Sen. Mike Lee debuted at the first Senate Budget Committee hearing of the 118th Congress. Sen. Lee’s appointment to the Budget Committee comes at a time when our federal budget has ballooned to levels not seen since World War II. Of his appointment to the Budget Committee, Sen. Lee expressed his optimism for bipartisan collaboration and deliberating ways to reduce our budget deficits, stabilize our debt, and put our budget on a pathway to balance.In his opening remarks, Sen. Lee said, “I want to take a brief moment to say I appreciate having the opportunity to serve on the Budget Committee at a time when our federal budget has never been in a worse state of disrepair.” Sen. Lee continued, “This fiscally irresponsible path that our federal budget is on significantly increases the odds of a debt crisis and the associated economic pain that will be borne by the American public.”Chairman Whitehouse called the first Budget Committee hearing of the 118th Congress to consider “Climate Related Economic Risks and Their Cost to the Federal budget and the Global Economy.” During the hearing, Sen. Lee said, “Let’s not fool ourselves and the American public: our ballooning deficits and debt have been driven by and will continue to be driven by runaway, profligate spending by the federal government NOT because of any effects of climate change. Fear has become an all-too-prevalent quality in America’s political discourse, and, specifically, among those on the left who seek to use climate alarmism to justify a government takeover of our economy and a radical, unrealistic, and damaging transition of our energy sector.”

Senator Mike Lee questions Michelle C. DeLaune, President and CEO National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and John Pizzuro, CEO of Raven, during a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing entitled “Protecting Our Children Online.” During the hearing, Senator Lee highlighted the Preventing Rampant Online Technological Exploitation and Criminal Trafficking (PROTECT) Act which would require pornography sites to verify the age of all participants in pornographic images; require sites to obtain verified consent forms from individuals uploading content and those appearing in uploaded content; and mandate that websites quickly remove images upon receiving notice they uploaded without consent. Lee also discussed the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, which would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a rule requiring all commercial pornographic websites to adopt age verification technology to ensure children cannot access pornographic content.