Week in Review

For the third week in a row, a Republican filibuster in the Senate blocked a bill to extend long-term unemployment benefits.  On Friday, The Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy lost jobs in June. To help create jobs in Vermont, a $47 million grant was announced Friday to expand broadband Internet service. On Wednesday, a new academic study was released showing that a provision by Senator Bernie Sanders in the new health care law to expand community health centers actually will save billions of dollars by keeping people from getting sicker and winding up in expensive hospitals.

Jobs Friday's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that 46 percent of unemployed Americans were out of work for more than six months in June. The 9.5 percent unemployment rate remained high, but dipped from May’s 9.7 percent. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 125,000 last month, as workers hired for the 2010 census lost those temporary jobs.

Economic Stimulus Under a federal economic stimulus grants, two Vermont telecommunication organizations were awarded a total of $47.1 million in federal economic recovery grants to build Vermont’s broadband network.  “Every day I hear from Vermonters upset about inadequate broadband service in our state,” said Sanders, who has long been an advocate of affordable and universal broadband service. “These federal grants will bring Vermont broadband service into the 21st century. It will improve our business climate and help our schools, colleges, hospitals and other medical facilities perform better. It must also pave the way for reasonably-priced broadband services for virtually every household in the state of Vermont.”  The government estimates that the Vermont project and 65 others announced on Friday will create about 5,000 short-term construction and installation jobs, with additional longer term economic gains. To read more, click here.

Health Centers A report by George Washington University researchers projects billions of dollars in savings from a major new investment in community health centers. Sanders and House Majority Whip James Clyburn were the chief backers of a provision in the new national health care law doubling the number of Federally Qualified Health Centers, which provide affordable primary care, dental care, mental-health counseling and low-cost prescription drugs. The GWU analysis said the $11 billion in additional federal support for community health centers will reduce total national medical costs by more than $180 billion over the next 10 years, including savings of more than $50 billion in federal Medicaid spending and more than $30 billion in reduced state Medicaid expenditures. To read more, click here. 

Gulf Oil Spill As oil continued to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, the Senate energy committee on Wednesday rejected a Sanders amendment that would have barred offshore drilling off the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts and off Florida’s gulf coast. The amendment would have reinstated longstanding drilling restrictions that were lifted two summers ago. Writing in the Times Argus,  Vermont Natural Resources Council Executive Director Elizabeth Courtney called Sanders “a bold clean energy and climate action advocate.” LINK

Afghanistan Both of Vermont's U.S. Senators voted to confirm General David Petraeus as the new military commander in Afghanistan. "We have 94,000 troops in Afghanistan, including 1,500 from Vermont. What we wanted is to make sure that we have qualified and competent leadership there, and I think Petraeus provides that," Sanders told Vermont Public Radio.

Vietnam Sanders left Friday on a congressional delegation trip to Vietnam led by Sen. Tom Harkin, the Senate health committee chairman. Sanders, a member of the health committee, said one focus of the trip will be on the lingering health consequences from Agent Orange, the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants widely used by the U.S. military in Southeast Asia. Trade policies and their impact on American workers is another issue that Sanders will explore on the trip during Congress’s one-week July recess. To read more, click here.