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This week the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance the nomination of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Neomi Rao to be a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This was a huge win for conservatives. Rao is a founding director of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School and has written extensively about the problems inherent in the modern administrative state.

WASHINGTON — Sometime early this week the Natural Resources Management Act will come to the floor for a vote in the Senate. There is much to like about the bill. And many good people have worked very hard on it. Unfortunately, after a lengthy review and much negotiation, it has become clear that this is not legislation I can vote for in good conscience. On balance, the bill moves federal lands policy in the wrong direction by failing to reform federal land acquisition programs and adding new restrictions to how Americans are allowed to use land already under federal control.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) issued the following statement Wednesday after the House of Representatives passed a resolution pursuant to the War Powers Act calling for the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen.

A little over a month ago, I stood before this body to object to the massive public lands package that it was poised to pass. This bill – 680 pages long – was released at 10am that morning. My staff and I had not seen it beforehand, and were given no time to read it. This is, of course, bad process. This is not the way legislation should be written and debated; and it is not the way that it should be passed. But in addition to the bad process, I objected because I suspected that it was also bad policy – bad policy that would disproportionally and negatively affect the state of Utah.