A week of advancing legislative priorities.

July 17 – July 21, 2023

After months of intensive work, this week Senator Romney’s measures to better prepare our country for future health emergencies and to end unfair advantages given to China hit key milestones. Two of the Senator’s public health proposals were included in a bill that passed out of the Health Committee with large bipartisan support. Later in the week, his bipartisan legislation to make it U.S. policy to oppose China being given the status of a “developing nation” in treaties and international organizations unanimously passed the Senate. The Senator also introduced legislation to support competency-based education, which has been championed at Utah-based Western Governors University. Scroll for more news.

It would be a mistake to not apply the lessons learned from the COVID pandemic in preparing for potential future pandemics and other hazardous events. For several months, Senator Romney helped lead negotiations on the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Response Act (PAHPA), a package of legislation to strengthen our ability to respond to health emergencies and fill gaps in our public health data. PAHPA passed out of Committee by a bipartisan vote of 17-3.

Senator Romney secured the inclusion of several of his public health policies in the bill, including a measure to create a real-time, publicly available website at the CDC to track the spread of infectious disease with voluntary and de-identified data.

He also secured his measure to strengthen and expand the National Wastewater Surveillance System, which builds the United States’ capacity to track the presence of infectious-disease causing pathogens in wastewater. This provision will bolster Utah’s already sophisticated wastewater monitoring technology.

Competency-based education programs, like those championed at Utah-based Western Governors University, make learning specific skills for meaningful jobs more accessible. Senators Romney and Hickenlooper (D-CO) introduced the Competency-Based Education Act of 2023, bipartisan legislation which will codify the Department of Education’s regulations governing the eligibility of competency-based education programs. After introducing their bill, Romney and Hickenlooper joined former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt for a roundtable discussion on the need for innovation in education.

CCP-controlled China has the second largest economy in the world and is wasting no time in its quest to become the global superpower. It's laughable that China continues to be treated as a “developing nation” in treaties and international organizations. Senator Romney’s bipartisan amendment to the annual defense bill that helps end China's unfair advantage passed the Senate with unanimous approval.

Malign actors—including China-based fentanyl manufacturers and drug cartels operating along the southern border—are capitalizing on existing loopholes under current law to evade sanctions using decentralized finance services. Senators Romney (R-UT), Reed (D-RI), Rounds (R-SD), and Warner (D-VA) introduced the bipartisan Crypto-Asset National Security Enhancement and Enforcement Act, legislation to help prevent money laundering and stop crypto-facilitated crime and sanctions violations.

To maintain their grip on power, authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia and the CCP censor factual information from their people. Senator Romney met with U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Amanda Bennet to discuss the agency’s work to increase access to truthful information from independent sources to those living under oppressive regimes.