Diana Taylor, Mayor Bloomberg, Secretary Solis at the 2009 WHCD.

Nevertheless, there will be plenty of recycling going on as the WHCA Dinner goes green for the first time in its 96-year history. All thanks to an effort headed up by Ed Chen, the outgoing President of the WHCA and Senior White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News. Chen reached out to former colleague Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, to see how the ecological footprint of the event could be reduced.

Hershkowitz and the NRDC, a non-partisan environmental organization, have worked with even larger events before: the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards, and the Major League Baseball World Series championships, to name a few. Yet, with a room full of top political and business decision makers, as well as Hollywood elites, the WHCA Dinner could potentially trump them all as a showcase for practical, ecologically intelligent practices.

“Can you imagine a better place to get the message out about greening?” asks Hershkowitz. “The cultural resonance of this event is substantial.”

Hershkowitz says every detail was reviewed with an eye towards reducing environment impacts, and there was no detail too small. From printing all programs and tickets to the event on 100 percent post-consumer recycled content paper to renting the Red Carpet to distributing uneaten meals to the Washington D.C. Central Kitchen, every decision had a purpose.

“Hopefully this will be seen and nobody will notice anything different. They’ll learn about the initiative in the program, but hopefully people will have as much fun and be as comfortable,” says Hershkowitz.

The NRDC worked closely with the staff at the Washington Hilton Hotel to coordinate the greening efforts.  If you’re parched and are looking for water, don’t expect to reach for a plastic bottle: filtered water will be served in glassware. Should you sneak your own container in, however, there will be recycling bins provided.

And gentlemen, if you’re so inclined, check out the newly installed waterless urinals in the men’s bathrooms. Hershkowitz says he worked with the Staples Center in Los Angeles to install waterless urinals, and they save seven million gallons of water a year.

“Water scarcity is going to rival sea level,” says Hershkowitz, “we should not be flushing drinking water down the toilet.”

Don’t worry ladies, you’ll be doing your part to save the environment: the bathroom tissue contains a minimum of 20 percent post-consumer recycled content.

The WHCA went a step beyond waste reduction and recycling, and took a look at how to offset the carbon generated by travel and the event itself. They worked with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to purchase renewable energy carbon offsets generated by the jet used by host Jay Leno to and from California, as well as, the Presidential motorcade.

Pat Nye, Vice President of the Climate Business Group at the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, says “offsetting the energy use for this dinner and related travel equals about the same impacts as offsetting the electricity for one game of the World Series.”

That’s about 62 metric tons of carbon dioxide; about the amount of power used by six average US homes in one year. The renewable energy purchased on behalf of the WHCA is from the Tatanka Wind Farm on the border of North and South Dakota.

Hershkowitz is hopeful the changes will resonate with the several thousand revelers:

“Everybody has to do something to address the ecological problems that we face. We don’t have to wait for a law in Washington to pass before we take action to address global warming. That’s the message of this dinner. We have to all take responsibility. There’s no action too small to be helpful. Every action is helpful.”

There’s still time to set up that carpool.

And this year there’s no tougher act to follow than his own for Jay Leno, just months into his second stint as the host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show” after a much-publicized tussle between the peacock network, Leno and Conan O’Brien.

So The Hill gathered some advice for the funny man from some fellow comedians as he preps for his hosting duties.

The Senior White House Correspondent has honchoed the Press Corps during the transition into a new administration. Recently, Chen and several colleagues sat down with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and White House staffers to discuss grievances from both sides of the table.

“We had a mutual exchange and we worked out a lot of issues, and cleared the air. And I think things will get better, especially from our perspective, with greater press access,” said Chen.

Speaking of sitting down, Chen has offered his seat in the press room for a day to Lloyd Grove whose recent article in The Daily Beast questioned whether social media like Twitter and YouTube would be the end of reporting from the White House as we know it.

Ed Chen at the White House from whcinsider on Vimeo.

Tracey Ullman does research for her Showtime series "State of the Union" at the 2008 Garden Brunch. Here with Hilary Rosen and Ed & Wendy Schultz.

We’re heading into the homestretch, ready to slide into a weekend full of brunches and screenings, and oh yeah, a little thing called the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Oh, my!

The jostling for tickets and guests to bring to the WHCA Dinner has been going on for months. As WHC Insider’s Tammy Haddad told Annie Groer in Politics Daily:

“It’s become a competition about who can get the better ‘get,’ ” said Tammy Haddad, a former producer for Chris Matthews and Larry King and thus no stranger to megawatt wrangling. “Journalists are very competitive and there are very few times they get to go head to head, like at a political convention.” The dinner, she said, gives these multiplatform media rivals a perfect showcase “to bring in someone of interest to draw attention to the work they are doing.”

To read the full article click here.

Members of these groups also gathered last month to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD), a special day set aside to reflect on the achievements of women around the world and for leaders to strategize new ways to help women in the social, economic, and political arenas. Next year marks the centenary celebration of International Women’s Day.

A dinner took place in Washington, DC with members of Mothers Day Every Day and the ONE campaign which used IWD to launch a new initiative called Women ONE2ONE. The goal is to increase opportunities for women and save the lives of those living in poverty across the globe by recruiting one million people to conduct awareness-raising events and actions. Among those attending were Theresa Shaver, Director of the White Ribbon Alliance; Sheila Nix, US Executive Director, One; Mothers Day Every Day Advisory Board Members Amb. Mark Green and Mike McCurry; and JoDee Winterhof, CARE’s vice president for policy and advocacy.

International Women’s Day 2010 from whcinsider on Vimeo.

Fear not, it’s not another Salahi saga but the story of Julia Allison, a Georgetown grad who crashed the 2007 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and wrote about it for The Huffington Post. Although, Allison and Michaele Salahi do share something in common: a penchant for a red dress.

Mediabistro’s Matt Dornic has learned the CBS News anchor scored comedian and New York Times bestselling author Chelsea Handler as her guest to the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.  Handler has sipped vodka in the nation’s capital before as a guest of Glamour magazine at the 2008 WHCA Dinner.

The First Lady joked a few may have “read my bio” beforehand when asked about childhood obesity.

“Every First Lady defines their job based on what their interests and passion are,” Mrs. Obama explained. “For me the issues are healthy living for our kids.”

That includes limiting the number of snacks, to which one youngster said they only ate two snacks a day – Mrs. Obama approved.

As to how she was going to celebrate Earth Day, which also happens to be today, the First Lady said her daughter Sasha had brought home a few energy efficient light bulbs, so there would be some bulb changing taking place at the White House.

On a lighter note, Mrs. Obama said that Bo’s favorite toy was a big rope and “the game is, can you get it before he gets it?” and yes, she often wins. The kids gave a big “whoa” when they heard the girls have to get up at 6AM but Mrs. Obama got the last laugh: “They can get up later if they move faster.”

Tom Hanks

The Academy Award winning actor said as much while checking out the old Pony Express espresso machine he bought in 2004 for the hardworking men and women of the Fourth Estate after noticing they didn’t have a proper source of java.

Hanks couldn’t resist visiting the press room last month to see if the coffee maker was still there while at the White House for a special screening of HBO’s “The Pacific” with President Barack Obama.

Director Steven Spielberg and Hanks are Executive Producers of the ten-part WWII miniseries now airing on HBO.

Hanks showed off the coffee maker to pal Spielberg, along with their wives, actresses Rita Wilson and Kate Capshaw. He also promised to send the press corps a new one after declaring that “this one is on its last legs.”

Well, despite a question of ethics jokingly raised by veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller (to which Hanks replied: “It’s just a gift — it’s not like it’s a pizza oven.”) Hanks has made good on his promise: a shiny new coffee maker and personal note from the actor were delivered this afternoon.