Alex Brown

Alex Brown

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Alex Brown covers environmental issues for Stateline, reporting from Washington state. Prior to joining Stateline, Brown wrote for The Chronicle in Lewis County, Washington state. He’s won awards for investigative reporting and feature writing from the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association. In 2017, Brown thru-hiked the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, which traverses mountain ranges from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. He previously was a congressional correspondent for National Journal, where he covered energy and environment, technology and campaigns. Brown graduated from Union University and is a native of Michigan.

Travelers move through Salt City Lake International Airport in Salt Lake City on Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps/Utah News Dispatch)
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop for all flights in the United States on Friday due to communication problems. Air space opened up again at about 8:15 p.m. Eastern, officials said in in a White House briefing...
States are counting on battery farms. Some towns don’t want them.
SNOQUALMIE, Wash. — In the race to meet the nation’s growing power demands, states and utilities are rapidly building new “battery farms” that can store energy for when customers need it most. But as the facilities grow, so too does...
Voters across the country reject data centers
In local elections across the country, Americans voted overwhelmingly to restrict the buildout of data centers in their communities. As of Friday, 44 ballot measures to restrict data centers were passed by voters and two held significant leads in ongoing...
Bear killings skyrocket as garbage, birdfeeders draw them into conflict
Bears are having a very bad year. Across much of the United States, a warm winter and persistent drought have decimated the natural foods that black and brown bears rely on. With nearly every station at the buffet in short...
Data center backlash set to sway midterm elections
In the course of a single election cycle, the backlash against data centers has grown from an issue at local planning commission and city council meetings to become a flashpoint in state and federal races across the country. Candidates who...
With election pressure mounting, states move to suspend fuel taxes
With Election Day less than a month away, lawmakers in several states are suspending gas taxes or rolling back regulations on diesel fuel as voters grow increasingly frustrated with rising fuel costs amid President Donald Trump’s war with Iran. On...
States OK solar panels for balconies. Safety guidelines haven’t caught up.
Over the past year and a half, a dozen states have embraced a new vision for solar power: small, cheap panels that can be hung from a balcony or porch, be plugged into a standard wall outlet and take a...
States file new lawsuits against Trump’s payouts stopping offshore wind
An eight-state coalition filed lawsuits Tuesday challenging the Trump administration’s payments to private companies to cancel offshore wind leases, escalating an ongoing legal battle over the government spending billions of dollars to block wind projects. Attorneys general from eight East...
Trump administration says developers, loggers can kill endangered species
The Trump administration’s top wildlife official issued a directive last week that expands a recent rollback of endangered species protections much further than the feds had told the public. Individuals and industries may kill endangered animals in the course of...
States sue feds over endangered species rollbacks
A coalition of state attorneys general filed a pair of lawsuits Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s rollbacks of protections for endangered species. The lawsuits, filed by 20 states and the District of Columbia, seek to reinstate rules that protect the...
FEMA is off the chopping block. But disaster aid is still a guessing game.
State leaders are breathing a sigh of relief that the Trump administration’s threats to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency have subsided. But experts say there’s still confusion about President Donald Trump’s decisions to approve or deny disaster declarations, leaving...
Judge blocks New York’s ‘climate Superfund’ law as other states watch closely
A federal judge ruled Monday that New York cannot enforce its landmark “climate Superfund” law, a measure that sought to charge fossil fuel companies $75 billion over 25 years to help the state deal with the costs of climate change...