releases: https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=0387B3DF-E65F-40F9-9309-A420B0DF01E2
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=0387B3DF-E65F-40F9-9309-A420B0DF01E2 | News July 26 | 2013-07-26 | 2013 | 2013-07 | Independent | House | VT | Bernard Sanders | S000033 | sanders.senate.gov | legacy | News July 26 Friday, July 26, 2013 Senator Sanders NSA Surveillance The House on Wednesday narrowly defeated an effort to stop the federal government from systematically gathering telecommunications metadata, but Congress is considering other ways to reform a National Security Agency surveillance program, according to ProPublica. Sen. Sanders has introduced legislation to raise the standard for what records are considered "relevant" to national security investigations. LINK College Costs Interest rates on federal student loans would rise under legislation passed by the Senate. Sen. Sanders was one of 18 senators to oppose the bill, according to MSNBC. "We ask more of parents and young people to go to college than any other major country on earth," Sanders told Ed Schultz on Thursday. In the Burlington Free Press online, Sanders said “the idea of passing legislation that in a few years is going to make an already bad situation of student indebtedness even worse is absolutely absurd.” LINK, LINK, AUDIO Loan Scams “In a bizarre turn of events this week, the Senate approved a bill with the potential of turning student loans into the kind of teaser loans that devastated the housing market a few years ago, with interest rates that would balloon to high levels in later years. Sens. Sanders and Patrick Leahy were having none of it. “What I don’t understand is when you have a Democratic president, a Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate, why we are producing a bill which is basically a Republican bill,” Sanders said in an editorial published by the Times Argus and Rutland Herald. LINK Global Warming New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, this week claimed "millions will die" if the nation fails to address global warming aggressively enough, The Daily Caller reported. Holt advocates a carbon tax like one Sens. Sanders and Barbara Boxer have introduced. LINK Solar Power Energy Co-op of Vermont is expanding a solar water heating program to Addison County. The program is designed to help Vermont homeowners and businesses save money and energy through heating their water with solar power. Support from high-profile officials such as Sen. Sanders was instrumental in getting the program off the ground, the Times Argus and Rutland Herald reported. LINK USPS Sen. Sanders said a House bill to end door-to-door mail delivery is part of a “radical” Republican effort to eliminate the U.S Postal Service. “It will cost us up to 100,000 workers. It will slow down the delivery of first class mail. It will lead to the closing of half of the processing plants in the country. It will eliminate Saturday mail. It will lead to the possibility of shutting down thousands of rural post offices. Let’s understand that the people who wrote this bill in the House do not believe government should be doing anything. They believe the private sector should be doing it all,” Sanders told Ed Schultz. AUDIO VA Benefits The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday passed legislation that would make it easier for veterans traumatized by sexual assault in service to gain VA disability compensation and require public or state-run colleges and universities to charge veterans who use the GI Bill their lower in-state tuition rates, according to Military.com and Stars and Stripes. LINK, LINK Military Sexual Assaults Top Obama administration officials, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, have opposed a bill from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that give independent military prosecutors, rather than commanders, the power to decide which sexual assault cases should be tried in military court, reported Fox News. The proposal has attracted wide support from senators on the left and right, including Sen. Sanders. LINK Quiet Time Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio has his staff and other members of Congress joining him for daily meditation sessions on Capitol Hill, The Huffington Post reported. The head of the Quiet Time Caucus is focused on making the "mind-body connection" more central in policymaking. Recently, his office has been working with staff for Sen. Sanders to incorporate alternative medicine into veterans' health services. LINK World Egypt’s Morsi Charged with Espionage Egyptian prosecutors have charged deposed President Morsi with espionage and colluding with the militant group Hamas in provocative accusations ahead of rival rallies planned Friday by Islamists and largely secular opposition forces. The charges against Morsi, who has been in army custody since his overthrow on July 3, are certain to infuriate tens of thousands of his Islamist supporters who have been demonstrating in Cairo and other cities, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK Snowden Sanctions The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved an amendment that would set penalties against nations that help National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden avoid extradition to the United States, The Associated Press reported. LINK Syria United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday increased the death toll in Syria's bloody civil war to more than 100,000, according to The Associated Press. LINK National Voting Rights In the wake of a Supreme Court decision striking down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday a federal lawsuit to require Texas to get permission from the federal government before making changes to the state's voting regulations in the next decade, The New York Times reported. Since the Supreme Court ruling, sates across the South, from Texas to North Carolina, have been rushing to enforce and enact new restrictions on voting eligibility. LINK The Fed A group of Democratic senators will send the White House a letter today calling for Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen to succeed Ben S. Bernanke as head of the U.S. central bank. One-third of the 54-member Senate Democratic caucus has signed the letter led by Sen. Sherrod Brown. The letter demonstrates the support that Yellen is gaining and the uphill struggle that former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers could face in winning Senate confirmation, if nominated, Bloomberg reported. LINK Labor Leaders Seek Government Aid for Detroit Top leaders of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s main federation of labor unions, on Thursday called on President Obama and the Congress to offer an immediate financial infusion to Detroit, which last week became the largest American city ever to file for bankruptcy. The executive council of the A.F.L.-C.I.O, holding meetings at its headquarters in Washington, also called on the state of Michigan to provide a comparable amount of financial support to Detroit, its most populous city, The New York Times reported. LINK U.S. Prison Populations Decline The prison population in the United States dropped in 2012 for the third consecutive year, according to federal statistics released on Thursday, in what criminal justice experts said was the biggest decline in the nation’s recent history, signaling a shift away from an almost four-decade policy of mass imprisonment. The New York Times said the number of inmates in state and federal prisons decreased by 1.7 percent, to an estimated 1,571,013 in 2012 from 1,598,783 in 2011, according to figures released by the Justice Department. Although the percentage decline appeared small, the fact that it followed decreases in 2011 and 2010 offers persuasive evidence of what some experts say is a “sea change” in America’s approach to criminal punishment. LINK College Enrollment Falls The long enrollment boom that swelled American colleges — and helped drive up their prices — is over. College enrollment fell 2 percent in 2012-13, the first significant decline since the 1990s, but nearly all of that drop hit for-profit and community colleges; now, signs point to 2013-14 being the year when traditional four-year, nonprofit colleges begin a contraction that will last for several years. The college-age population is dropping after more than a decade of sharp growth, and many adults who opted out of a forbidding job market and went back to school during the recession have been drawn back to work by the economic recovery, The New York Times reported. LINK Hedge Fund Fraud Federal prosecutors announced criminal charges on Thursday against hedge fund SAC Capital, The New York Times reported. Authorities claim the company "enabled and promoted" securities fraud and wire fraud on a scale "without known precedent in the hedge fund industry." The indictment slammed billionaire owner Steve Cohen, saying he "fostered a culture that focused on not discussing inside information too openly, rather than not seeking or trading on such information in the first place." LINK Tax Reform Secrets Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch promised senators this week that any suggestion for new tax reforms would remain confidential for fifty years, The Hill reported. The move illustrates the enormous pressure being brought to bear by K Street lobbyists, who are working to protect their clients and the tax provisions that benefit them. LINK Vermont Power Grid Shuts Down Wind With electricity demand near all-time high last week in New England, the operator of the regional electric grid ordered the Lowell, Vt. wind project to cut its power output. The move baffled the utility and wind developers. They question why a renewable energy project was scaled back when polluting power plants everywhere in the region were told to run full blast, Vermont Public Radio reported. LINK Burlington is a Great Place Burlington ranked second on Kiplinger Personal Finance's annual list of the 10 greatest places to live in America, the Burlington Free Press reported. LINK | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |