"Is Poverty a Death Sentence?" Chairman Bernie Sanders asked at a dramatic subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, the same day the Census Bureau reported that poverty in America is the worst it has been in decades.  At a packed Capitol news conference, Sanders on Wednesday detailed legislation he introduced to preserve Social Security for the foreseeable future. The full Senate on Thursday passed and sent to the House an aid package to help rebuild Vermont after Tropical Storm Irene.  At an energy committee hearing earlier that day, Sanders pushed back when senators from states where coal and oil industries have benefited from federal subsidies questioned investments in solar power. In a Washington Post column on Friday, he kept the heat on federal regulators who let Wall Street speculators drive up oil and gas prices. Sanders recapped the week in Washington on The Thom Hartmann Program.

Disaster Assistance The Senate on Thursday passed and sent to the House a $6.9 billion disaster relief package. The vote was 62 to 37. "I am gratified that the Senate approved the emergency disaster assistance," said Sanders.  "Now that the Senate has done its work, it is time for the Republicans in the House to recognize their responsibilities. Instead of tax breaks for millionaires and expanding military spending, I hope the House provides the emergency assistance that people in Vermont and other states need and deserve" The measure's prospects are uncertain in the House, where Republican leaders have insisted on spending offsets. Traditionally, Congress has treated natural disasters as the emergencies they really are; not another reason to haggle over the budget. Sanders spoke about the devastation in Vermont during a press conference on Wednesday. Watch.

Is Poverty a Death Sentence? Dramatic evidence linking poverty and shorter life spans was cited by Sanders in a report prepared for a Senate hearing he chaired on Tuesday. A new census report, meanwhile, said more Americans than ever before lived in poverty last year. "Poverty in America today is a death sentence for tens and tens of thousands of our people which is why the high childhood poverty rate in our country is such an outrage," Sanders said in an opening statement at the hearing. The separate Census Bureau report also released on Tuesday said that more than 46 million Americans, about one in six, lived below the poverty line in 2010.  Watch excerpts from the hearing.

Social Security Raising the payroll tax that funds Social Security would keep the pension program solvent for another 75 years. Sanders introduced legislation to do just that. "No one making less than $250,000 a year would see their taxes go up by one penny," Sanders said.  Almost all Americans already pay payroll taxes on all of their income, but the wealthiest 6 percent do not.  Watch the press conference.

Oil Speculators "The American people have a right to know why oil prices are artificially high," Sanders wrote in a column published on Friday by The Washington Post. The trading records that Sanders made public proved that when oil prices climbed in 2008 to more than $140 a barrel, Wall Street speculators dominated the oil futures market.  Read the column.

Smart Energy Sanders made the case for investments in solar power at a Senate hearing where alternative energy investments were questioned by backers of the heavily-subsidized coal and oil industries. Senators from fossil-fuel producing states questioned Department of Energy nominees about federal investments in sustainable energy. The oil and coal interests argued that the government should not pick winners and losers among rival sources of energy. A strong supporter of sustainable energy, Sanders said picking winners and losers is what the government has done for decades with subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power. Watch a brief excerpt from the hearing.