Articles by Grist staff

Creative Problem Solving

Bush Administration Abandons EPA Pesticide Review Rule Say you’re a U.S. EPA official, and you’ve got a problem: Several enviro groups have accused your agency of skirting the rules that require you to have wildlife agencies review new pesticides to determine if they pose a threat to endangered species. One such group, the Center for […]

Particle Board

U.K. Nanotech Study Panel Urges Caution A publicly funded scientific panel in the U.K. convened to study the dangers and benefits of nanotechnology — the manipulation of particles less than 100 nanometers (0.0001 millimeters) in diameter — issued its report yesterday, and the results are, well, ambiguous. The scientists at Royal Society and Royal Academy […]

I Got Mine

Unprecedented Number of Drilling Permits Issued by Feds Last year, the Bureau of Land Management issued some 4,000 oil and natural-gas drilling permits; this federal fiscal year it’s on track to issue a record 6,000. This startling jump, which BLM geologist Richard Watson called “unprecedented in the history of the BLM,” is due almost entirely, […]

A bold lawsuit may have utilities reconsidering their fight against regs

A coal-fired power plant. Photo: U.S. Geological Survey. It may have sounded like the understatement of the year when a lawsuit was filed last week against five major U.S. energy companies, alleged to be among the biggest global-warming culprits in the nation, on the legal grounds that they’re causing a “public nuisance.” In reality it […]