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Carl Smith

Senior Staff Writer

Carl Smith is a senior staff writer for Governing and covers a broad range of issues affecting states and localities. For the past 30 years, Carl has written about education and the environment for peer-reviewed papers, magazines and online publications, with a special focus on conservation and sustainability. He has guest-edited special issues of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health focused on the Precautionary Principle and the human rights dimensions of environmental degradation. Carl attended the University of Texas and the University of Georgia. He can be reached at carl.smith@governing.com or on Twitter at @governingwriter.

Deepfake images and videos are just one way AI could disrupt the upcoming election. Experts are highlighting risks that could cause bigger problems and helping election officials prepare for them.
A bipartisan group of more than 350 mayors has committed to ambitious targets for fleet electrification and charging infrastructure.
This nonprofit model for increasing affordable housing supply is seeing success in convincing socially motivated investors to accept lower rates of return on rental units.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes tax credits that reimburse governments for clean energy investments. New online resources make the program more understandable and accessible.
Mark Twain famous aphorism, “History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” reminds us that while exact circumstances may be unique, patterns do in fact repeat. That is true meteorologically this year as the U.S. navigates through another summer of extreme weather.
Budgeting sets the course for what government will and will not do. An initiative from the Government Finance Officers Association is designed to help long-term planning and foster public trust in a “new normal” of uncertainty.
The national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is two years old. Americans know it’s there, but not many know what it does.
Regardless of the continuing partisan debates about climate change, Republican-led states are benefiting economically from clean energy investments.
There are penal provisions in every state’s election codes. Most officers don’t know that they exist.
The court’s recent ruling prompted concern in some quarters that police could become the primary face of homeless response. But some chiefs worry they’re caught in the middle of societal problems they aren’t equipped to handle.