[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 107 (Monday, August 3, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1526-E1527]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 STUDENTS' VIEWS OF ISSUES FACING YOUTH

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, August 3, 1998

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have printed in the Record 
statements by high school students from my home state of Vermont, who 
were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people 
today. I am asking that you please insert these statements in the 
Congressional Record as I believe that the views of these young people 
will benefit my colleagues.

            Statement by David Hay Regarding VA Health Care

       David Hay: For the record, my name is David Hay.
       Congressman Sanders: Thank you very much for coming.
       David Hay: I would like to talk about my dad. My dad is a 
     Vietnam veteran who is permanently and totally disabled due 
     to the war, and dying due to Agent Orange-related illnesses. 
     He is on medication for seizure disorder, depression, 
     physical pain, various forms of hepatitis and other diseases, 
     including emphysema.
       Even with these medications, he is sometimes confined to 
     the house with pain and sickness. He gets about two to three 
     hours of sleep at night, and sometimes none at all. He spends 
     the first part of the morning vomiting and then takes his 
     medications, and endeavors not to vomit in order that the 
     medications may be effective.
       My dad's average weight was 180 to 190 pounds. Now he is 
     lucky to reach 130 pounds. He has to force-feed himself. No 
     matter how much he eats, he still loses weight. He will gain 
     ten pounds one week and loss 15 the next. When he wakes up 
     from sleeping, he can hardly walk twenty feet from loss of 
     breath. My dad is not old, he just turned 52.
       Part of the reason why he is so sick is because of the 
     medication he receives from the Veterans Association Hospital 
     in White River Junction. It is not rare at all for him to 
     receive the wrong medication, or a synthetic medication that 
     affects him badly, or a prescribed medication for him that 
     counteracts with other medications. They are constantly 
     changing his prescription. These medications affect with 
     malice his breathing, appetite, sleeping pattern, thoughts 
     and pain.
       Just three weeks ago, I was at home reading the warning 
     label on one of his inhalers. It said not to take it with 
     seizure medication. My dad has to take seizure medications 
     every day, as with the inhalers. He has been using the 
     inhaler for over a year, and both were given to him by the 
     VA. And there are many other vets that this happens to.
       I was wondering what you or Congress could do to correct 
     the carelessness of the Veterans Association Hospital, if 
     there could be laws or regulations that the doctors must look 
     into background of the patient and the current medication the 
     patient might be on before prescribing more drugs that could 
     harm or even kill the patient, and if there are such laws and 
     regulations, what can we do to enforce them.
       Congressman Sanders: Thank you very much David.
                                  ____


Statement by Kayla Gildersleeve and Tess Gross Regarding Strengthening 
                          Pollution Standards

       Kayla Gildersleeve: Our presentation is focused on a topic 
     that a lot of people have

[[Page E1527]]

     never even heard of before, the CAFE standards, which stands 
     for the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.
       Tess Gross: The Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards 
     are also known as the CAFE standards. In the mid-'70s 
     Congress created the CAFE standards to regulate the amount of 
     gas used per mile by cars, and because they thought the U.S. 
     needed economic independence, less dependence on foreign oil, 
     and because they noticed the deterioration of the 
     environment.
       Between 1973 and 1987, American cars increased their 
     average fuel efficiency from 14 miles per gallon to 28 miles 
     per gallon. Without the government's involvement, cars would 
     not have become so efficient so quickly.
       Kayla Gildersleeve: Consumer Reports Magazine noted that 
     this trend is now being reversed. Vehicles made in 1998 have 
     the lowest average fuel efficiency for American cars in 16 
     years. According to the New York Times, 1996 was the first 
     year in which cars going into the junkyard got better mileage 
     than ones rolling off the dealers' lots.
       There are several causes for this declining efficiency. 
     During the Reagan and Bush administrations, the Department of 
     Transportation allowed the standards to be rolled back, and 
     the preferences of American car buyers have changed. Over 30 
     percent of new vehicles are trucks, sport utility vehicles 
     and other four-wheel drive vehicles. These very inefficient 
     vehicles are used by most of their owners as passenger cars, 
     yet the government doesn't require them to meet the same fuel 
     economy standards that the cars must meet.
       Most truck owners are more likely to use their trucks to 
     travel to the Grand Union than to a construction site. The 
     government should recognize this fact and increase the 
     requirements for sport utility vehicles.
       Tess Gross: America needs to make more efforts to consume 
     less of the world's resources. Americans make up 5 percent of 
     the world's population, but use 26 percent of the world's 
     oil. Some Americans wish to provide more oil for the nation 
     by drilling Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This 
     action would have a huge environmental impact, but would only 
     provide one-tenth of the oil that would be saved by raising 
     auto efficiency to an average of 40 miles per gallon.
       Since cars increased their mile-per-gallon performance 
     nearly 100 percent between 1973 and 1988, big, gas-guzzling 
     autos and sport utility vehicles are now reversing this 
     process. Sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickup trucks 
     are subject to much less stringent requirements than cars.
       In conclusion, we believe that, in order to help fix the 
     environment, increase economic independence, lessen the 
     United States' dependency on foreign oil, and to save 
     millions of dollars from importing oil, we would need to see 
     a great improvement in the CAFE standards.
       Kayla Gildersleeve: In 1991 hundreds of thousands of 
     soldiers went to the Persian Gulf to fight in a war that was 
     fought for a variety of reasons, but primarily to protect the 
     America's oil supply. This example alone should be enough to 
     convince Americans that we should be consuming less oil.
       Many changes will have to occur in American society to 
     dramatically reduce America's consumption of oil. One of the 
     simplest and quickest changes that we can make is for 
     Congress to raise fuel economy requirement for new passenger 
     vehicles, and all the vehicles that are used primarily for 
     transporting people, including sport utility vehicles.
       There are many benefits: A cleaner environment, reduced 
     emissions of greenhouse gases, and less potential for being 
     drawn into a military conflict to protect our foreign oil 
     supply.
       Congressman Sanders: Thank you very much.
                                  ____


 Statement by Nicholas Webb, Ginger Irish and Palmer Legare Regarding 
                     Safety Issues for Gay Students

       Nicholas Webb: Last night, my mother said, ``You know, 
     Nick, I would never have chosen to have a gay son, but of all 
     the people in the world, I would still have chosen you.'' The 
     truth of the matter is, you can't pick your children.
       And with that thought, I ask you, if your child, best 
     friend, or someone close to you were gay, could they be 
     honest with you? Too often, the answer is no. That is why the 
     Gay-Straight Alliance at CVU was started, to provide people 
     of all sexualities a safe avenue of support.
       One in ten people are gay, and 30 percent of them are 
     suicidal. And even my own parents don't fully understand 
     homosexuality, but the important thing is that they accept it 
     and they support me.
       If you answered no to the previous questions, then I tell 
     you with all factuality that you are endangering lives, quite 
     possibly the lives of your children and loved ones.
       Too often have people come to me and ask me if they should 
     tell their parents that they are gay. Too often have I 
     witnessed 15-year-old kids getting kicked out of their house 
     simply because of their sexuality. If they even questioned 
     talking about such an important issue to their own family, 
     how can you expect them to live and trust their family?
       We, the leaders of gay-straight alliances across the state, 
     are helping to make schools safer for homosexual, bisexual 
     and transgender students. But it is up to you, the society, 
     to make your own homes and communities safe. It could be your 
     child or your child's best friend who realizes how unfriendly 
     and condemning this country, this state is to homosexuals. It 
     could be them that decide it is not worth it to live in such 
     a place.
       Understand that, whether you believe in homosexuality or 
     not, it's there, and you got to accept it. It's time for 
     people to, once again, rise above another form of racism, the 
     discrimination of sexual preference.
       Finally, I ask you, each and every one of you, that if you 
     think you know someone who is gay, or if you think that your 
     child just might not be heterosexual, why can't they tell you 
     and why aren't you helping them? Because only inadvertently 
     do we actually hurt the ones we love.
       Ginger Irish: Because of the reasons Nick has outlined, 
     straight members of the CVU community have reached out to 
     support GLVTU and to make our school a safer place for 
     everyone. In the past year, our GSA has spoken to health 
     classes, planned an AIDS awareness day, and has had various 
     speakers come to our school to discuss sexuality issues.
       Some of the closed-mindedness of students at our school has 
     manifested itself in comments such as, ``Oh, are you in that 
     gay club?'' But, over the course of the past year, students 
     have learned to use gay-sensitive language, and have made 
     leaps and bounds in accepting homosexuality as an integral 
     part of our society.
       As the leader and coordinator of the GSA next year, I plan 
     to continue educating the student body and faculty. Through 
     this education, and continual awareness, I hope to make CVU a 
     safe environment for all students questioning their 
     sexuality.
       Accepting homosexuality within our community can open our 
     eyes to all differences among people, such as race, 
     disability or gender. The GSA will continue to make CVU a 
     melting pot for diversity among all its members.
       Palmer Legare: First, I would like to say that I was 
     originally going to come here and make my own presentation, 
     but because there are so many gay-straight alliances here, a 
     lot of us had to combine, and leave out a lot of important 
     parts.
       But I wanted to come and talk about the importance of a 
     public person like you going out and taking a public stand on 
     this issue, as opposed to simply making a policy and law, 
     which is also important. And I want to give an example of how 
     inefficient a good policy can be without much publicity.
       In 1995, a law was passed in Vermont saying that all public 
     schools had to add sexual orientation to the anti-harassment 
     list by 1997. Well, a couple of years later, I and some other 
     people started looking into schools and what was going on. 
     And we found out that, actually, less than half of the 
     schools that were all supposed to have this, had it--less 
     than half.
       We continued to look, and even the ones that did have the 
     anti-harassment policy didn't know how to enforce it. 
     Oftentimes, the teachers didn't know that the school had the 
     policy, and, often, the students didn't know that the school 
     had the policy.
       Recently Governor Dean has taken a new strategy, and, last 
     week, he actually went to U32 and spoke publicly about the 
     importance of speaking out against homophobia, and we expect 
     that this is going to make a lot of change, and make a lot of 
     other schools realize that they need this policy. And we ask 
     that you also do something similar to that, maybe go to gay-
     straight alliances and speak, and maybe go to a place like 
     Outright, which works with gay and lesbian teens.
       Congressman Sanders: Thank you very much.

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