Congress will begin printing the Congressional Record on recycled paper, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday.
This will definitely save a few trees as the Government Printing Office churns out 4,130 copies of the record every day. Pelosi says the move will reduce landfill waste and cut out 1.4 million pounds of pollution annually. The record includes every single word spoken on the floor of the House and Senate the prior day.
In making the announcement, Pelosi recalled how copies of the Congressional Record were stashed under her brothers’ beds so her father, five-term Democratic congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., could read them.
” I had five older brothers and they used to jump on the beds and break the springs but the Congressional Record was there, and it was not only our library, but a way to have the beds be more sound.”
This is part of Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” project that Republicans have criticized. For instance the GOP says it will take years to recover the $1 million cost of a project
now underway to relight the Capitol dome with energy-efficient bulbs. They have also criticized Pelosi for spending $90,000 in federal dollars to purchase controversial carbon offsets.
