This story is made possible through a partnership between Grist and The Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories.

Rick Wheatley owns a property with about 80 acres in Nebraska...

The Republicans who dominate Utah’s politics — from the legislature to the governor’s mansion — are aggressively pursuing nuclear power, but a problem that had confounded fission supporters over the last century lingers: what to do with all the dangerous waste. Now the state is exploring whether to become a solution — by storing nuclear waste in the massive salt deposit in Mi...

In January, the Trump administration announced that it had completed its dismantling of yet another Biden-era climate program. This time, the target was the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, which Democrats had injected with over $400 billion to support ambitious new clean energy projects. 

The Biden administration pursued climate policy primarily by...

Illinois is in the midst of a public health crisis. Nearly 1.5 million service lines — the pipes that carry drinking water to homes and businesses — contain or are suspected to contain lead, a neurotoxin linked to cognitive, reproductive, and cardiovascular problems.

Now, public health and workforce advocates want to turn the state’s long-overdue pipe replacement ba...

When a package arrives at your door, it has likely traveled through a chain of ports, railyards and warehouses throughout the state. All those ships, trains and trucks leave behind a trail of diesel exhaust as they go, driving some of the highest asthma rates in communities.

For decades, state and federal regulators have tried to clean that up. Now much of their au...