Ok to start off I'd like to tell everyone sorry for not writing anything these last couple of days. The internet has been all funky here at Mason, and I couldn't publish any of the blogs I wrote. But all is well. the trip to the capitol was completely amazing. But practically the only bad thing that happened was i couldn't meet with Mr. Young. But instead I got one of his secretary's, or someone who works for him to show me around the underground areas of the capitol. We walked throughout the capitol building and even went to see the library of congress, which was completely amazing.
Today i had the lovely opportunity of going to the national geographic complex in D.C. It was practically a museum we visited and it was really neat. Then we came back to our rooms and as I'm typing this we're getting ready to go to the grand gala. Which I'm looking forward too.
Sorry again for not being able to write,
-Matt
P.S. my phone is being really funky as well, it overheats and burns the battery like crazy.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Trip to the National Zoo, and tour of the monuments. =)
Alrighty then, today was my first full day in the Environmental Youth Summit located at George Mason University, Virginia. Had a pretty good sleep and woke up at 7:30, then went to go eat an extraordinary breakfast in la cafe. We left for the National Zoo at about 10:00 and listened to a welcoming speech. After the speech we all got to search for a good place to munch on some lunch, which was indeed delicious. After ze lunch we all had a meeting with some of the zoo keepers, which was intreresting. Ok I'm typing quite a lot and it's late so I'm going to dim this down a bit. At 4:00 we got to just walk around and explore the zoo, which was fantastic, way to go National Zoo, and that lasted around 2 hours. We ate dinner and then left for the tour of my century. We first went to the washington monument, then to the lincoln memorial, then to the vietnam memorial, for those of you who don't know that's the big black wall with all of the names on it, quite interesting. And that's about all I did, in a bit of a summed up version. Thanks for reading =]
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Young Introduces the SAFEGUARDS Act to Address Breakdowns that Led to the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster
Young Introduces the SAFEGUARDS Act to Address Breakdowns that Led to the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster
July 2, 2010 – In response to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf, U.S. Rep. C. W. Bill Young introduced H.R. 5677, the SAFEGUARDS Act (Secure All Facilities to Effectively Guard the United States Against and Respond to Dangerous Spills). The SAFEGUARDS Act would provide common sense solutions to help prevent oil spill disasters and improve the federal response in the event of another one.
This legislation was crafted after several meetings with the on-the-ground incident commanders, including the Coast Guard both at the national level and in the Saint Petersburg Command as well as other federal, state and local emergency responders.
The SAFEGUARDS Act would address many of the systemic breakdowns that led to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. The legislation would prohibit regulators from granting categorical exclusions from environmental laws and increase the amount of time regulators have to review exploration plans. Additionally, since the Coast Guard is in charge of cleaning up oil spills, this measure would require the Coast Guard to approve all spill response plans submitted by oil rigs. It would also require oil rigs to plan for a true worst case scenario spill, including the failure of a blowout preventer, as happened in the recent oil spill.
Furthermore, the SAFEGUARDS Act would modernize the government’s response to future oil spills. It would require periodic updates to the government’s response plan, which hasn’t been updated since 1994. The legislation would also automatically put the Commandant of the Coast Guard in charge of the response to a major oil spill and would require the EPA to begin monitoring water quality information within 48 hours after an oil spill.
In introducing H.R. 5677, Rep. Young stated: “The Federal Government’s reaction to the Gulf disaster over the last few weeks has been insufficient, to say the least. BP’s response has not been much better. We owe it to the American people and the entire Gulf coast to do better. The SAFEGUARDS Act presents common sense solutions to help prevent a disaster of this magnitude from ever happening again, and improves the federal response in the event it ever does.”
For additional information regarding the SAFEGUARDS Act, please see the attached fact sheet and press release.
Click here to view fact sheet
Click here to view press release
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 2, 2010 – In response to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf, U.S. Rep. C. W. Bill Young introduced H.R. 5677, the SAFEGUARDS Act (Secure All Facilities to Effectively Guard the United States Against and Respond to Dangerous Spills). The SAFEGUARDS Act would provide common sense solutions to help prevent oil spill disasters and improve the federal response in the event of another one.
This legislation was crafted after several meetings with the on-the-ground incident commanders, including the Coast Guard both at the national level and in the Saint Petersburg Command as well as other federal, state and local emergency responders.
The SAFEGUARDS Act would address many of the systemic breakdowns that led to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. The legislation would prohibit regulators from granting categorical exclusions from environmental laws and increase the amount of time regulators have to review exploration plans. Additionally, since the Coast Guard is in charge of cleaning up oil spills, this measure would require the Coast Guard to approve all spill response plans submitted by oil rigs. It would also require oil rigs to plan for a true worst case scenario spill, including the failure of a blowout preventer, as happened in the recent oil spill.
Furthermore, the SAFEGUARDS Act would modernize the government’s response to future oil spills. It would require periodic updates to the government’s response plan, which hasn’t been updated since 1994. The legislation would also automatically put the Commandant of the Coast Guard in charge of the response to a major oil spill and would require the EPA to begin monitoring water quality information within 48 hours after an oil spill.
In introducing H.R. 5677, Rep. Young stated: “The Federal Government’s reaction to the Gulf disaster over the last few weeks has been insufficient, to say the least. BP’s response has not been much better. We owe it to the American people and the entire Gulf coast to do better. The SAFEGUARDS Act presents common sense solutions to help prevent a disaster of this magnitude from ever happening again, and improves the federal response in the event it ever does.”
For additional information regarding the SAFEGUARDS Act, please see the attached fact sheet and press release.
Click here to view fact sheet
Click here to view press release
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
True Dive Team
Florida Keys - 2009
The TRUE Dive Team conducted extensive underwater surveys of the diverse assemblages of corals, sponges, macroinvertebrates, and fish that inhabit the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS). Robust scientific methodologies are employed (e.g., benthic quadrats, digital photo-transect surveys, and visual censuses) and the data collected have been used to ground-truth satellite imagery and augment databases at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI). The data collected by the TRUE Dive Team is currently being used by FWRI in mapping and studying the thousands of patch reefs found in the FKNMS.
With funding from NOAA, the TRUE Dive Team was the first to witness, monitor and document nursery-raised Acropora palmata and Acropora cervicornis spawn. Both species are listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act. This was possible by a partnership with Ken Nedimyer from the Coral Reef Foundation and the Florida Keys Dive Center.
In addition, the Explorers have explored and entered Aquarius (a unique undersea research lab), helped NOAA scientists care for and transplant coral fragments in Key West, and honed their underwater navigation skills with Special Forces Underwater Operations combat diver trainers.
The TRUE Dive Team conducted extensive underwater surveys of the diverse assemblages of corals, sponges, macroinvertebrates, and fish that inhabit the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS). Robust scientific methodologies are employed (e.g., benthic quadrats, digital photo-transect surveys, and visual censuses) and the data collected have been used to ground-truth satellite imagery and augment databases at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI). The data collected by the TRUE Dive Team is currently being used by FWRI in mapping and studying the thousands of patch reefs found in the FKNMS.
With funding from NOAA, the TRUE Dive Team was the first to witness, monitor and document nursery-raised Acropora palmata and Acropora cervicornis spawn. Both species are listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act. This was possible by a partnership with Ken Nedimyer from the Coral Reef Foundation and the Florida Keys Dive Center.
In addition, the Explorers have explored and entered Aquarius (a unique undersea research lab), helped NOAA scientists care for and transplant coral fragments in Key West, and honed their underwater navigation skills with Special Forces Underwater Operations combat diver trainers.
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