July 2, 2014 Mobile Office Visit - Clearfield
Jul 2, 2014
Mobile Office Visit to Clearfield
When: Wednesday, July 2, 2014, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Where: City Hall, Multi-Purpose Room, 55 S. State Street
When: Wednesday, July 2, 2014, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Where: City Hall, Multi-Purpose Room, 55 S. State Street
July 1, 2014 Mobile Office Visit - Centerville
Jul 1, 2014
Mobile Office Visit to Centerville
When: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Where: City Hall, City Council Chambers, 250 N. Main Street
When: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Where: City Hall, City Council Chambers, 250 N. Main Street
July 1, 2014 Mobile Office Visit - North Salt Lake
Jul 1, 2014
Mobile Office Visit to North Salt Lake
When: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 9:00 – 11:00 am
Where: City Building, Court Conference Room, 10 E. Center St.
July 1, 2014 Mobile Office Visit - Farmington
Jul 1, 2014
Mobile Office Visit to Farmington
When: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Where: City Hall, Community Room, 160 S. Main Street
When: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Where: City Hall, Community Room, 160 S. Main Street
July 1, 2014 Mobile Office Visit - Bountiful
Jul 1, 2014
Mobile Office Visit to Bountiful
When: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon
Where: City Hall, City Council Chambers, 790 South 100 East
When: Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon
Where: City Hall, City Council Chambers, 790 South 100 East
Lee Reacts to Hobby Lobby Decision
Jun 30, 2014
WASHINGTON - In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled today that the federal government cannot force closely-held businesses to violate sincerely held religious beliefs in order to comply with the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Senator Lee released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling to protect religious liberty:
"Today's decision in Burwell v Hobby Lobby marks an important victory for religious liberty. Americans do not shed their religious freedoms merely by going into business. The Court's ruling upholds and strengthens the rights of individuals and the rule of law, while protecting the Constitution."
"Today's decision in Burwell v Hobby Lobby marks an important victory for religious liberty. Americans do not shed their religious freedoms merely by going into business. The Court's ruling upholds and strengthens the rights of individuals and the rule of law, while protecting the Constitution."
Lee Reacts to Supreme Court's Recess Appointments Decision
Jun 26, 2014
On January 3, 2012 the President ignored the Constitution and attempted to circumvent the Senate by unilaterally making important appointments to controversial executive agencies. Although past presidents have made recess appointments, the appointments President Obama attempted to make were different. The President attempted to change the Senate’s rules and define for himself when the Senate is in session and when it is in recess. The Supreme Court’s decision today—in which all nine justices, including President Obama’s own nominees, held that President Obama violated the Constitution—makes plain that the President’s actions were truly unprecedented and unauthorized.
Regardless of whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican, Members of Congress have a duty to support the Constitution and defend the Senate’s prerogatives. That is why I took measures to oppose President Obama’s unconstitutional recess appointments, including speaking out against these appointments at every opportunity and opposing the President’s nominees until the Senate imposed the Leahy-Thurmond rule in the summer of 2012.
Regardless of whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican, Members of Congress have a duty to support the Constitution and defend the Senate’s prerogatives. That is why I took measures to oppose President Obama’s unconstitutional recess appointments, including speaking out against these appointments at every opportunity and opposing the President’s nominees until the Senate imposed the Leahy-Thurmond rule in the summer of 2012.
Ensuring Programs We Fund Actually Work
Jun 25, 2014
Senator Lee describes an amendment he introduced to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act that would penalize the Secretary of the Department of Labor for not fulfilling required evaluations of taxpayer-funded programs.
Riley v. California
Jun 25, 2014
Today, in Riley v. California, the Supreme Court by a 9-0 vote ruled that police officers may not search the data on cell phones seized incident to an arrest. While law enforcement officers may hold a phone seized at the time of arrest, they must get a warrant before accessing the content stored on the phone, including text messages, photos, and emails.
In the opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that a 16-gigabyte cell phone can hold “millions of pages of text, thousands of pictures, or hundreds of videos,” and that such a large amount of data in such varied formats presents significant consequences for privacy. These concerns are magnified in the context of the limitless storage capacity of email and cloud computing, an area where law enforcement is able to access content older than 180 days without a warrant.
I believe the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision demonstrates the shift in the expectations of privacy we have for our digital information. This case underscores the need to extend similar protection to the information we store in our email and in the cloud. The Leahy-Lee ECPA Amendments Act, S. 607, would require that the government get a warrant to access documents and content we store in the cloud and in our email accounts, eliminating the antiquated 180-day rule.
The ECPA Amendments Act was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by voice vote and awaits consideration on the Senate floor.
In the opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that a 16-gigabyte cell phone can hold “millions of pages of text, thousands of pictures, or hundreds of videos,” and that such a large amount of data in such varied formats presents significant consequences for privacy. These concerns are magnified in the context of the limitless storage capacity of email and cloud computing, an area where law enforcement is able to access content older than 180 days without a warrant.
I believe the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision demonstrates the shift in the expectations of privacy we have for our digital information. This case underscores the need to extend similar protection to the information we store in our email and in the cloud. The Leahy-Lee ECPA Amendments Act, S. 607, would require that the government get a warrant to access documents and content we store in the cloud and in our email accounts, eliminating the antiquated 180-day rule.
The ECPA Amendments Act was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by voice vote and awaits consideration on the Senate floor.
The AT&T/DirecTV Merger: The Impact on Competition and Consumers in the Video Market and Beyond
Jun 24, 2014
Today’s hearing addresses AT&T’s recent announcement of its intention to acquire DirecTV. AT&T and DirecTV are well-known and successful companies. AT&T is primarily a provider of mobile and fixed telephone, but it has in recent years made impressive inroads in the markets for video and high-speed internet. DirecTV, on the other hand, is a satellite-video provider. It has grown to become one of the largest multichannel video programming distributors or MVPDs in the country with around 20 million subscribers.
The companies do not, for the most part, compete in the same markets. Their primary products are not substitutes, but rather are complements. Mergers of complements have the potential to create efficiencies that a merger of substitutes may not, and such transactions have traditionally been approved.
This merger has nonetheless attracted attention. The markets for video and internet are extremely important to consumers, and this transaction is occurring only months after Comcast and Time-Warner—two large players in the markets for video and internet—announced their intention to combine. In addition, AT&T and DirecTV do offer substitute video products in some parts of the country, and the transaction has the potential to affect the competitive landscape in those areas.
As always, the guiding principle for our antitrust analysis is consumer welfare. Indeed, as Robert Bork wrote in The Antitrust Paradox: “Competition must be understood as the maximization of consumer welfare.” In antitrust, as in other areas of government policymaking, competitors often stand to benefit from government regulations or restrictions on their rivals. As much as any other entity, competitors to merging parties have a constitutional right to petition and lobby the government. They often have valuable information and insight into markets that will be affected by a transaction, and in many cases competitors simply want to ensure that antitrust enforcers protect competition and ensure a level playing field. At the same time, history and experience have taught that competitors can and will seek to use the antitrust process to gain an advantage. It is therefore essential that we remain on guard to ensure that government process not be used to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. Where our policies and approach to antitrust ensure that free markets operate effectively and consumers choose the winners and losers, we obtain the best outcome for the country.
Applying these principles to this transaction will require a close look at those areas where the transaction may impact competition, such as where AT&T and DirecTV currently compete for video subscribers. It requires scrutiny of the market for programming, where consolidation is reducing the number of buyers of video content and may potentially impact the range of choice of content that may be available for consumers going forward. This transaction’s effect on the practice of bundling and the impact of that practice on consumers also merits discussion.
Proper antitrust principles, however, also require due weight be given to the pro-competitive aspects of this deal. AT&T has committed to expand high-speed internet access to 15 million Americans who otherwise may not have such access. The market for high-speed internet in some respects is both more important to consumers in the long term and suffers from less competition than the market for video. This deal may thus offer real efficiencies and benefits to consumers—including innovation in a new internet distribution technology—that would not obtain if the deal is blocked.
Markets change rapidly, and nowhere is this as true as it is for markets in technology-driven industries such as voice, video, and internet. In response to such changing circumstances—and as we have seen with increasing frequency of late—incumbent companies may seek to consolidate. In some cases, this behavior may be part of a nefarious attempt to forestall change—to prevent new products or technologies from making an incumbent obsolete. In other cases, however, this behavior simply represents intelligent business planning to adapt to, and take advantage of, new trends.
Accordingly, in fast-moving markets, consumers may be harmed by government intervention as easily as they may be harmed by consolidation, and it is essential that, in considering important transactions such as the one before us, we apply rigorous economic analysis and ground our conclusions in the evidence. By ensuring that we protect competition, and not any individual company or competitor, we can help create market conditions that benefit consumers and promote economic development.
