The Senate passed landmark legislation that would give the federal government sweeping new powers to regulate tobacco products. Health care reform legislation began to take shape in congressional committees. Speculators sent oil prices to record highs for the year.

Tobacco More than four decades after the surgeon general declared smoking a health hazard, the Senate on Thursday voted to regulate cigarettes and other forms of tobacco for the first time. Sen. Sanders voted for the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration new powers to limit nicotine in cigarettes, drastically curtail ads and ban candied tobacco products aimed at young people. “This bill is a very good step forward. Our goal has got to be for these companies to stop pushing their dangerous and addictive product onto our people, especially our kids,” said Sanders, a member of the Senate health committee. The plan now goes back to the House, which is expected to go along with the Senate version.  The White House said President Obama will sign the bill. To read more, click here.

Health Care As Senate panels worked behind the scenes to fashion health care reform legislation, health care, insurance and drug industry lobbyists ramped up spending to preserve a system that lines their pockets.  Twenty of the largest health insurance and drug companies and their trade groups spent nearly $35 million in the first quarter of 2009, up more than $10 million from the same period last year. "Most Americans believe that all of us should have health care coverage, and that nobody should be left out of the system. The real debate is how we accomplish that goal in an affordable and sustainable way. The evidence is overwhelming that we must end the private insurance company domination of health care in our country and move toward a publicly funded, single-payer Medicare for all approach," Sanders said in a column posted on Huffington Post and excerpted by USA Today. To read the column, click here. To read the USA Today report on lobbyist spending, click here.

Oil Prices – Hoarding Sen. Bernie Sanders won Senate energy committee approval of an amendment that would require big oil traders to report reserves hoarded in offshore tankers. Global diesel storage at sea has climbed to about 41 million barrels, Reuters reported. “These companies are hoarding heating oil right now, in the hope of selling it at a higher price this winter when senior citizens on fixed incomes and middle class Americans in cold-weather states need heating oil to stay warm,” Sanders said. To read a Rutland Herald editorial, click here.

Oil Prices – Speculation Sanders also filed a bill to require federal regulators to stop unwarranted, sudden price hikes. The senator on Wednesday formally introduced legislation to make federal regulators invoke emergency powers to stop speculation. “The last thing people need now is to be ripped off at the gas pump because speculators on Wall Street -- some of the same people who received the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history -- are allowed to jack up oil prices through price manipulation and outright fraud,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, I am afraid that is exactly what is happening right now.” To read a Brattleboro Reformer editorial, click here.

Fed Secrecy Senator Bernie Sanders called “completely insufficient” a new monthly report by the Federal Reserve on aid to banks, investment firms and other financial institutions. “It is time for the Fed to name names.  The American people have a right to know who received more than  $2 trillion in loans from the Fed, how much each one received, and what they are doing with this money.  This money does not belong to the Fed. It belongs to the American people,” Sanders said.   The need for greater Fed transparency is even more important since the Obama administration on Tuesday agreed to let 10 big banks repay federal bailouts they took to help them weather the recession.