Interior Secretary Ken Salazar dropped some hints Wednesday about his long-awaited policy on offshore oil-and-gas drilling in federal waters, which he hopes to announce later this month.

Salazar said Interior’s next five-year offshore leasing plan will run from 2012-2017, rather than upending the current 2007-2012 program.

That’s interesting because the Bush administration, on its way out the door, had proposed a draft 2010-2015 plan that would promote oil-and-gas development in large areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts (among other expansions).

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday denied GOP accusations and vowed to work with Congress on conservation.

Four Senate Democrats want the Treasury Department to prevent a key renewable energy program in the 2009 stimulus law from supporting foreign wind turbine manufacturing, or halt the program until legislation passes that achieves the same thing.

The senators are pushing new legislation that would modify the grant program to ensure it supports only renewable power projects that use U.S.-made materials, and create the bulk of their jobs here.

“We believe Treasury has the discretion to consider domestic job preservation and creation when distributing Section 1603 grants for wind and other clean energy projects,” states a Tuesday letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Robert Casey (D-Penn.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.).

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson blasted an effort in Congress to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.

Climate scientists have been taking it on the chin of late. “Climategate” controversy of hacked emails from a leading climate research institution and errors in a U.N. climate report have weakened the public’s belief that humans are causing global warming.

Now the scientists are standing up to their tormentors and preparing to fight back.

“It’s clear that the climate science community was just not prepared for the scale and ferocity of the attacks and they simply have not responded swiftly and appropriately,” Peter C. Frumhoff, an ecologist and chief scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells the New York Times.

Democrats are generally happier with EPA under President Obama than former President Bush, but there are still flare-ups.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday said the agency is dragging its feet on imposing new restrictions on the plastics additive bisphenol-A, or BPA, which has been linked to developmental problems in children.

“As the author of the Senate bill that seeks to ban the chemical from children’s products, I strongly believe our government should err on the side of caution and deploy the most safeguards possible against the potentially harmful effects of BPA. In light of the serious risks posed by exposure to this chemical, the EPA’s decision to postpone action on BPA does not seem to convey the proper sense of urgency,” Schumer wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is floating $6 billion legislation to create a consumer rebate program for home energy efficiency upgrades.

The idea is a White House priority and President Obama touted it in a speech Tuesday.

Bingaman said he hoped to move quickly to launch “Home Star,” which is aimed at boosting the construction, manufacturing and home-improvement retailing sectors while saving energy.

House Republican leaders, following in the footsteps of two Democratic chairmen, introduced a measure on Tuesday to block EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Joe Barton (R-Texas), along with 84 other Republicans, signed on to a congressional “resolution of disapproval” to prevent EPA from using the Clean Air Act to force emissions reductions.

“Congress has the right to act on this and has an obligation to speak and we’re going to work with our Democratic colleagues to try to generate enough support in the House” for the resolution, Boehner said.

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The Senate trio trying to salvage climate legislation this year plans to begin circulating details of their long-awaited proposal very soon, said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the architects of the measure.

“Hopefully within a week or so we will have at least a detailed narrative to share,” Lieberman told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday afternoon.

Lieberman and Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)  discussed their plan for over an hour with a group of colleagues in the Capitol Tuesday.