{"id":794,"date":"2014-10-13T05:16:16","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T05:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/?p=794"},"modified":"2014-10-13T05:16:16","modified_gmt":"2014-10-13T05:16:16","slug":"fun-fact-the-epa-has-no-desire-to-regulate-your-use-of-the-puddles-in-your-lawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/2014\/10\/13\/fun-fact-the-epa-has-no-desire-to-regulate-your-use-of-the-puddles-in-your-lawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun fact: The EPA has no desire to regulate your use of the puddles in your lawn."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"One<\/a>

One of the biggest perks of interning at a government agency is walking into a big, important-looking building like you own the place.<\/p><\/div>\n

This may be old news to some of you, but because the student blogs are just starting up again, I figured it\u2019s acceptable to draw on my experience as a summer intern for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (yes, I know most of you would know the acronym, but it\u2019s fun for me to throw the whole title around).\u00a0 I worked with the speech writing department in the Office of the Administrator, and my first day of work was the day on which EPA made the biggest announcement of the past twenty-odd year<\/a>s \u2013 so my first impression of my supervisor was him running out of the office, shouting expletives, on his way to the press conference.\u00a0 Basically, this internship put me at only two degrees of separation from the Grand Poobah, the Chief of the Pecking Order, the Muckiest of the Mucky-Mucks, Administrator Gina McCarthy herself.\u00a0 When she came to Tacoma in early August, I sent some restaurant recommendations over to her schedulers (which made me quite jealous, because I have a distinct preference for one Washington over the other).\u00a0 I have no idea whether or not anyone made use of my suggestions, but don\u2019t burst my bubble.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>

One of the biggest downsides at interning in one of said important-looking buildings is the stairs.<\/p><\/div>\n

This internship was a fantastic experience, and I learned a lot about U.S. environmental policy \u2013 and also about public perception of U.S. environmental policy.\u00a0 I have a certain fondness for water and water-related issues, so one of my favorite speeches to work on was given at an agricultural conference on the subject of the Clean Water Proposal.\u00a0 Not only was this a policy area in which I was particularly interested, but it was also an intriguing situation because the agriculture industry is not all that fond of EPA.\u00a0 I don\u2019t imagine that giving a speech to a hostile audience is very fun \u2013 but writing one is, especially when some (note: not all) of the arguments you\u2019re rebutting sound like the one dismissed in the title of this blog post.<\/p>\n

So, how does this relate to student life at Puget Sound?\u00a0 Well, Puget Sound was represented in EPA\u2019s Office of the Administrator, alongside places like Boston University, Cornell, and George Washington University, and I think that\u2019s pretty cool.\u00a0 (We\u2019ve been represented on Capitol Hill occasionally as well.)\u00a0 Also, speaking as someone who has loved UPS since I saw it for the first time the day before freshman move-in day but was somewhat concerned because no one in the DC area had heard of it, I am delighted to somewhat alleviate some of your fears: no, we does not have the name recognition factor that big public and private universities have.\u00a0 But \u2013 and this is an important \u201cbut\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s okay; it won\u2019t limit your options.\u00a0 Because wherever you are, you\u2019ll have to make your own opportunities, so might as well be somewhere you love.<\/p>\n

Gotta love clich\u00e9s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may be old news to some of you, but because the student blogs are just starting up again, I figured it\u2019s acceptable to draw on my experience as a summer intern for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (yes, I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":386,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leah-shamlian-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/386"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":802,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}