09 July 2009

Meetings on the Hill



The past few days I have spent running back and forth from the hill, and trying to get some work done in between. I went to the first hearing about the comprehensive energy policy bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It was a very interesting discussion and you could tell it was going to be a heated debate, but was also encouraging because it seemed like people on both sides of the aisle wanted to make progress on the issue of curbing carbon emissions and wanted to find a solution that had bipartisan support. The problem is we don't know if that exists, but we hope so. Then I went to see Franken sworn in MN's second senator, which was exciting, and met with one of Rep. Keith Ellison's staff members that someone my mom works with knows. It was an interesting meeting, and I might get a white house tour out of it, which would be very fun. I worked the rest of the day and went to sleep as early as i could. This morning I went to an energy efficiency housing news briefing about the new Green Acts in the house and the senate. It was really inspiring and made me really excited about my new job at PNNL, since that is what I will be working on. It reminded me that, while I am happy I am learning so much about nuclear, I really believe that conservation is what I want to work on and what I am the most excited about in the near term. And hopefully these bills will get some traction. There is similar language in the Climate Bill that passed the House, but it seemed like they wanted to introduce these bills in case it got cut or to maybe strengthen it. Then I went to a brunch with the other girls, one of our program coordinators Melissa, and the CEO of SWE. They were very interested in how what we were doing here, how we got interested in engineering, and wanted us to start blogging about our experience here for the SWE community. I decided not to offer my blog because I like not having to worry about what I write too much. Plus the other blog all of the girls are going to share, which will be fun. I will give you the address when it is up if you are interested. Then I worked all afternoon until we had a meeting with Rep. Gingrey from GA, who our faculty mentor Dan works for. He is a staunch republican, and it was very interesting to hear his arguments about the recent climate bill. Now, I am going to try to keep the momentum rolling on my paper so I can get a draft out by next week. More later, and hopefully pictures too.

1 comment:

Mom and GMA said...

Hi from Wisconsin. Are the pictures of you with the CEO of WSE?