ANRP internship reflections

Another fairly slow week. At the beginning of the semester, congress was just getting back from recess and the health care reform discussion was getting kicked off. September was a crazy month. Now that October is winding down, so has the constituent discussion.

The past week we began to put together calender packets for what will eventually be about 5,000 constituents. Every year the Congressman Gonzalez sends these signed calenders to indivdual addresses and its beconme something they really appreciate. Well the three interns are incharge of stuffing the calender in a large envelope and labeling them. This has proved to be a tedious process and after the first week we are a little over half way done. Assignments like these reinforce what I said last week about having to know your place before you can make progress.

My interests lie in renewable energy and natural resources. So I was lucky to attend a Congressional Natural Gas Caucus with T. Boone Pickens. Mr. Pickens is one of the leading voices in renewable energy and decreasing the country’s dependance on foreign resources. He talked primarily about the importance of converting utility vehicles from diesel to natural gas. It was a very thought stimulating discussion and further intrenched my interest in those matters.

This was a week that consisted mostly of cath up time. As I mentioned last week the office was behind on the logging mail process. So everything was put on hold for the interns until the mail logging was completed. Although this may seem like tedious meaningless work, it has taught me the meaning of self discpline. I learned that understanding your place, rather it been as an intern in an office or the CEO of a major coorporation, will help you get towards your ultimate goal.  

I did attend a briefing on an Excutive Order regarding sustainment in the Federal Government. Basically, the President has ordered that all Fed agencies go green. I heard statements from members of the Dept. of Defense, along with other administrative agencies and agencies responsible for implementation. It is a very interesting, yet challenging subject that will require a change in culture in order to effective. The idea is that once the public sector sets an example of how to be green while being efficient, the private sector will follow suit.

A&M has helped prepare in dealings such as the two mentioned above in that I was exposed to the importance of the environment and agriculture through my major. I’m grateful that I have an appreciation for conservation and ensuring that we leave the next generations with a functioning ag sector as well as environment.

There was not as much to report this week. I gave two Captiol tours and the week was mostly made up of the standard mail logging. On a high note, I received a thank you card from some of the constituents that I gave a tour to a couple of weeks ago. It was nice to get acknowldged by the ofice.

The highlight of my week was doing a memo recommendation for the Congressman on a provison repeal for the Health Education Act. The provision currently requires all students who have been convicted of a drug crime to pass two drug tests in order to regain elibility for federal financial aid; or they will concede to having their first offense amount in aone year suspension from funds.

The interns before us were a little slow in mail logging so we have been dion gour best to log all the mail that got piled up over the summer. We are almost up to date and this will make our jobs much easier.

On the Wednesday I was able to attend a seminar by Dr. Hart from Harvard over Large Financial Institution regulation. My original reason to go was because I did not know when I would be able hear a Harvard proffesor speak again; but I was able to understand what he was saying and I definitely learned a little on the subject.

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