Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Friday that the Congressional Record will be printed on 100 percent recycled paper, calling it a “long overdue— step to save an estimated 1.4 million pounds of greenhouse gases every year.“It puts the proceedings of Congress on recycled paper,— she said, “and that is good for our environment and good for our country.—The Government Printing Office prints 4,130 copies of the record every day, totaling 2.2 million pounds of paper each year. Public Printer Robert Tapella said switching to recycled paper is only the first step in a long-term plan to make Congress’ printing plant more environmentally friendly. The next step: The Federal Register will also be printed on recycled paper.The GPO’s efforts fall under Pelosi’s Green the Capitol Initiative, which aims to make the House as close to carbon-neutral as possible. Switching to recycled paper won’t cost the GPO any more money, Tapella said; the cost is exactly the same as the nonrecyclable paper used before.At a news conference Friday, Pelosi reminisced about the piles of Congressional Records that her father, then a Congressman, would bring home when she was a child. Her mother, she said, would use them to reinforce the beds of her brothers, who were prone to jumping on their mattresses.“And you know,— she said as she held the new recycled record, “it looks and feels the same way it did all those many years ago.—