Articles by Grist staff

Down on the Farm

California’s budget crisis could wind up spurring sprawl. With the state tens of billions of dollars in the red, Gov. Gray Davis (D) is hoping to cut the $39 million per year that the state spends on the Williamson Act, which lets farmers pay lower taxes as long as they pledge to keep their land […]

Ready, Aim…

At least three and as many as nine oil wells were burning yesterday in Iraq’s Rumaila oil field, just north of the Kuwait border. News of the fires caused an abrupt spike in global oil prices, but the market settled down after Bush administration officials said the damage appeared to be limited. The Rumaila field […]

Wish Granite

Communities across New Hampshire are invoking the state’s Land and Community Heritage Investment Act to preserve open spaces, even though state funding for land conservation and historic preservation faces extreme pressure from a ballooning budget crisis. Under the terms of the act, New Hampshire matches local conservation funding efforts with state money — an offer […]

Wolfowitz at the Door

As part of the Defense Department’s ongoing effort to exempt the U.S. military from environmental regulations, the Pentagon’s Paul Wolfowitz has called on military service heads to provide examples of situations in which President Bush should invoke national security to trump eco-protections by fiat. In a memo to the chiefs of the Armed Forces, Wolfowitz, […]