DC Summer Blog!

Happy Monday OREC members and followers! It must be something in the Washington DC water because I could not wait to get to work on this very Monday morning. Tom Wilson once said, “Mondays are the potholes in the road of life” but I could not disagree more! As I said, it might be something in the DC water or maybe, as one of my roommates alluded to, it is the consistent political rhetoric and internal monologue about politics that happens every waking moment while being a summer intern in DC. This “fuel” as my roommate calls it gets you more excited for work on a Monday morning than you could ever imagine.

There is no doubt it is an exciting time to be in DC. With, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner going head to head with President Barak Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi about the debt ceiling Capitol Hill has been buzzing. I was fortunate enough to spend a most of my week last week on the hill. My week started with a Politico- Pro Energy Breakfast with members from the Politico staff as well as congressional staffers, Bob Simon (D) and McKie Campbell (R) and Chesapeake Energy Corporations CEO Aubrey McClendon.  The breakfast was a breakdown of what is going on on the hill, energy wise. To see my blog about the breakfast visit http://www.oceanrenewable.com/2011/07/18/energy-breakfast/. In the days following the breakfast I attended the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Mark-Up and the House Committee on Natural Recourses Full Committee hearing on “ Offshore Energy: Interior Department’s Plans for Offshore Energy, Revenue, and Safety Reorganization.” Full breakdowns of the hearings can be found here at http://www.oceanrenewable.com/category/orecnewsroom/.

Aside from spending most of my time on the hill I was able to enjoy DC in a much slower, healthier way this weekend. I spent part of my weekend reading on the national mall and exploring a few Smithsonian’s. After spending a few hours at the National Gallery of Art I have garnered a new respect for modern art. The Nam June Paik exhibit featured a phenomenal selection from Paik’s estate as well as from the Gallery’s own collection. The most notable and most striking was the centerpiece One Candle, Candle Collection. Every day a candle is lit and a video camera follows its progress while being projected on the wall, its simple yet striking at the same time how a candle can overtake a large room and create such a masterpiece. The Smithsonian’s here in DC truly provide a solace from the DC lifestyle.

Remember how I said I spent part of my time reading on the mall? Well, I was reading Ann Coulters, Demonic. The right wing conservative spends most of her time trying to convince the reader that liberals are the mob and that the demon is a mob, and the mob is demonic. A ludicrous claim, she does however, make a good point about the Cape Wind project. She says a liberal is a person who “ supports sustainable energy sources like offshore wind farms-unless the offshore wind farm obscures his view from Cape Cod.” When I first read this I laughed to myself because I did not believe it. A close twenty-four hours later I got an e-mail from my father, who knows I am renewable energy junkie and told me to check out Robert F. Kennedy JR’s Wall Street Journal article, so I did. Much to my disappointment I found out Coulter was right. Cape Wind has the potential to power 75% of the Cape and Islands and be the first offshore wind farm in the in the water that could set the precedent for offshore wind farms in the U.S. Not to mention it would keep our environment clean, reduce green house gases, keep us off foreign oil and create jobs. Instead people in my home, Cape Cod, are more worried about property value then national security and well being there kids and grandkids that are going to inherit the environment. Now, I don’t want to get myself into trouble so I will stop there….you can see where I am going with that one anyway.