Articles by Grist staff

Why Bush’s water-bill veto was actually a good idea

Michael Grunwald, senior correspondent for

He was the toast of Congress earlier this year, but yesterday Bush was less popular.

Photo: whitehouse.gov

Hooray! The Everglades and coastal Louisana have been rescued! Activists and politicians alike are giddy over the news that Congress overwhelmingly overrode President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act yesterday. The override authorizes $5 billion worth of new Army Corps of Engineers projects for the dying Everglades and the devastated Louisiana coast, plus another $18 billion worth of new projects for the rest of the country. It was the first veto override of the Bush era, an unprecedented bipartisan rebuke to an anti-environmental White House. The Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, and the National Parks Conservation Association are celebrating. So are the elected officials of Florida and Louisiana, even Bush-friendly Republicans like Senators Mel Martinez and David Vitter.

You'd think I'd be fired up, too. I wrote a book about the plight of the Everglades. I wrote an angry Time Magazine cover story about the plight of coastal Louisiana. I hold no brief for the global warming denier in the White House.

But this time, Bush was right.

Simon & Schuster joins the ranks of greener publishers

Random House has done it. Scholastic has done it. Even a publisher of the Bible is going green. So hey, Simon & Schuster: welcome aboard! The publisher, which counts such notables as Stephen King and Ursula Hegi among its authors, has committed to increasing its recycled-paper content from the current 10 percent to 25 percent […]

Congress squabbles over how to spend oil fund … that doesn’t exist

There are plenty of reasons we’re glad we aren’t members of Congress. Tops among them? Having to argue, with a straight face, about who’s misspending money that doesn’t exist. This year, four different bills have each proposed spending $6 billion that’s expected to be collected from oil companies. The money would result from a fee […]

California sues feds over vehicle-emissions rule

After months of tough talk and finger-wagging, the state of California on Thursday filed suit against the U.S. EPA to force a decision on a contentious greenhouse-gas emissions rule. At issue is whether California can enact its own regulations for vehicle emissions, bypassing the feds; it filed a waiver in late 2005 asking for permission […]