Articles by Grist staff

Free-range Checking

The Sante Fe group Forest Guardians is hoping to raise $1 million to boot cattle from thousands of state-owned acres in Arizona and New Mexico. In late November, the group won a case before Arizona’s Supreme Court that ended a state policy of allowing only ranchers to lease state school trust land, which includes about […]

ANWR Sedated

The latest attempt by U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling tanked yesterday when almost the entire Senate (including Murkowski!) voted against it. Working with Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Murkowski had hoped to tag the GOP energy bill and a separate anti-human-cloning bill on to an […]

Take That Back

Maryland yesterday became the first state to lose the authority to enforce federal clean air laws. The loss is the result of the state’s failure to act on a U.S. EPA order to create more public participation in the industrial permit application process. Under Maryland law, only the owners of property abutting an industrial polluter […]

Pulling Back the Rains

A single rainstorm can whisk 10,000 tons of dirt and grit and millions of pounds of toxics and nutrient pollution into the Chesapeake Bay. Officials from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia are unveiling plans today to rein in rain-related pollution problems, in the first major restoration effort they’ve announced since pledging well […]