Thomas Frank
Thomas Frank covers the politics and money behind climate impacts and disasters for E&E News. He oversees the outlet’s climate finance team, focusing on carbon markets, property insurance, disaster aid and financial regulation. His recent reporting centers on how federal decisions about FEMA, disaster assistance and infrastructure shape communities facing extreme weather and climate-related risks.
Disaster policy and FEMA
Frank follows FEMA’s leadership and internal oversight closely, writing about investigations into a Trump-era FEMA chief and the fallout from senior officials being fired or scrutinized. He reports on how government shutdowns and staffing shortages affect the agency’s ability to respond to hurricanes and other disasters, highlighting drops in workforce and mounting operational strain as storm seasons begin. His coverage of Democratic governors challenging denials of federal assistance and congressional efforts to strip partisan considerations from disaster relief decisions shows how politics shapes who receives help after catastrophes.
Across these pieces, he treats disasters as contests over power, equity and rules, not only as weather events.
Climate finance and economic risk
Frank’s climate finance work connects environmental risk to insurance markets, disaster aid and regulatory bodies, reflecting his role overseeing coverage of carbon markets, property insurance and financial oversight.
In his reporting on climate impacts to critical infrastructure, he has written about how heat waves and drought threaten data center operations, treating energy-hungry facilities as part of a broader climate risk portfolio. He covers how trade and commodity decisions intersect with climate and agriculture, including the lifting of tariffs on phosphate fertilizer and the consequences for fertilizer producers and farmers.
He reports on efforts by countries such as Venezuela to attract mining investment through new laws, describing how legal changes are designed to draw more capital into resource extraction. Taken together, these stories frame climate change as a financial, regulatory and investment challenge that sits alongside its physical impacts.
Congress, infrastructure and environmental conflicts
Frank tracks how Congress and federal agencies intervene in environmental and infrastructure disputes, from House approval of seizing California land to protect a pipeline to oversight probes into California’s high-speed rail project. He covers western water politics through stories on California water rights legislation and the long-running fight over the Delta tunnel, showing how infrastructure proposals and water law intersect with environmental protections and access to scarce resources.
This work extends to broader land-use and resource battles, where he treats environmental policy as a sequence of contested decisions over projects, corridors and rights rather than abstract regulation.
Reporting focus and format
Frank works as both editor and reporter, overseeing a climate finance team while continuing to publish regular stories on disasters, finance and environmental politics.
His headlines consistently foreground the institutions and policies at stake - FEMA, Congress, governors and trade agencies - rather than general climate trends. These stories take a hard-news approach, breaking down government actions into specific decisions, investigations and legislative moves that clarify who is responsible and what is changing.
The result is coverage that helps readers see climate impacts through the structures of governance, finance and law that determine how risk is managed and who bears the costs.
4 more environment journalists.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a water reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who treats the Colorado River as a working system, not a backdrop, making its governance, infrastructure and risks central to his beat. He covers how policy decisions and infrastructure projects shape the region’s water future, linking high-level choices on the Colorado River, dams, mining and data centers to everyday consequences under mounting heat and growth pressures. He reports deeply on new laws, lawsuits and regulatory shifts, focusing on on-the-ground impacts. His coverage spans Colorado River cuts, Hoover Dam operations, extreme weather, heat and parks, septic system rules, workplace and public health risks, lithium and gold mines, protected landscapes, data centers, AI infrastructure and public funding. Previously he reported for metropolitan dailies, digital outlets and public media, including the Miami Herald, WUFT, The Daily Beast and Miami New Times, with work recognized by Hearst, ONA and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Alejandra Borunda
Alejandra Borunda reports on how climate change affects human health for NPR. Her work treats global warming as a direct cause of physical and mental health risks. She covers extreme heat, including undercounted deaths, lost sleep and local efforts to track heat-related fatalities. She also reports on wildfire smoke, hurricanes, disease spread such as dengue fever, trauma, stress and unequal health impacts. Her stories examine how communities protect themselves and recover, as well as practical solutions involving climate-resilient crops, agriculture and diet. Before NPR, she wrote about climate science and environmental issues for National Geographic, including glacier retreat, shade and heat inequity, and shrinking ice-fishing seasons. A former climate scientist, she combines field reporting with scientific data to connect atmospheric research to everyday risks, choices and people’s lived experiences.
Alex Lubben
Alex Lubben is an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/The Advocate who connects climate risk to policy, industry and community change. He covers Gulf warming, flood protection, coastal restoration, wetlands litigation, industrial projects such as SpaceX’s possible expansion, invasive species and local ecosystems. His reporting tracks how law, politics and corporate decisions shape levees, drainage, marshes and long-term resilience. He also examines climate relocation, housing and labor, showing how hurricanes, floods and wildfires displace vulnerable communities and expose gaps in government systems. He works on a small environment team and brings an investigative background to document work, data analysis, legal and policy research, and field reporting. His work has appeared in VICE News, The Center for Public Integrity, The Nation, Jewish Currents and NBC News.
Alex Wigglesworth
Alex Wigglesworth reports on how climate, land use and public policy shape California communities. She covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert for the Los Angeles Times and is part of its environment team. Her beat includes wildfires, megadrought, extreme weather, desert development, conservation, wildlife, industrial hazards, aging infrastructure and regulatory enforcement. She has covered Western Joshua trees, desert tortoises, beaver-led restoration, toxic lead pipes, air-quality concerns after industrial fires and the effects of nuclear war on food systems. Earlier, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She combines breaking news with detailed reporting grounded in scientific studies, modeling and expert interviews. Her work connects fires, drought and other hazards to climate change, while examining how agencies, companies and land-use decisions affect people and ecosystems.