Yes, Babies Are A Better Solution to Climate Change Than The Green New Deal
One doesn’t bring posters of tauntauns, Aquaman, and President Reagan riding a velociraptor while firing a submachine gun to the Senate floor without expecting a little bit of controversy. If you are going to poke fun at the prevailing pieties of progressivism on a national stage, a little pushback should be expected.
But what was surprising about the reaction to my speech on the Green New Deal, has been which chart garnered the most vehement anger. It wasn’t Ronald Reagan riding a dinosaur or Utah Gov. Gary Herbert battling tornado-propelled sharks or Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserting that the resolution’s own supporters don’t know what is in it. No, the most controversial poster of the 14-minute speech turned out to be a simple image of six smiling babies.
State Work Week Recap — March 2019
During the Senate’s state work period last week, I was able to visit 7 of Utah’s 29 counties. Listening to the diverse perspectives found in our great state helps me to better represent the people of Utah in the US Senate.
Here’s a recap of some of my visits.
U.S.-U.K. Free Trade Resolution
Mr./Madam President,
For the past three years, the world has watched the United Kingdom debate and negotiate their exit from the European Union after the historic “Brexit” vote in June of 2016. There have been multiple deals proposed since then, and now the deadline for withdrawal fast approaches this Friday.
Sens. Lee And Paul Introduce The Voluntary Check-Off Program Participation Act
WASHINGTON – Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the Voluntary Check-Off Program Participation Act Thursday, a bill that give would give farmers and ranchers the freedom not to participate in Department of Agriculture check-off programs.
“If farmers and ranchers want to get together and pool their resources to better promote their products, then that is the free market at its best,” Lee said. “But as soon as the power of the federal government is used to force people into a program they do not want to participate in, then that is crony capitalism at its worst.”
Sens. Lee, Booker Introduce Commodity Check Off Reform Bill
WASHINGTON – Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act of 2019 (OFF Act) Thursday, a measure intended to bring much needed transparency and accountability to the federal government’s commodity check off programs.
Checkoff programs are mandatory participation programs under the US Department of Agriculture. These programs are funded through compulsory fees on producers of eggs, beef, pork and a multitude of other agricultural products. The programs and associated boards have received criticism in the past for a lack of transparency, apparent conflicts of interest, misuse of their funding and anticompetitive behavior.
Remarks on the Green New Deal
Mr. President,
Fear has become an all-too-prevalent quality in America’s political discourse.
And unfortunately, fear is unavoidable when debating the substance of the resolution before us today – climate change, socialism, and the Green New Deal.
Facebook, Google, others have big problems, but antitrust law is not the answer
It’s not every day that Tucker Carlson and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., agree on something. But for very different reasons these two stars of the right and left respectively both want to use antitrust law to take the tech giants of Silicon Valley down a notch.
Carlson makes a case that certain tech platforms – particularly Facebook, Google and Twitter – discriminate against conservative speech, and many Republican members of Congress seem to agree with him.
Senator Lee Announces Town Halls
SALT LAKE CITY – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) will be hosting a town hall at the following locations on Tuesday March 19, 2019
11:00am-12:00pm – Castle Dale City Hall, 20 S 100 E, Castle Dale
3:00-4:00pm – North Sevier Recreation (upstairs meeting room) 373 W 400 N, Salina
6:00-7:00pm Senior Citizens Center (basement of the courthouse) 160 N Main, Nephi
MEDIA ADVISORY: Sen. Lee Town Hall
SALT LAKE CITY – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) will be hosting a town hall at the following locations on Tuesday March 19, 2019.
Floor Remarks on Emergency Declaration
Mr. President, it’s significant that the very first clause of the very first section of the very first article of the Constitution consists of the words “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”
The Founding Fathers wasted no time in getting right to the heart of the matter, which is to say that the legislative powers within the federal government – that is, the power to make law within that federal system – would themselves be exercised only by that branch of that government most accountable to the people at the most regular, routine intervals.