about the Golden State's own recently enacted PFAS ban and its long, winding journey through the state's legislature. Learn more about your ad-choices at https:...
Oct 21, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast President Donald Trump has been in a nearly decade-long dispute with New Jersey environmental officials over some relatively minor wetlands violations at his signature golf course there. Though these violations were minor, they bring up some interesting questions about what happens when a President in charge of making environmental policy decisions is also personally affected by those decisions. On this episode of Parts Per Billion, we talk to Bloomberg Law's Stephen Lee about what's going on at...
Oct 14, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast The federal government is granting leases that allow oil drilling on huge amounts of federal land in the state of Nevada. This is despite a fossil fuel market with highly depressed prices—and despite scant evidence that any oil actually exists below the Silver State. On this episode of Parts Per Billion, we talk with Bloomberg Law's Bobby Magill about the colorful bunch of so-called "wildcatters" who are not only willing but eager to search for oil in Nevada's vast public lands. Learn more about...
Oct 07, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast There's a section of the Gulf Coast in the South that has significantly higher rates of cancer than other parts of the country. This section, nicknamed "Cancer Alley," is also home to dozens of chemical factories and petroleum refineries. Today on Parts Per Billion, we talk with Bloomberg Law's Pat Rizzuto about how the EPA calculates the risk of toxic chemical exposure in areas like Cancer Alley and about how some activists are using the agency's own data to prod it to change. Learn more about ...
Sep 30, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Though she may be better known for her work on gender equality, late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a substantial impact on environmental law. On today's episode of Parts Per Billion we hear from Bloomberg Law's Ellen M. Gilmer about some of Ginsburg's most notable environmental opinions and about how these types of cases may fare at the high court after her death. For more on this topic, check out a column written earlier this week by Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus....
Sep 23, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 affec...
Sep 16, 2020•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener ...
Sep 09, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Mar...
Sep 02, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 peop...
Aug 26, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 indus...
Aug 19, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 subscr...
Aug 12, 2020•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Learn more about your ad-choices a...
Jul 29, 2020•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener ...
Jul 27, 2020•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jul 22, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 pi...
Jul 15, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Just within the past few days, two big energy pipeline projects suffered major legal defeats and another one was abandoned by the company pushing it. On this episode of Parts Per Billion , Bloomberg Law's Ellen M. Gilmer updates us on this fast-moving news and explains why the litigation strategy of environmentalists who oppose these projects is now paying off big time. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jul 08, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast With the coronavirus spreading rapidly, several American Indian reservations in the Southwest are experiencing extreme water shortages, a problem worsened by poor water infrastructure. Though no one denies the acuteness of the problem, what is in dispute is who's to blame. Activists and environmentalists in these communities say decades of water-intensive coal mining has caused a dramatic drop in their aquifer. But the company that ran these now-shuttered coal mines disagrees. On this episode of...
Jul 01, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Trump Administration is putting forth a proposal that would eliminate, in some cases, the penalties for killing protected bird species. And, according to Bloomberg Law reporter Bobby Magill , it got pretty creative in justifying why it believes this move is necessary. On this episode of Parts Per Billion , Magill explains how the administration cited 2009's "Miracle on the Hudson" plane crash as a reason why allowing more birds to be killed might be a good thing. Learn more about your ad-cho...
Jun 24, 2020•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast You would think that record low fossil fuel prices would spell certain doom for the future of solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy. But you'd be wrong. At least, that's according to Albert Cheung , the head of global analysis at the research group Bloomberg New Energy Finance . Cheung joins Parts Per Billion to talk about why the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic likely won't stop renewable energy from slowly but steadily replacing other forms of energy in the coming dec...
Jun 17, 2020•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The litigation over the toxic nonstick substances known as PFAS—or also known by their nickname " forever chemicals "—was already going to be pretty complicated. But now the pandemic has dialed that complexity up to a whole new level. On this week's episode of Parts Per Billion , reporter Ellen M. Gilmer talks about the delays these high stakes lawsuits have suffered in recent months and about whether one side in these types of disputes benefits more than the other when court deadlines get postp...
Jun 10, 2020•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast California has some of the most aggressive climate change regulations of any state in the country. But, with greenhouse gas emissions plummeting due to the economic shutdown, those regulations may actually be backfiring. On this week's episode of Parts Per Billion , Bloomberg News reporter David R. Baker explains how the Golden State's so-called "cap-and-trade" system for greenhouse gasses is struggling to function in a pandemic-afflicted world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.ih...
Jun 03, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast The human body isn't the only place the coronavirus can be found. Pieces of the pathogen can be found throughout the environment, even in the waste we flush down the toilet. On this week's episode of Parts Per Billion , reporter Sylvia Carignan explains how environmental testing for the coronavirus might work and why scientists are asking the EPA to get to work developing a standard method of testing. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/lis...
May 27, 2020•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast The EPA has a program to hire older workers to perform administrative, and sometimes more complex, duties. It's meant to help the seniors get some work experience and earn some income, but the workers' wages are drastically lower than those of their younger colleagues. On this episode of Parts Per Billion , reporter Stephen Lee explains who these workers are and why they continue working at the agency despite their low pay. Read more of Stephen's reporting on this issue here . Learn more about y...
May 20, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast The price of oil is at a once-unthinkable low due to the coronavirus pandemic and its accompanying drop off in demand. In fact, the global supply of crude outstrips demand by so much that simply finding a place to store it all is becoming a problem. This sudden shift in oil markets could have huge ramifications for the environment, as faulty or haphazard oil storage is a particularly acute source of pollution. On this episode of Parts Per Billion , we hear from Rachel Adams-Heard , a Bloomberg N...
May 13, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast The prospect of the wide release of genetically engineered mosquitoes got much closer to reality recently when the EPA gave a biotech company permission to conduct a mosquito field trial in the Florida Keys. The environmental impacts of releasing GMO insects into the wild could be significant, but perhaps more significant is their potential to rid the world of mosquito-borne diseases. On this episode of Parts Per Billion , reporter Adam Allington explains what these mosquitoes are engineered to ...
May 06, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
