I just came back from Investigative Reporters and Editors, an annual conference with hundreds of journalists, stacked with talent from the dwindling number of investigative reporters in America. It’s multiple Pulitzer winners, your local TV station’s investigations team, and recent college grads who already have exposés to their name.

I sat in on panels about public records requests, managing giant document dumps and other reporting-process focused stories. One panelist opened with the question “Who’s excited to talk about state ethics disclosures?” and there were genuine cheers. Another panel did a live demo of a reporting process and discovered the inspection permits for every single one of the conference hotel’s elevators were expired.

It wasn’t a climate and energy conference — that’s frankly not where most of the investigative firepower is pointed these days. But I also got to listen to reporters who are focused on disasters, environmental wrongdoing and push back against AI driven data centers. I’ve included some of their work alongside what I’m reading this week.

• Trump Plans to Protect Methane-Leaking Stripper Wells. This Billionaire Donor Will Benefit. (ProPublica)

Hildebrand had never been a leading political contributor. But in 2024, the Biden administration issued aggressive restrictions on methane pollution — rules that would impose steep costs on Hilcorp — and the once-obscure tycoon became one of Trump’s biggest oil industry supporters, giving millions to his campaign.

Previously on the newsletter: The Big Methane Hunt (including what is it, and why?)

• The New York artist embroidering Knicks merch on the street with a mobile sewing machine (Vogue)

“I tell people that all the time, “You don’t have to get anything from me. I would prefer you give me something that you own and let me just embroider it, because that’s the beauty.”

One of the reasons why I do what I do is I don’t want you to have to buy something, I want you to take what you have and give it new life and make it something that’s even better than what you originally bought it for, because now it’s one of one.”

• After the end of rooftop solar tax credits for homeowners, the US market is stalling, with the exception of two states. (Bloomberg)

• A solar powered, trash-eating boat preventing plastic from reaching the ocean (Guardian)

• More than 100 offshore wind farm projects have seen no movement on national security reviews for months, holding up developments, so renewable energy groups are suing. (Associated Press)

• The Justice Department is intervening in a NAACP lawsuit against pollution at Elon Musk’s xAI, saying attempts to stop the data center from running “threatens American national, economic, and energy security” (WIRED)

• What happened to New York’s climate law? (Bloomberg Law, by fellow IRE member Alison Prang)

• A shrinking strip of New Orleans marsh helps protect 1.5 million people. Louisiana wants to save it (Verité News)

• Trump administration backtracks on plan to uninstall a network of ocean sensors tracking ocean circulation, climate change and extreme weather after push back from Senators. (KATU2)

Some great work from IRE panels I saw last week

• Texas Tribune’s ongoing coverage of data centers in Texas

• A Small Oil Company Polluted Midland’s Water Reserve. The Cleanup Has Dragged on for Years (Martha Pskowski at Inside Climate News)

• Her Son Died of a Rare Bone Cancer. Could Radioactive Fracking Waste Be to Blame? (Justin Nobel in Rolling Stone)

• These hidden rules reveal how California insurers undercut wildfire claims, leaving families in damaged homes (Susie Neilson and Megan Fan Munce at the SF Chronicle)