The Treasury Department is marking Earth Day by announcing plans to reduce paper use by millions of pounds.

Sharing expanded offshore drilling revenue with coastal states could devastate the Treasury, say three senior Democrats. 

The Senate's leading climate skeptic says legislation has so little political traction it would only win 26 votes.

* New course on energy depends on carbon cap

President Barack Obama is charting a new course by marrying energy and environmental policy, according to the Christian Science Monitor. But he'll have to do more to sustain a shift away from fossil fuels -- namely pass a cap on carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases.

"Even as health care dominated the news, Obama energy czar Carol Browner – working with the departments of Interior, Energy, and Transportation – has established a new, unified energy-and-environment policy," according to the Monitor.

The accomplishments include the $90 billion in stimulus money for renewable and other green energy development, EPA’s endangerment finding that allows it to regulate greenhouse gases, and new car fuel efficiency standards.

The State Department on Sunday opens a two-day meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, a multilateral group that has gained political cachet as a vehicle for progress on climate following last year’s messy UN summit in Copenhagen.

The 17-member group includes China, the U.S., the European Union, Russia, India, Brazil and others. Its members together account for over three-fourths of global greenhouse gas emissions.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the meeting will be led by Todd Stern, who is State’s special climate envoy, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs Michael Froman.

President Barack Obama called it the next big item on the Senate agenda after Wall Street reform.

The eruption of Iceland’s Mt. Eyjafjallajökull that is snarling air travel across Europe is too small thus far to cool down the Earth, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Volcanic ash can cause temporary cooling – the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines did just that for a few years – but the Icelandic volcano’s eruption is "too small to significantly affect the climate," UCS said Friday.

The group appeared to preemptively criticize climate change skeptics, who argue that human activities cannot drive global temperatures, and other opponents of greenhouse gas emissions curbs.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday called for “scrutiny” of mine safety laws following the fatal April 5 explosion at a West Virginia coal mine, but did not commit the chamber to new legislation.

“Right now, under the Obama Administration, there has been a change, and it is much more worker and safety oriented, and we must again subject the regulations, the laws to scrutiny; but also the behavior of the mine owners and their regard or disregard of the laws and regulations to protect the miners,” Pelosi said when asked whether Congress needs to bolster regulators’ ability to enforce safety standards.

Her comment is more cautious than remarks by some other lawmakers -- and President Barack Obama -- about the need for new legislation.

President Barack Obama on Friday launched a new outdoor recreation and conservation program, and in the process admitted he won’t measure up to former President and famed outdoorsman Theodore Roosevelt.

Obama signed a memorandum creating the interagency America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, which is aimed at reconnecting Americans – especially kids – to parks, forests and other conservation areas. It is also aimed at boosting conservation of land and wildlife by building on state, local and other efforts.

Obama lauded Roosevelt – who he noted was an avid birdwatcher and bear hunter – for creating many national parks, forests and monuments.