Anna M. Phillips

Washington, D.C.

National Climate Change Reporter at The Washington Post

National climate reporter @washingtonpost // Story ideas, tips [email protected]

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Articles

Insurance adjusters say they were pressured to cut payouts after hurricanes

3 weeks ago | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips |Theodoric Meyer

Insurance adjusters say they were pressured to cut payouts after hurricanes (washingtonpost.com) Insurance adjusters say they were pressured to cut payouts after hurricanes By Anna Phillips; Theodoric Meyer 2025051318000000 Storm victims and insurance adjusters appeared before a congressional committee Tuesday, where they detailed what they said are aggressive tactics used by the insurance industry to limit payouts to policyholders after Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the Southeast this...
Schools are digging underground for their heat — and saving money

3 weeks ago | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips

Schools are digging underground for their heat — and saving money (washingtonpost.com) Schools are digging underground for their heat — and saving money By Anna Phillips 2025051211002400 Like much of New England, the public schools in New Bedford, Massachusetts, have burned heating oil and natural gas for decades to keep their buildings warm through long, cold winters. But that is beginning to change.
Texas was once affordable. After hail and hurricanes, not anymore.

1 month ago | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips

Texas was once affordable. After hail and hurricanes, not anymore. (washingtonpost.com) Texas was once affordable. After hail and hurricanes, not anymore. By Anna Phillips 2025042110002000 When Bob Dempsey began shopping for a new home insurance policy last summer, he did not think of his neighborhood as prone to dangerous weather. His two-story brick home in the Houston suburb of Clear Lake is not directly on the water.
Oil CEOs ask Trump for help fighting climate Superfund laws

2 months ago | washingtonpost.com | Maxine Joselow |Anna M. Phillips

At the White House last week, the nation’s top oil executives asked President Donald Trump for help fighting state laws that seek billions of dollars from fossil fuel companies. In Michigan, a group with ties to the fossil fuel industry is suing to obtain the emails of a professor who supports these laws. And in North Dakota, the oil company that operates the Dakota Access pipeline last week won a $667 million defamation judgment in its suit against an environmental group.
1 in 10 Californians now face extreme fire danger, Post analysis shows

2 months ago | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips |John Muyskens |Naema Ahmed |Brady Dennis

One in 8Californians now live in places at risk for the kinds of devastating wildfires that tore through Los Angeles this winter, according to a Washington Post analysis of state fire maps released Monday. The maps, drawn by Cal Fire, the state’s forestry and fire protection agency, revealthe threat from wildfire is greater than previous state estimates showed.
Greenpeace ordered to pay Dakota Access Pipeline operator hundreds of millions in defamation suit

2 months ago | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips

Greenpeace must pay the oil company that operates the Dakota Access Pipeline hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for defaming them, a North Dakota jury decided Wednesday — a massive financial blow to the group that environmentalists say could chill future climate advocacy.
Your grass-fed burger isn’t better for the planet, new study finds

2 months ago | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips

For years, ranchers and some conservationists have argued that grass-fed beef is better for the planet than conventional cattle. But a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences challenges that idea, finding that cattle raised only on pastures do not have a smaller carbon footprint than feedlot cattle, which are quickly fattened on corn and other grains.
The surprising way conservative states are responding to climate change

Mar 3, 2025 | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips

Hurricanes were getting stronger. Rising insurance premiums were hitting homeowners hard. Afraid that Alabama’s coast was staring down a crisis, the state’s leaders took a bet: In 2016, they began handing out millions of dollars to help people put stronger roofs on their homes. The gamble paid off four years later, when a Category 2 hurricane slammed into the state. By then, thousands of Alabama residents had installed roofs designed specifically to survive high winds, known as fortified roofs.
These L.A. homeowners had coverage for fire. But not for the toxins left behind.

Feb 21, 2025 | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips

Armed with an industrial hygienist’s report showing that the fires that blazed through Los Angeles last month had filled his home with toxic ash and soot, Damian Horan filed a claim with his insurance company and waited for help. He had paid for smoke damage coverage as part of his policy with the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort.
California’s insurer of last resort runs out of money to pay L.A. fire claims

Feb 11, 2025 | washingtonpost.com | Anna M. Phillips

California’s home insurance plan of last resort has run out of money to pay the wave of claims stemming from the Los Angeles fires and will receive a bailout of $1 billion, state regulators announced Tuesday. The decision to grant the plan’s request for a cash infusion comes in the aftermath of two of the most destructive fires in the state’s history, which destroyed roughly 6,800 structures in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and about 9,400 in the suburb of Altadena last month.