Articles by Grist staff

Nema-toads

A federal appeals court upheld a Vermont law last week requiring manufacturers to label items that contain mercury. The 1998 law, the first of its kind in the United States, was challenged by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association on behalf of companies that produce fluorescent light bulbs containing mercury. NEMA argued that labeling the products […]

I Want to Be an Army Rearranger

Measures designed to protect the remaining wetlands in the U.S. could be substantially weakened by a new U.S. Army Corps of Engineers policy, environmentalists and federal officials warn. A recent Corps letter outlines a retreat from a decade-old policy, instituted under George Bush the Elder, stating that the country’s total amount of wetlands cannot decrease. […]

States of Disgrace

New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont may postpone for four years a requirement that automakers increase sales of electric cars to improve air quality. Two years ago, the states adopted California’s standard, which mandates that by next year, 8 percent of cars sold must be much cleaner than current cars and another 2 percent must be […]

Morocco On!

As day broke on Saturday, delegates in Marrakech, Morocco, reached an 11th-hour agreement on the rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The agreement, which was the culmination of a two-week conference and four previous years of tough negotiations, mandates an average global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 5.2 percent from 1990 […]