Make American Ports Free Again

March 8, 2019

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico a few years ago, you probably saw pictures of shipping containers stranded at United States ports waiting to be delivered to survivors there.

One of the reasons those containers couldn’t get to Puerto Rico is because of a 1920 law that was designed to promote a civilian merchant marine fleet that could “serve as a naval or military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency.”

This Merchant Marine Act, otherwise known as the Jones Act, requires that all goods shipped between United States ports must be transported by ships built in the U.S., registered in the U.S., owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed primarily by U.S. citizens.

This policy is great for American shipping companies, but it is terrible for American consumers in remote places like Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The Cato Institute estimates that after accounting for the inflated costs of transportation and infrastructure, the forgone wages and output, the lost domestic and foreign business revenue, and the monetized environmental toll, the annual cost of the Jones Act is in the tens of billions of dollars. And that figure doesn’t even include the annual administration and oversight costs of the law.

The United States is the top producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), yet in order for the energy source to reach the New England region, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, maritime shipping is often the only transport option. Unfortunately, the United States has NO U.S. flagged LNG specialty carriers that are compliant with the Jones Act. This has forced these constrained locations to import natural gas from international producers. Last year, a Russian natural gas tanker traveled 4,500 miles from Russia to deliver natural gas to Boston to meet its energy demands. Puerto Rico often has to import its natural gas from countries like Trinidad and Tobago while Puerto Rico’s nearby neighbor, the Dominican Republic, will import natural gas from the United States.

Moreover, this law has made it unnecessarily difficult for hurricane victims to get the relief supplies they so desperately need.

It has become routine for presidents to waive the Jones Act in the wake of natural disasters. President Bush waived the Jones Act after Hurricane Katrina, and President Trump waived the law after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and eventually Maria as well.

But the president shouldn’t have to waive this World War I-era relic after every natural disaster. The United States has long had an adequate navy that can provide for national security without an auxiliary merchant marine force.

That is why I introduced the Open America’s Water Act of 2019 this week, which would repeal the Jones Act and allow all qualified vessels to engage in domestic trade between U.S. ports.

It is long past time to repeal the Jones Act entirely so that Alaskans, Hawaiians, and Puerto Ricans aren’t forced to pay higher prices for imported goods—and so they rapidly receive the help they need in the wake of natural disasters.

Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act

March 1, 2019

Ashish Patel first came to Utah legally in 2005 on a temporary high-skilled work visa. Since that time Mr. Patel worked hard at his job, paid taxes, followed the law, got married, and had two kids, both of whom were born American citizens.

In February 2011, Mr. Patel’s petition to earn a Green Card, the legal document that gives an immigrant the right to live and work in the United States permanently, was approved. If Mr. Patel was from any country in the world other than India, or China, he would already have his Green Card today.

But current immigration law caps the number of visas that can be given to immigrants from any given country at 7% of the total number of visas awarded for any given year. This means that immigrants from countries with large populations, like Mr. Patel, have to wait over ten years for their visas to be approved – even though in the vast majority of cases they are already living and working in the United States.

While these immigrants are patiently waiting for the per-country backlog to clear so they can earn permanent residence, they are severely limited in their ability change jobs. They can’t threaten to quit if they are not being paid well and they can’t leave to start their own business if they have an innovative new idea that can create new jobs and wealth.

The status quo is simply unfair to these immigrants in limbo. It depresses wages for everyone by tying immigrants to employers and it hurts job creation by preventing immigrants from starting their own businesses.

The system needs reform.

That is why I have teamed up with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) to introduce the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. Without increasing the number of employment-based visas, this bill would create an even playing field for high skilled immigrants and U.S. employers by eliminating the per-country caps. This means that immigrants will receive green cards on a “first-come, first-serve” basis, rather than having their wait times depend on their country of origin.

Immigration is often a contentious issue, but we should not delay progress in areas where there is bipartisan consensus just because we have differences in other areas. There is a clear consensus that immigrants should not be penalized due to their country of origin. Treating people fairly and equally is part of our founding creed and the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act reflects that belief.

Constitutional Tort Reform

February 1, 2019

Conservatives often face a difficult problem that progressives do not when attempting to reform public policy problems at the federal level.

For progressives, everything is a national issue that should be solved by the federal government. For conservatives, however, the United States Constitution gave only some enumerated powers to the federal government and intended the rest of governmental authority to be left to the states.

This can limit reforms conservatives want to make on issues like tort reform, a problem that drives up health care costs and makes it harder for small businesses to survive.

A tort is an act or omission that injures someone resulting in legal liability for the person who committed the tort. A business that sells poorly constructed chairs could face a tort action if someone was injured when one of their chairs broke. Torts are a foundational element to American common law, but unfortunately some states have rigged their legal rules to give unfair advantages to the trial lawyers that bring tort suits to court on behalf of clients.

Fortunately, the Founding Fathers were aware of the biases that some states have against out of state defendants, so the First Congress gave defendants access to less-biased federal courts when a plaintiff and defendant are from different states. This “diversity jurisdiction” was unfortunately narrowed by the Supreme Court, which held that even a single plaintiff sharing the same state as a defendant could prevent the defendant from accessing federal court.

This strict “complete diversity” standard has made it harder and harder for defendants to access federal court since, in an increasingly interconnected world, it is easier for trial lawyers to strategically plead their clients’ claims in order to destroy complete diversity of citizenship and thereby keep a case out of federal court. Moreover, the growing partisanship of state judicial elections has exacerbated the tendency of some judges to unfairly put a thumb on the scales for home-state plaintiffs.

The Federal Courts Access Act of 2019, introduced this week, ensures that litigants have the full protection of diversity jurisdiction envisioned by the Framers. It does this by amending 28 U.S.C. § 1332 so as to allow for federal jurisdiction in cases where there just one plaintiff is from a state different than the defendant. As a result, plaintiffs will no longer be able to strategically manipulate their pleadings in order to close off access to federal courts for out-of-state defendants.

This constitutional tort reform proposal will help guarantee fair and impartial treatment of defendants across the country.

Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform

January 18, 2019

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Founding Fathers specifically included this provision in the Constitution because, as they complained in the Declaration of Independence, the British often detained colonists and seized their property without any legal process at all.

Unfortunately in recent decades, the federal government and local law enforcement have been using a legal practice called “civil asset forfeiture” to short circuit these protections.

Criminal asset forfeiture is a well-established and just practice. Criminals who have been convicted of a crime in a court of law should not be able to keep the profits of their ill-gotten gains.

Civil asset forfeiture is more suspect. Under civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement agencies can take your property on the mere suspicion that it is connected to criminal activity. Typically, the burden is on the property owner to prove that they are innocent before they can get their property back. This is backwards and unjust.

Even worse, some states allow law enforcement agencies to keep the assets they seize instead of turning the property over to the local government’s general fund. This creates a terrible incentive for law enforcement to unjustly seize property without cause. Studies show that law enforcement agencies in states that allow the agencies to keep the property they seize have a proven track record of using civil asset forfeiture more than law enforcement agencies in states that require agencies to turn the money over.

Some states have recognized how unjust civil asset forfeiture can be and they have begun to reform the practice by placing the burden of proof on law enforcement, not property owners. Unfortunately, local law enforcement authorities can sometimes still get around these protections by partnering with federal law enforcement officials in a system called “equitable sharing.” Under this practice, local officials are able to seize property under federal forfeiture law which they give to the federal agencies, who then return up to 80 percent of those funds back to the state and local agencies. Between 2000 and 2013, annual payments to the state and local law enforcement through the Justice Department’s equitable sharing program more than tripled, growing from $199 million to $643 million.

Change is coming to our nation’s civil asset forfeiture laws. In a case that was turned away from the Supreme Court on technical grounds, Justice Thomas signaled that many states’ practices may be unconstitutional. That’s why I was happy to hear that Attorney General nominee William Barr, who I questioned this week in his nomination hearing, shares these concerns.

While we certainly want to ensure that law enforcement has the tools they need to fight crime, the federal government should not be wrongfully taking our citizens’ private property and denying them due process under the law. I look forward to further working on this issue with the Justice Department to fight for Americans’ constitutional rights and to protect them from this kind of government abuse.

Protecting Our Rural Communities

January 11, 2019

Rural Americans want what all Americans want: a dignified decent-paying job, a family to love and support, and a healthy community whose future is determined by local residents – not their self-styled betters thousands of miles away,

Unfortunately, a relic of presidential power from the Progressive Era has been weaponized in recent years to threaten rural Utahns way of life.

Passed in 1906, the Antiquities Act authorizes the president to unilaterally designate national monuments on federal lands with the intent of protecting historic landmarks and archeological sites.

But what was once a narrowly targeted tool for preventing looting on federal lands now poses a looming danger to our rural communities in Utah. It has instead become a tool for Washington politicians to serve wealthy out-of-state special interests at the expense of these communities, as we have seen in recent decades.

In 1996, at the height of his re-election campaign, President Bill Clinton used the Antiquities Act to create a 1.5 million-acre monument in southern Utah. Environmental activists were on hand for Clinton’s announcement in Arizona, but no one from Utah’s state government or federal delegation was notified beforehand. It was a complete surprise.

Then, in 2016, after an extensive campaign by well-funded out-of-state environmental activists, President Barack Obama created the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument.

And for locals, this “protection” of these lands has come at a high cost, in the form of restrictions on travel, recreation and economic opportunities.

Reduced grazing access is particularly harmful to Utah’s communities. Utah’s rural economy is built on the agriculture industry, and livestock is the state’s single largest source of farm income. Since the 1940s, federal agencies have cut livestock grazing on Utah rangelands by more than 50 percent — a trend only accelerated by monument designations.

Well-meaning environmental activists have suggested that Utah’s rural communities embrace the tourist economy that comes with monument designations. But while tourism has contributed much to rural Western economies, communities can’t survive on tourism alone. Tourism is at best a complement to — not a substitute for — broader economic development. And we ought not limit the job opportunities in our rural regions to just one industry.

We as Utahns are not powerless to stop these attacks on our rural communities and lands. And there is no one better suited to protect them than the very people who live closest to them and rely on them for their livelihoods. If we want to permanently protect Utah’s rural economy from outside intervention, we need to act now.

That is why I introduced the Protect Utah’s Rural Economy, or PURE, Act this week. This bill would protect Utah from future abuses under the Antiquities Act by prohibiting the president from establishing or expanding a national monument in Utah unless the proposed monument has been authorized by an act of Congress and the state Legislature.

In other words, it would empower our local communities to give them a voice in public land management while also maintaining the president’s power to protect these lands. And in fact, Congress has twice granted similar protections to other states.

Congress first prohibited future monument designations in the state of Wyoming in 1950. Then, more than 30 years later, Congress passed another law requiring congressional approval for any monument designation in Alaska larger than 5,000 acres. At a bare minimum, Utahns deserve the same protections from the Antiquities Act that the people of Alaska and Wyoming enjoy. The PURE Act would give them that protection.

Defending Religious Liberty from Progressive Extremists

December 21, 2018

Religious liberty is one of the defining principles of our founding and our history. We are incredibly fortunate that for nearly two and half centuries, our tradition of religious freedom – guaranteed to us under the First Amendment – has accommodated people of many different faiths and deeply held beliefs.

So even though the Supreme Court ruled that the states must legally change the definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, Americans are still constitutionally allowed to disagree with this definition on the basis of their religion or personal beliefs.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his Obergefell v. Hodges opinion, “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths… In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate.”

But this week, the Senate was close to confirming a nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who threatens to deny this principle. Chai Feldblum, who was first nominated to the EEOC by President Obama in 2009, was re-nominated to the commission’s five-member board by President Trump last December. And unfortunately, Feldblum has had a history of pushing a political agenda on marriage at the expense of religious freedom.

Feldblum has written that she sees the conflict between religious belief and LGBT liberty as “a zero-sum game” where “a gain for one side necessarily entails a corresponding loss for the other side.” And there is no mystery about which side she thinks should win. In a separate speech she said, “There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win… I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

These are not the words of an open-minded jurist. Rather, they are the words of an activist intent on stamping out all opposition to her cause. In fact, she has even gone so far as to say that “granting liberty to gay people… cannot be adequately advanced if pockets of resistance are permitted to flourish.”

As an EEOC commissioner, Feldblum would be in a prime position to stamp out those pockets of resistance. As she herself told the Washington Blade in 2015, “The EEOC has jurisdiction only over employment. But other federal agencies that enforce sex discrimination provisions often look to our interpretation for guidance in interpreting the laws they enforce.”

And that is why I objected to and blocked her re-confirmation on the Senate floor this week: the federal government should never be used as a tool to stamp out religious liberty. While Obergefell v. Hodges changed the legal definition of marriage – which Americans are free to agree with if they choose – the First Amendment also unequivocally protects an individual’s right to believe in traditional marriage.

We are blessed enough to live in a country that has historically valued religious freedom and understood its importance to human happiness and social flourishing. It is of the utmost importance that we confirm nominees to our government who will continue to uphold and protect this freedom.

Government Spectrum Valuation Act

December 7, 2018

You can’t see them, but all of us are surrounded by traffic jams every day. Even if you never set foot in a car, these traffic problems are almost definitely affecting your daily life. And they are getting worse.

Do you have a mobile device like an iPhone? Do you use Wi-Fi in your home or at work? If so then you are part of the spectrum traffic jam.

Just like cars travel down a highway, information travels on wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. If there is too much information traveling on one particular wavelength then that information can’t travel as fast or as accurately as possible.

We do have traffic laws to govern these invisible traffic flows, but with the evergoing demand for wireless communication, our existing roads are clogging up. And if we want to be at the forefront of 5G wireless technology we are going to need all the spectrum we can find.

In addition to the spectrum we all use for radio, television, and our mobile devices, the federal government also has set aside parts of the spectrum to key agencies like the Department of Defense and Interior Department.

Of the spectrum dedicated to these federal agencies, most of it would be considered four lane express highways; obviously we’d like to reserve the best communications infrastructure for the defense of our country and its citizens. However, we’re not entirely sure how much of that spectrum is actually being used by all of these agencies.

While the unused spectrum bands were less of an issue at the beginning of the 1900s when there were fewer entitles – like tech companies – competing for them, that is no longer the case. With more and more people going wireless and demanding faster speeds, more spectrum is needed. This is why Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and I introduced the Government Spectrum Valuation Act. The bill requires the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the FCC to determine the value of electromagnetic spectrum assigned or allocated to each federal agency and make that analysis available publicly annually.

Once we know how much spectrum each agency has, and how much the spectrum is worth, we can better decide if agencies have the spectrum they need and if they have any unneeded spectrum that can be sold to the public.

If the United States is going to maintain its status as a global technology leader we need to make sure we are allocating our finite spectrum resources efficiently. And this bill will help us reach that goal.

What’s in The First Step Act

November 30, 2018

Over incarceration is a very real threat facing our nation; it breaks down bonds with family and community and often times the prisoners are released with few skills and lacking the ability to truly reenter society, resulting in a higher likelihood to reoffend.

This isn’t to say that those who commit crimes should be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their way. We are, after all, a country of law and order. However, that same law and order requires we dole out justice fairly. When doled out unfairly, it causes a breakdown in trust of our law enforcement officials. This, too, leads to higher rates of recidivism and makes our country less safe.

That is why a bipartisan group of legislators, law enforcement agents, and jurists have been working together to address these problems. Our solution is the First Step Act.

The prison reform aspect of the bill deals primarily with expanding time credits that are earned for good behavior and participation in recidivism-reduction programs. Federal inmates use these credits to secure transfer from prison to pre-release custody — meaning home confinement, supervised release, or a halfway house.

Under this bill, not all inmates are eligible to earn those credit. The bill lists 50 offenses that automatically disqualify an inmate from earning these credits. The remaining inmates are eligible only if they their prison warden, using data-based standards developed by the attorney general and an independent commission, determines they’re a low recidivism risk.

For eligible inmates, the warden will individually tailor the type and amount of recidivism-reduction programming and activities.

These recidivism-reduction programs are designed by federal prison wardens. Additionally, the bill mandates data analysis on the effectiveness of each recidivism-reduction program. If the program is not proven effective, wardens will not award time for participating in it.

This bill does not allow dangerous criminals to earn early release. Beyond excluding those 50 specifically dangerous offenses, it directs experienced law-enforcement officers to determine whether an offender is dangerous.

These officers are not government bureaucrats or elected officials who have outside agendas. These are professionals, doing a job they already do daily in order to run the nation’s federal prisons. Similar risk assessments have already been implemented in Texas and Georgia, and these states are hardly criminal havens.

There have been concerns about how fentanyl dealers would be affected under our bill, especially in light of the continued fight against opioids. According to the Sentencing Commission, the 56 people who were sentenced for fentanyl dealing in 2017 and who’s sentences would have been affected by our bill would still be sentenced to an average of 211 months — or 17 years and seven months – in prison. Not exactly soft on crime.

The bill also allows some judicial oversight of mandatory minimums. However, this “safety valve” cannot apply to offenders who threatened or perpetrated violence or bodily harm, or possessed a firearm or other dangerous weapon. In order for this to apply, offenders would also have to cooperate with law enforcement to go after higher-level offenders.

Criminal-justice-reform in the 20th century has been led by conservatives who understood that law and order is built on the responsible use of government power, tight-knit communities, a vibrant civil society, strong families, and personal responsibility

The FIRST STEP Act is a chance to continue that legacy.

Time to Vote on Yemen

November 16, 2018

Two weeks ago, following continued admonitions of innocence from Saudi Arabia, it was confirmed that American journalist Jamal Khashoggi was viciously murdered within the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.

Khashoggi’s death calls attention to the deaths of many perpetrated by Saudi Arabia—including in Yemen, where an innocent life cut short is not uncommon.

Since 2015, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed, countless families displaced, and many more deprived of food, water, and shelter due to a Saudi-led blockade. Fifteen million people can’t access clean water and sanitation. An estimated 17 million people – 60 percent of the total population – do not have reliable access to food and are at risk of starvation.

These numbers and Khashoggi’s murder beg us to reevaluate our involvement in Yemen, and further, the extent of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. It also serves as a reminder to Americans that Congress still has not held a vote on our continued military intervention in that country.

Our intervention in that region started many years ago, escalating in 2015 when President Obama authorized "logistical and intelligence support" for Saudi Arabia following an uprising of Houthi insurgents against President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

However, several years - and many lives later - we are no closer to a solution.

Our involvement in Yemen is a clear violation of Article 1 of the Constitution which gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. In 1973, Congress did pass the War Powers Act which does give the executive branch the ability to use the U.S. armed forces in cases of emergencies and only for a limited time. But Yemen is not an emergency, and it has not been constrained by any time restrictions.

That is why this past February Senator Sanders (VE-I), Senator Murphy (DE-D), and I introduced a resolution to remove U.S. Armed Forces from Yemen.

However, the Senate tabled consideration of the resolution in a 55 to 44 vote. The resolution remains in the Foreign Relations Committee six months later with no additional vote on the forefront.

For far too long congress has neglected our constitutional responsibility to oversee military intervention, and our continued involvement in Yemen is both unconstitutional and immoral. I hope to fix this by yet again calling on a vote, and this time passing, the Sanders, Lee, Murphy resolution which would remove U.S. forces from Yemen.

Make Trade with Britain Great Again

September 21, 2018

It is undeniable that the United States and the United Kingdom have a “special relationship.” Throughout periods of global change, and in times of tumult and war, the Anglo-American relationship has been constant. We have stood beside each other through two world wars, the Cold War, and now in our confrontation with global terrorism in a shared pursuit of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

And our trading partnership has been a major element of that relationship. Now, with the scheduled departure of Britain from the European Union, there is the possibility of a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the U.K., an opportunity that would immensely benefit our two nations.

Prior to this, we were not able to have true free trade with Britain precisely because it was a member of the EU. But after March 2019, when Britain is scheduled to make its departure, it will regain its freedom to make its own trade agreements.

Our trading relationship has already been mutually beneficial up to this point. After the EU, the United States is the United Kingdom’s largest trading partner; and the United Kingdom is the 7th largest trading partner of the United States. In 2015 alone, the U.S. exported more than $56 billion worth of goods and services to the U.K. – a sum that was almost identical to the value of U.K. exports to American exports.

On top of this, the U.S. economy is the largest in the world, while the U.K.’s is fifth largest. The size of our economies, combined with our significant trading relationship, would mean that a free trade agreement would significantly advance prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. Competition would increase, and consumers would have more choices and lower prices. It would be a force generator for economic liberty through genuine bilateral free trade, based upon the principles of sovereignty and economic freedom.

Fortunately, several think tanks and scholars across the U.S. and the U.K. have collaborated to put together an free trade agreement. They have drafted a full, complete text for an agreement that makes significant progress towards the end of trade liberalization between our countries. And these scholars have proven that a full free trade agreement can be done.

And this is exactly what we should be working towards as Britain moves to exit the EU. We ought to be supporting the decision of the British people, and taking steps to ensure that a post-Brexit UK – and the world – can realize the economic and strategic possibilities that full British sovereignty presents.

That is why I also worked with Senator Cotton to introduce the United Kingdom Trade Continuity Act with Senator Cotton last Congress. Our bill would promote economic stability and growth as the U.K. transitions out of the EU by obligating the U.S. to continue and honor all existing commercial agreements with the U.K., and by calling on the President to initiate negotiations for new bilateral agreements with the U.K. 30 days after the bill is enacted.

Steps like these would preserve and promote our special relationship with the United Kingdom. And there would be no better way to do so than by instituting a free trade agreement between our two nations.