Lawless Planet

With the arrival of the second Trump administration, many employees at the Environmental Protection Agency have felt like they’re under attack – from their own boss. Under its new chief Lee Zeldin, the EPA has slashed budgets, programs, and staff, all in the name of what Zeldin calls rooting out “waste, fraud, and abuse” and “driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” On this episode, we talk to EPA insiders about how the cuts have impacted their lives and careers, and the programs they care so passionately about.
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Don Blankenship grew up poor in the heart of West Virginia coal country, but rose to become a union-busting CEO with a track record prioritizing profits over safety. For decades, he operated with seeming impunity, even as his company, Massey Energy, spilled toxic coal slurry into local waterways, and its miners died in preventable accidents. Then, in 2010, a disaster too big to ignore finally brought Blankenship down. But what does his long career reveal about an industry that the Trump administration is trying to revitalize?

Sources:
Peter A. Galuszka's book Thunder on the Mountain: Death at Massey and the Dirty Secrets Behind Big Coal
Sludge documentary
Mine War on Blackberry Creek documentary
CBS’s 60 Minutes report “From inmate to candidate: Who is Don Blankenship?”
Jeff Goodell’s Rolling Stone article “Don Blankenship: The Dark Lord of Coal”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/don-blankenship-the-dark-lord-of-coal-country-184288/
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In July 1979, just months after a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island gripped the nation, the largest radioactive spill in U.S. history quietly unfolded on a Navajo reservation in Church Rock, New Mexico — and almost no one noticed. A dam at a uranium mine tailings pond burst, causing 94 million gallons of toxic waste to flood a nearby river, poisoning the water, livestock, and people. Through the eyes of an activist who worked at the mine, we reveal how decades of corporate cover-ups and government indifference turned the ‘yellow dirt’ on America's largest Native reservation into something dangerous.

Featured in this episode:
Larry King

Sources:
Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed by Judy Pasternak
The River that Harms documentary
Marley Shebala’s Navajo Times article “Poison in the earth” https://navajotimes.com/news/2009/0709/072309uranium.php

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On New Year’s Eve 2024, an Uber driver named Jonathan Rinderknecht allegedly started a fire in the Pacific Palisades. The fire was quickly contained, but it lingered on underground as a “zombie fire.” Days later, fueled by Santa Ana Winds, it exploded into the Palisades Fire, the most destructive conflagration in Los Angeles history. A second fire, ignited just hours later, destroyed much of neighboring Altadena. In the aftermath, angry residents wanted accountability – but who is to blame for a fire when the earth is now a tinderbox?

Featured in this episode:
Brad Weisshaupt, LA County Fire Department
Traci Park, LA City Council
India Bradley
Nic Arnzen, Altadena Town Council
Daniel Swain, University of California

Sources:
The Los Angeles Times
KTLA 5 News
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Chemical manufacturers like DuPont and 3M have invented nearly 15,000 synthetic compounds called PFAS, better known as “forever chemicals” because of how slowly they break down. They’re in the soil, our food, even our bodies. When the towns of Parkersburg, West Virginia and Hoosick Falls, New York found PFAS in their water supply, they fought to hold the chemical companies accountable – and exposed just how long DuPont scientists had known about the risks.

Featured in this episode:
Mariah Blake

Sources:
This episode relied heavily on the new book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals, by Mariah Blake
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554198/they-poisoned-the-world-by-mariah-blake/

And Ms. Blake’s 2015 article in the HuffPost Highline, “Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia: Home to one of the most brazen, deadly corporate gambits in U.S. history”
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful-parkersburg/
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