Washington Post hires WSJ reporter Puko

Washington Post climate and environment editor Zachary Goldfarb and climate and environment deputy editor Juliet Eilperin sent out the following on Monday:

We are delighted to announce that Tim Puko will join The Post as a climate correspondent covering politics and policy.

In this key role, Tim will lead coverage of the Biden administration and write about how influential figures in Washington and around the world make decisions about climate and environmental policy.

Tim joins us from the Wall Street Journal, where he has been reporting on energy and climate policy in Washington since 2017. He has closely covered the nation’s oil lobby, greenhouse-gas regulations, and the geopolitics of oil and minerals. His memorable scoops have revealed behind-the-scenes fights between industry titans and Republican lawmakers, the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle methane regulations, and the Biden administration’s struggles with energy security and high prices. Previously, he covered energy markets for the Journal in New York.

Tim has been reporting on energy and climate change for more than a decade, spending the first half of his career at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, where he chronicled how Marcellus Shale was changing his home state of Pennsylvania — before it changed the rest of the world. He was the paper’s reporter of the year in 2011 and a three-time winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’ award for environmental reporter of the year in Pennsylvania.

Tim, who grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKeesport and has journalism degrees from Northwestern and Columbia, recently moved to Brookland with his girlfriend and two cats. Despite now being fully settled in Washington, he says he remains frustrated that there are no legitimate bowling alleys closer than Gaithersburg, and he’s 100 percent committed to over-clapping for the Steelers at every opportunity forever.