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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.

Too many children die as the result of abuse and neglect. The hard truth is that no one is working hard to count how many of them, or what’s behind outcomes that may be largely preventable.
A big slice of Inflation Reduction Act funding comes with a mandate to help underserved communities. Cincinnati is already delivering on the promise.
A new city office focused on homeless services has given a boost to programs to help the unhoused in New Orleans.
A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute finds that a significant majority of religious Americans think abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
Bringing fiber infrastructure to rural areas is expensive and time consuming. Wise County, Texas, found a way to deliver high-speed Internet access without wires.
Organic waste in landfills is a major source of methane emissions. Orange County, Calif., is making progress in diverting it.
The court is considering whether criminal penalties for sleeping in public places amount to cruel and unusual punishment. But no ruling on the issues before the high court will change the nature or scope of the problem.
A variety of factors make Latinos less likely to have health insurance, including language barriers, types of occupations and immigration status. Coverage problems extend well beyond undocumented individuals.
Recent events highlight the fact that water systems are targets for cyber attacks. There are ways of strengthening defenses at little to no cost, but more needs to be done to implement them.
Detection of avian flu in dairy cows and one sick worker don’t add up to imminent danger for lots of people. But public health officials say the threat shouldn't be taken lightly.