Support mounted for a bill by Senator Bernie Sanders to double assistance for people struggling to pay home energy bills. As senators headed out of D.C. on Friday, 46 cosponsors had signed onto Sanders' measure that the Senate majority leader said he hoped to bring to the floor soon. Also last week, Al Gore laid out an ambitious goal on global warming, the problem-plagued Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor drew scrutiny during a Senate hearing, and Congress overrode a Bush veto of a bill to help community health centers and support Medicare.

Oil Drives Up Consumer Prices Inflation shot up in June by nearly twice the rate in May, the Labor Department announced Wednesday. The spike - the biggest one-month jump in the inflation indicator since June of 1982 - was attributable mostly to record-high price of crude oil, which pushed up the price of gasoline by more than 10 percent last month alone. Energy prices rose by 6.6 percent. An editorial in The Stowe Reporter cautioned that the impending "calamity" when the weather turns cold this winter could be "New England's own Katrina." The Senate is expected next week to take up a bill by Sanders to double home energy assistance. To read more about it, click here.

Global Warming Al Gore called on the United States to abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, wind and other renewable sources of power. "He is absolutely right," Sanders said. "This country has the potential not only to transform our energy system but to create millions of good-paying jobs as we move away from our dependency on foreign oil and fossil fuels." Gore compared the 10-year push to generate all of the country's electricity from renewable and carbon-free sources to President Kennedy's challenge for the country to put a man on the moon in the 1960s. Sanders and Gore met backstage after the former vice president and Nobel laureate spoke to a crowd of several thousand in the packed DAR Constitution Hall. They discussed t legislation Sanders introduced earlier this month that would promote 10 million new solar rooftops in the next 10 years. To read more, click here.

Health Care President Bush on Tuesday vetoed a bill protecting doctors from a Medicare pay cut, but Congress swiftly overrode the veto. "Congress put the interests of 44 million American seniors covered by Medicare and the doctors who care for them over the interests of the insurance industry," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. The measure also boosts reimbursements for community health centers that provide cost-effective primary health care and dental services to more than 86,000 Vermonters. "At a time when the middle class is in rapid decline, the United States must guarantee health care for all. A major expansion of the community health center program would be an important step forward," Sanders wrote in an op-ed published by Huffington Post, Politico and Op-Ed News. To read the column, click here.

Vermont Yankee A member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sanders met with Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale E. Klein about the problem-plagued reactor operated by Entergy Corp. "What I told the chairman is that Vermonters are increasingly concerned about Entergy's ability to run a safe nuclear power plant. This is the second major problem within a year involving the cooling towers and that is two too many." He said the NRC must broaden its regulatory scope to ensure that inspections catch weaknesses before problems arise. To read more, click here.