"Calls from consumer advocates and politicians are growing louder for the Obama administration to name an undersecretary for food safety at the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, a position unfilled for more than a year."

The GOP gain of the formerly Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts is seen by some as diminishing the chances for a cap-and-trade climate bill in the Senate.

"Five years after former President George W. Bush’s administration first proposed allowing fish farming in federal waters, the Obama administration is set to come up with its own set of rules for offshore aquaculture, including deepwater fish farming."

"As awareness of environmental concerns has grown, therapists say they are seeing a rise in bickering between couples and family members over the extent to which they should change their lives to save the planet."

"Just as millions head to tanning beds to prepare for spring break, the Food and Drug Administration will be debating how to toughen warnings that those sunlamps pose a cancer risk. Yes, sunburns are particularly dangerous."

"More than two decades after parents dumped apples from children's lunch boxes because of concerns about a chemical applied to the fruit, most researchers agree the crop is safer although most of it still carries pesticide residue."

"TVA's new spokesman — brought in to help rehab its credibility after the coal ash disaster — was enmeshed at his previous job at NASA in a Bush administration controversy in which climate change scientists said they were censored."

"Federal investigators are significantly narrowing the scope of their probe of the Bayer CropScience Institute plant as a result of the company's plan to reduce its stockpile of the deadly chemical methyl isocyanate."

As early as Wednesday, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) may offer her controversial amendment freezing EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Her motives for doing so may rise from a quest for power in a hamstrung Senate.

"The League of Conservation Voters on Thursday launched a $350,000 ad blitz for the Massachusetts special election that accuses Republican candidate Scott Brown of supporting 'Bush-Cheney policies' on energy."