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News June 16

Senator Sanders

Delinquency Prevention U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders travels to Rutland today to meet with school officials and discuss funding he has obtained for delinquency prevention efforts in the city's schools. Sanders is to join school officials at a 9:15 a.m. news conference, The Associated Press reported.

 
VFW Convention Veterans of Foreign Wars converged on South Burlington on Saturday for the state convention. Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke about the need to expand the GI Bill for the current generation of veterans. He said the secretary of the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department will visit Vermont next week, WPTZ News reported. The secretary will make stops in Burlington and visit the VA hospital in White River Junction. "He makes very important decisions for millions of veterans and I want Vermonters to have an opportunity to talk with him." Sanders told Fox 44 News. LINK and VIDEO LINK

 
Food Politics Sen. Bernie Sanders hosts a town meeting with "Fast Food Nation" author Eric Schlosser on June 28 in Burlington City Hall. Sanders and Schlosser will be joined by Vermonters involved in sustainable agriculture.  Strawberry shortcake will be served with locally grown strawberries, The Burlington Free Press noted in an article about a University of Vermont lecture by Michael Pollan, an influential voice on contemporary food and agriculture systems. LINK

 
EPA Admonishes Vermont “In the 1990s…Vermont launched an ambitious plan to clean up [Lake Champlain.] It was a plan based on sound science and propelled by strong support from Sens. Leahy and Jeffords, then-Congressman Sanders and Gov. Dean. However, the last decade of cleanup efforts…appear to have resulted in no discernable improvement in water quality. This should be of serious concern to all, most especially the government agencies charged with achieving a clean and healthy Lake Champlain,” John DeVillars, a former New England EPA administrator wrote in a Times Argus op-ed. LINK

International

Karzai Threatens to Send Soldiers Into Pakistan President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan threatened on Sunday to send soldiers into Pakistan to fight militant groups operating in the border areas to attack Afghanistan. His comments, made at a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, are likely to worsen tensions between the countries, just days after American forces in Afghanistan killed 11 Pakistani soldiers on the border while pursuing militants, The New York Times reported. LINK

 
Human Cost of Brazil's Biofuels boom The booming economy of Brazil -- "the Saudi Arabia of biofuels," country -- is powered by fuel processed from sugar cane, labor officials are confronting what some call the country's dirty little ethanol secret: the mostly primitive conditions endured by the multitudes of workers who cut the cane. Biofuels may help reduce humanity's carbon footprint, but the social footprint is substantial, according to the Los Angeles Times. LINK

 
Saudi Leverage in Oil Market As Saudi Arabia prepares to host a summit of oil producers and consumers Sunday, it finds itself without its usual leverage over oil markets. Concerned about the long-term impact of soaring prices, Saudi Arabia is limited in its ability to do much about it. The world's largest oil supplier does have two blunt weapons in its arsenal if it wants to try to beat down soaring oil prices to assuage the growing outcry over pump prices in world capitals. It can open its spigots wider to put more crude on the market, and it can sharply discount that crude to get refineries to lap it up, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

National

Congress Pushes to Keep Land Untamed -With little fanfare, Congress has embarked on a push to protect as many as a dozen pristine areas this year in places ranging from the glacier-fed streams of the Wild Sky Wilderness to West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest. By the end of the year, conservation experts predict, this drive could place as much as 2 million acres of unspoiled land under federal control, a total that rivals the wilderness acreage set aside by Congress over the previous five years, The Washington Post reported. LINK

 
Quest for Oil: Where to Look Is the Question The oil industry is turning up the heat on Congress to open up more federal land to oil and natural-gas drilling, arguing that will do more to cut energy prices than new taxes on industry profits. But environmentalists and Congressional Democrats say drill what you have, and they have focused on other ways to drive down prices: reining in speculators; punishing the OPEC oil cartel; and funding research on alternative-energy sources, possibly via a windfall-profits tax on oil companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. LINK

 
Price Jolt: Electricity Bills Going Up Electricity bills are heading up. Way up. Utilities across the USA are raising power prices up to 29 percent, mostly to pay for soaring fuel costs, but also to build new plants and refurbish an aging power grid. The mounting electric bills will further squeeze households struggling with spiraling gasoline prices. The increases come after rising fuel prices already have driven up utility bills nearly 30 percent in the past five years, the sharpest jump since the 1970s energy crisis, USA Today reported. LINK

 
Plan Seeks More Access for Disabled The Bush administration is about to propose far-reaching new rules that would give people with disabilities greater access to tens of thousands of courtrooms, swimming pools, golf courses, stadiums, theaters, hotels and retail stores. The proposal would substantially update and rewrite federal standards for enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act, The New York Times reported. LINK

 
FCC Chair to Support XM-Sirius Merger -Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin said yesterday that he will support a merger between the nation's sole satellite radio operators, XM and Sirius, a decision that could remove the last regulatory hurdle in the lengthy and heavily criticized move to make the companies one, The Washington Post reported. LINK

 
AIG Ousts CEO As Losses Mount -The board of struggling insurance titan American International Group Inc. forced out its chief executive and replaced him with its chairman, Robert Willumstad, betting that his experience at financial giant Citigroup Inc. will aid in turning around AIG's own complex and sprawling empire, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

Vermont

Flash Flood State and local emergency crews are working to clean up after storms late Saturday and early Sunday swept across Vermont. Rutland was among the hardest-hit communities, with up to 80 properties seeing damage, including the Asa Bloomer State Office Building. Up to 8 inches of rain fell on parts of the state. In Rutland, 11 families were forced from their homes; four families spent Saturday night in an emergency shelter at Rutland Regional Medical Center, The Associated Press reported. LINK

 
More Maple Vermont’s maple syrup production rose by 11 percent this year, and it maintained its traditional position as the nation’s largest producer of the sweet stuff. The New England Agricultural Statistics Service says Vermont’s 500,000 gallons of syrup easily topped No. 2 New York, which produced 322,000 gallons, The Associated Press reported. LINK

 
Visit Vermont With unemployment, as well as gas and food prices, on the rise, one would think the state tourism office might be in a bit of a panic. It makes sense that vacations are the first things to be cut from the family budget when the belt-tightening starts. But people still want to go on vacation, says Tom Torti, the executive director of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, and Vermont -- compared to other destinations -- looks like a pretty good bargain, according to The Burlington Free Press. LINK