Press Releases

BURLINGTON, Vt. – As soaring fuel prices stretch household budgets beyond the breaking point, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today he will introduce legislation when Congress reconvenes next week to provide $1 billion in emergency home heating assistance. Sanders called for the $1 billion boost in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. President Bush, meanwhile, wants Congress to cut

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission lowered its safety rating for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant last year after the facility mistakenly sent a piece of machinery with abnormally high radiation readings to a Pennsylvania plant,” The Burlington Free Press reported. Documents on file with the NRC showed that equipment packaged in a large container and shipped by truck had more than four times that acceptable hourly exposure to radiation, according to the article published on Sunday. On Mond

A Vermont program that reaches out to troops after they return home from tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan will receive $3 million in the coming year. The funding was included in legislation already signed by President Bush. Another $3 million is set aside in the bill for pilot projects in other states. “This funding will enable us to do everything we can to help National Guard and Reserve members and their families receive the help they need as they readjust and transition back to life here

BURLINGTON, Vt., November 17 – Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today that a new United Nations report makes the case, more forcefully then ever before, that reductions in greenhouse gases are needed to avert a global climate catastrophe. “The scientists are now telling us the situation is worse than they previously thought. It is incumbent upon Congress to pass bold

The Senate received a House-passed bill that includes $50 billion of the nearly $200 billion that President Bush wants for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would require troop withdrawals to begin within 30 days, and sets a goal of complete withdrawal by mid-December 2008. The bill awaiting a Senate vote also would require C.I.A. operatives and other American personnel to follow Army Field Manual rules on torture, including ban on waterboarding, an interrogation technique that si