"The Senate passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s food safety system on Tuesday, after tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach sickened thousands of people in the last few years and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight."

"Old splits between rich and poor nations re-emerged on Tuesday over a plan to slow global warming, but both sides maintained a 'balanced package' is the goal of U.N. talks in Mexico."

"A coalition of 20 environmental groups took to the airwaves today in their escalating pushback against a $7 billion Canadian oil sands pipeline, launching a two-week ad campaign urging President Obama to 'prevent the next oil disaster' by rejecting a permit for the project."

"The New York State Assembly voted 93 to 43 Monday night to place a temporary moratorium on a controversial type of natural gas exploration that combines hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling."

"Subsidies and tariffs to promote domestic ethanol production are “fiscally irresponsible and environmentally unwise” and should be ended, a bipartisan group of United States senators declared in a letter to the chamber’s leaders on Tuesday."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday levied a $300,000 fine against a toxic waste dump near a Central California farming community plagued by birth defects for failing to properly manage carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs."

"Republicans plotting their offensive against the Obama administration’s environmental policies are eyeing a powerful weapon that would force the Democratic-held Senate to schedule votes on nullifying controversial regulations."

"A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the destruction of plantings of genetically modified sugar beets developed by Monsanto Co after ruling previously the U.S. Agriculture Department illegally approved the biotech crop."

"Spurred by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Goldman and his wife, Rhoda, started the prize in 1989 to recognize grass-roots environmental activists and organizers with an annual award that has grown to $150,000." He died Monday in San Francisco.

"The Obama administration leaned heavily on Saudi Arabia to associate itself with the Copenhagen Accord climate change agreement, confidential State Department memos show."