President Obama on Friday signed legislation that the White House disingenuously ballyhooed as providing big savings for students. The law sets rates right away that are greater than they were for the past two years. What’s worse is that the cost of borrowing for college is projected to nearly double within five years. Sen. Bernie Sanders voted against the bill. Last year was among the 10 warmest on record, according to a report issued Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report also said there were record greenhouse gas emissions in 2012. Sanders on Wednesday praised Postal Service unions for putting up a fight against proposals in Congress that would cut service and cut jobs.  Sanders also took on a growing movement among congressional Republicans to abolish the minimum wage. The Voting Rights Act, signed 48 years ago last Tuesday, is now in jeopardy because of a June Supreme Court ruling that already being used by states to make it harder for minorities to vote.

Global Warming The Arctic warmed at about twice the rate of lower altitudes and lost record amounts of sea ice last year, according to the NOAA report that examined the impact of our changing climate. “The findings are striking,” Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA’s acting administrator, told reporters during a conference call on Tuesday. To Sanders, the report is the latest evidence that bold action is needed. “Our planet as a whole is becoming a warmer place. Global warming is the most serious environmental crisis facing the world today. It demands bold action to preserve our planet for our children and grandchildren.” Sanders and Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate environment committee, have introduced legislation to tax carbon and methane gas emissions to reduce the use of fossil fuels that are causing climate change. Their measure also would encourage U.S. companies to move to cleaner forms of energy and increase efficiency of existing fossil fuels. Rebates to consumers would reduce the impact of the tax on their energy bills. The revenue raised also would be used to help invest in clean energy technologies and solve our budget problems.

Student Loans Under the legislation that Obama signed on Friday at the White House, it will cost more to borrow this year than it did for the last two years and college borrowing costs are projected to balloon in coming years. The law sets a 3.9 percent interest rate for undergraduates taking out subsidized and unsubsidized loans this year. That rate is greater than a 3.4 percent cap in place for the past two years.  The interest rates are projected to go up and hit 7.25 percent for undergraduate loans in five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Graduate loans would go up to 8.8 percent and parents would be charged 9.8 percent on loans for their children to attend college, according to the analysis by the non-partisan agency that provides economic data for Congress. “This legislation is going to make an already bad situation of student indebtedness even worse,” said Sanders, a member of the Senate education committee. He said he will fight to make college more affordable when the committee rewrites the Higher Education Act next year.

Minimum Wage One-day strikes by fast-food workers this summer have highlighted the need to raise the minimum wage, which has been $7.25 since 2007. Sanders is a cosponsor of legislation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, about what it would be if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation over the past 50 years. Some in Congress don’t just oppose raising the minimum wage. They want to abolish it. During a recent Senate labor committee hearing, Sen. Lamar Alexander told Sanders he favors doing away with the minimum wage. He’s not alone. "I don’t think a minimum wage law works," Sen. Marco Rubio told CBS News earlier this year. Remarkably, 28 Republican senators went on record in 2007 and voted to abolish the minimum wage. Republican Party platforms in Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Oregon call for the minimum wage to be abolished.

Postal Service Sanders on Wednesday agreed with unions representing Postal Service workers opposed to legislation likely to end Saturday mail service, significantly slow down delivery, close processing plants and eliminate door-to-door deliveries. A bill by Sens. Tom Carper and Tom Coburn was called “a serious threat” to the Postal Service in a joint letter signed by leaders of the American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association. The labor leaders said the Carper-Coburn legislation would dismantle mail processing and delivery networks, slash 80,000 jobs and retain elements of an onerous congressional mandate to pre-fund health benefits for future retirees. That mandate makes the Postal Service set aside $5.5 billion a year in a fund that already has more than enough to cover future benefits. Financing that mandate, which is unlike any in private business or other public-sector employers, accounts for about $4 out of every $5 in Postal Service debts. Sanders applauded the unions and questioned why the Carper-Coburn proposal retreats from a measure that passed the Senate one year ago with 62 votes.

Voting Rights Tuesday marked the 48th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. That landmark law which protected voters from discrimination for decades is now in jeopardy. The Supreme Court on June 25 invalidated a key portion of the act which prohibited states and localities with histories of racial discrimination from altering voting laws without federal approval. Sanders said the court's decision "turned back the clock on equality in America." In the weeks since the court ruling, Florida, North Carolina and other states have moved quickly to put in place restrictive laws designed to tamp down voter turnout. “We must make it easier, not harder, for poor and working people to vote and to participate in the political process," Sanders said. "Using unfounded scare tactics and isolated cases of voter fraud to weaken the public's faith in elections and to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters is reprehensible."