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Heard on the Hill: Hearings Are Just Like Reality (TV)

Reality television stars are just another part of our landscape on Capitol Hill.

There is Spike Mendelsohn from “Top Chef,” the recently estranged reality TV couple Tareq and Michaele Salahi, MTV’s “Real World” star (lumberjack and father of six) Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) and former “American Idol” contestant Ayla Brown, daughter of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).

But the truly lucky reality television stars can add “Congressional witness” to their list of D.C. career highlights.

Following in the hallowed steps of Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs,” Dr. Oz of “The Dr. Oz Show” and Audrina Patridge of “The Hills,” Carey Hall of “Ice Road Truckers” will testify on Capitol Hill today. He will speak to the Natural Resources Committee about oil drilling.

Hall is the first to admit he is not an oil expert, committee spokesman Spencer Pederson says, but he does understand the benefits of developing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for energy production to create jobs.

Hall was invited to testify by Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash). So is Hastings a big “Ice Road Truckers” fan?

“I don’t think he’s caught every episode,” Pederson tells HOH. “But he understands the dangerous job they all do up there.”

Added bonus: Because the truckers navigate 18-wheelers over roads made entirely of ice, “maybe they could give us [Washingtonians] lessons on how to drive over a few inches of sleet?” he suggests.

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