Press Releases

As Verizon Wireless moves ahead in Vermont to acquire the competing mobile phone company Unicel, Senator Bernie Sanders has asked the Federal Communications Commission to step in to protect the interests of Vermont consumers and businesses. If Verizon is to be handed a virtual Vermont monopoly, the telecommunications giant must guarantee that it will provide cell service throughout the state. “We should ask them to provide universal geographic coverage. They should make sure that all of our peo

A global warming bill that a Senate panel is scheduled to take up on Thursday carves out $324 billion for the coal industry and $232 billion for car makers. There’s not a nickel carved out for solar power, wind energy, geothermal or other alternative energy sources. “This is a rather extraordinary omission,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, a member of the subcommittee that will consider compromise legislation drafted by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner.

“There wasn’t a hint of smoke, but that didn’t stop more than 100 firefighters from dozens of departments from responding to Randolph Union High School on Saturday morning,” the Rutland Herald reported. “Though nothing was burning when they arrived at 9:30, the firefighters themselves were “fully involved” during a two-hour “town meeting” organized by Sen. Bernie Sanders and attended by the nation

A Senate subcommittee on Thursday held a hearing on Sweatshop
Conditions in the Chinese Toy Industry. Americans spent $22.3 billion
on toys and sporting goods last year, and China accounted for 86
percent of U.S. toy imports, according to Charles Kernaghan, director
of the National Labor Committee. “Many parents in America would be
shocked and disturbed if they knew of the abusive sweatshop conditions
under which their children’s toys are being made in China,” he
testified. “Parents, however, have no way of knowing, as toy companies
like Mattel (the largest in the world) hide their 40 or so contract
plants in China, refusing to provide the American people with even the
names and addresses of their plants.” Senator Bernie Sanders is a
cosponsor of the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act
that would make it unlawful to sell, trade, or advertise sweatshop
goods.

A Senate panel on Wednesday took up global warming legislation. To Vermont’s own Bill McKibben, a national leader on the environment and climate change, it’s about time. “Long after the Nobel-winning reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, long after Hurricane Katrina, long after ‘An Inconvenient Truth, they’re finally taking up the single biggest question that the planet faces,” he wrote. Senator Bernie Sanders, the sponsor of the strongest legislation on climate change, is a

The Senate last night passed the largest increase in the history of the Community Health Center Program. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is a leading advocate for the program and fought for the $250 million increase in funding. “In Vermont in recent years, we have expanded the number of health centers