Summer time is coming, and with that, families are planning trips to the beach and vacation resorts. Meanwhile, our congressional friends in Washington are working to perhaps ease the pain at the pump.

Democrats who took control of Congress in 2006 know that. And that's one reason some Democrats want the Energy Department to stop stockpiling oil in the nation's petroleum reserve.

Amidst the latest contraversy over biofuel, BP enters Brazil’s ethanol sector by taking a 50% stake in a sugar cane based biofuels project. While, Brazil is actively defending its ethanol and biodiesel programs from critics questioning the environmental and social benefits of biofuels. The country says it has enough land to plant crops for energy-efficient fuels like ethanol without compromising crops destined for food.

BP It agreed to pay $60 million dollars for the stake in Tropical Bioenergia

Hong Kong Energy is upping their propellers and looking to invest in wind farms and piloting a cutting edge cellulosic ethanol project. The first wind farm, a 100.5MW project co-developed by HKE and China Energy Conservation Investment Corporation, a Chinese clean energy developer, will be located in Lunanbao of Zhangbei County, Hebei Province. The installation will consist of 67 wind turbines each with 1.5MW power generating capacity. The project has already been approved by the government, and is slated to begin construction after June 2008 and is slated to be completed fourth-quarter of 2010.

MDAR is a new video solution that provides U.S. soldiers and Army tactical operation centers new mobility in processing data and high-resolution situational awareness video on demand.

The mobile device is designed to withstand the harshest of weather, and its unique shape was custom-designed to fit into existing U.S. Army One System Ground Control Stations. MDAR was developed for the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, and other ground forces to give soldiers in the field instant, searchable access to up to 30 days of archived data and full-motion video from a variety of unmanned aircraft vehicles -- such as Shadow, Hunter, Predator, and others. Initial production units of MDAR will be installed in AAI Corporation's ground control stations that will be used by the Shadow UAS.