Floor Speech on Bears Ears National Monument
Jan 5, 2017
On January 20, change is coming to the White House. But until that day, it appears that President Obama will desperately cling to the status quo and continue to do what he has unfortunately done on so many occasions: abuse his executive powers to put in place unpopular policies without the cooperation of Congress and then pretend as if everyone supports him.
Sens. Lee, Rubio, and Cruz Send Letter Supporting Obamacare Repeal Resolution
Jan 4, 2017
WASHINGTON – Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent a letter to Senate Republican leaders Tuesday supporting their efforts to repeal Obamacare within the first weeks of the 115th Congress.
Sen. Lee Pledges To Fight Obama’s San Juan County Land Grab
Dec 28, 2016
“This arrogant act by a lame duck president will not stand. I will work tirelessly with Congress and the incoming Trump administration to honor the will of the people of Utah and undo this designation.”
Sen. Lee Welcomes Jillian Wheeler to Communications Team
Dec 15, 2016
WASHINGTON—Today, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) announced that Jillian Wheeler has accepted the position of press assistant in his Washington, D.C. office. Wheeler will replace Emily Long, who has served as Senator Lee’s press secretary since January 2011.
Lee, Klobuchar Call For “Careful Consideration” of Three Agribusiness Mergers
Dec 14, 2016
WASHINGTON - Today, Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez and Department of Justice Antitrust Division Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse calling for “careful consideration” of three recent proposed agribusiness mergers.
Why Obama shouldn’t unilaterally declare a Bears Ears monument
Dec 13, 2016
The administration recently blocked the Dakota Access Pipeline due to strong opposition from local residents. I urge it to give the same respect to the residents of San Juan County, Utah. They do not want this monument. They do not want outside interests from coastal urban areas dictating to them how to live their lives and manage their lands.
The AT&T – Time Warner Merger
Dec 9, 2016
We are living in a golden age of television. One TV writer recently wrote that for “the first time I’ve beg[un] to feel like there may, in fact, be too much good TV.”
Repealing Obamacare: Let’s Get This Done
Dec 9, 2016
Since 2010 everyone in the Republican party has agreed that Obamacare must be repealed. Most Republican members of Congress — ourselves included — were elected, and reelected, on the promise that we would take any opportunity possible to end this partisan, ham-handed, and unconstitutional law.
When Republicans attained control of both the House and Senate in 2015, we saw an opportunity to lay the foundation for full repeal under a possible future Republican president. To that end, we penned an article in National Review calling for Congress to send President Obama a bill repealing Obamacare. “It is more important than ever for Republicans in Congress to honor the promises we have made to the American people,” we wrote. “We can do this, before the end of the year, through a procedure known as ‘budget reconciliation.’”
House and Senate Republicans followed through on this promise. We sent a bill to President Obama’s desk that would have repealed much of the law, and was promptly — and unsurprisingly — vetoed. But this exercise was not, by any measure, a fruitless effort.
That bill, H.R. 3762, established the minimum standards against which any future Obamacare repeal bills would be measured. It zeroed out Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates, scrapped the taxes, revived health savings accounts, and rolled back the Medicaid expansion and subsidies. Majorities in the House and Senate are on record voting for all of these items. We can do it again.
But there is no denying that any new reconciliation repeal bill in the next Congress will have a different outcome. This time, when the House and Senate send such a bill to the White House, the incoming president has said he will sign it. That is why it is so important that we get this repeal bill right.
And the bare minimum simply is not enough this time.
A minimum effort could end up hurting many Americans. Specifically, the law’s many insurance mandates drive up health costs and force individuals to violate their deeply held religious convictions. When government bureaucrats and politicians decide that every insurance policy must cover free doctor visits and abortifacients, Americans who don’t need those options end up paying more for products they don’t want. That’s great for the insurance companies, but not for taxpayers or consumers.
Some have argued that insurance regulations fall outside the scope of what Senate rules allow in a reconciliation bill. But since taxpayers are on the hook for billions in health insurance premiums every year, we should not give up on tackling the insurance regulations that inflate those premiums.
But deleting Obamacare from federal statute will be only the first step in reforming federal health-care policy. Republicans cannot wash their hands of the consequences of the Democrats’ failed health-care experiment. We have a responsibility to fix the broken government policies that have crippled our health-care system for decades. This means providing a transition, for however many years, for the market to recover and be able to serve individuals and businesses with more affordable, accessible health coverage. This means implementing the best of the many free-market repair proposals that Republicans have been developing for the past six years. People need options, not heavy-handed government mandates.
The details of a replacement plan do not have to be finalized now. But overall, it must honor medicine’s founding principle: primum non nocere — first, do no harm.
Congress and the Trump administration can’t afford to fumble the repeal of Obamacare. We can’t afford to just squeak by with the bare minimum, while preserving many of Obamacare’s most burdensome and intrusive provisions.
The American people have entrusted Republicans with a historic opportunity. They gave us the House, the Senate, a majority of governor’s seats, and the White House. Now we must honor the trust they have put in us by repealing and replacing Obamacare with health-care policies that lower costs, improve quality, and increase access for all Americans.
When Republicans attained control of both the House and Senate in 2015, we saw an opportunity to lay the foundation for full repeal under a possible future Republican president. To that end, we penned an article in National Review calling for Congress to send President Obama a bill repealing Obamacare. “It is more important than ever for Republicans in Congress to honor the promises we have made to the American people,” we wrote. “We can do this, before the end of the year, through a procedure known as ‘budget reconciliation.’”
House and Senate Republicans followed through on this promise. We sent a bill to President Obama’s desk that would have repealed much of the law, and was promptly — and unsurprisingly — vetoed. But this exercise was not, by any measure, a fruitless effort.
That bill, H.R. 3762, established the minimum standards against which any future Obamacare repeal bills would be measured. It zeroed out Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates, scrapped the taxes, revived health savings accounts, and rolled back the Medicaid expansion and subsidies. Majorities in the House and Senate are on record voting for all of these items. We can do it again.
But there is no denying that any new reconciliation repeal bill in the next Congress will have a different outcome. This time, when the House and Senate send such a bill to the White House, the incoming president has said he will sign it. That is why it is so important that we get this repeal bill right.
And the bare minimum simply is not enough this time.
A minimum effort could end up hurting many Americans. Specifically, the law’s many insurance mandates drive up health costs and force individuals to violate their deeply held religious convictions. When government bureaucrats and politicians decide that every insurance policy must cover free doctor visits and abortifacients, Americans who don’t need those options end up paying more for products they don’t want. That’s great for the insurance companies, but not for taxpayers or consumers.
Some have argued that insurance regulations fall outside the scope of what Senate rules allow in a reconciliation bill. But since taxpayers are on the hook for billions in health insurance premiums every year, we should not give up on tackling the insurance regulations that inflate those premiums.
But deleting Obamacare from federal statute will be only the first step in reforming federal health-care policy. Republicans cannot wash their hands of the consequences of the Democrats’ failed health-care experiment. We have a responsibility to fix the broken government policies that have crippled our health-care system for decades. This means providing a transition, for however many years, for the market to recover and be able to serve individuals and businesses with more affordable, accessible health coverage. This means implementing the best of the many free-market repair proposals that Republicans have been developing for the past six years. People need options, not heavy-handed government mandates.
The details of a replacement plan do not have to be finalized now. But overall, it must honor medicine’s founding principle: primum non nocere — first, do no harm.
Congress and the Trump administration can’t afford to fumble the repeal of Obamacare. We can’t afford to just squeak by with the bare minimum, while preserving many of Obamacare’s most burdensome and intrusive provisions.
The American people have entrusted Republicans with a historic opportunity. They gave us the House, the Senate, a majority of governor’s seats, and the White House. Now we must honor the trust they have put in us by repealing and replacing Obamacare with health-care policies that lower costs, improve quality, and increase access for all Americans.
Sen. Lee Issues Statement on National Defense Authorization Act
Dec 9, 2016
I voted no on the final version 2017 National Defense Authorization Act because it doubles down on irresponsible defense budget gimmicks that ultimately harm the men and women serving in our military and removed key Utah priorities such as religious liberty protections for government contractors and blocking the sage grouse from being listed as an endangered species. It also reauthorizes the DoD’s Syria Train and Equip program for another two years despite past failures and risks to our interests in the Middle East.
Make America Energy Great Again
Dec 9, 2016
For the past eight years, President Obama and his allies in Congress have feverishly worked to centralize energy regulatory power in Washington, empowering federal bureaucrats to micromanage how energy producers operate their facilities and run their businesses.
