There have been some promising developments in the Senate over the past few days. First, the chamber passed a two-year federal highway bill on a lopsidedly bipartisan vote of 74-22. Shortly after that, Senate leaders reached agreement to finally move forward and confirm a bunch of noncontroversial judges whose nominations had been blocked.

“There's a clear nexus between our national security and our energy security,” former Senator John Warner said yesterday at a Senate Energy Committee hearing in Norfolk. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Senator Mark Warner convened the hearing aboard the USS Kearsarge (the first hearing aboard a ship in more than 50 years!) to learn more about energy conservation efforts in the armed forces.

Let’s talk about photon-mediated entanglement of information transmission in quantum physics! OK, maybe not. Senator Warner visited briefly today with Ari Micha Dyckovsy, 18, of Loudoun County’s Academy of Science. Ari is a finalist in the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search.

A gasoline-powered generator can supply electricity to a remote U.S. Marine outpost in Afghanistan, powering everything from laptops to communications equipment. And the noise from that generator can be a dead giveaway to Taliban forces searching for Americans. So when Marines tout the effectiveness of quiet, solar-powered generators, it's not because they feel all warm and fuzzy about Earth Day.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus defended the service's investment on biofuels Monday, saying that it is a "false choice" for critics to suggest the Navy should focus on building more ships instead of finding alternative fuels to power them.

For far too long, Washington has added laws, mandates, and programs -- but rarely does it look back to see if those initiatives still make sense. I came to Washington as a former CEO and governor and thought that I could apply those experiences to the federal government and produce positive results. But it's proven to be a lot harder than I expected, especially on some very obvious problems.

The Virginia Inland Port in Front Royal sits near the intersection of Interstates 66 and 81 in the northern Shenandoah Valley, and it helps link truck traffic from the U.S. midwest with rail links to the Port of Hampton Roads at the coast. The VIP is a smart infrastructure investment that operates 24/7 and now supports more than 7,000 jobs in Virginia.

It’s probably not the first time you’ve heard it: The future prosperity of America rides on what measures Congress takes to reduce the federal deficit. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) harped on this sentiment March 5 in Leesburg, where he spoke to workers at the headquarters of K2M, an international medical device company.