Dilan Maxfield

Senator Romney has made deterring threats posed by authoritarian regimes, like the Chinese Communist Party and Putin’s Russia, a top priority. The Senator started his week by joining a majority of his colleagues in voting to send additional aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan—allies and partners whose resistance to authoritarian aggression is critical to America’s national security and standing as leader of the free world. Later in the week, Senator Romney headed home to Utah to meet with members of the state legislature and join one of the five passport fairs he, and the Utah Congressional delegation, set up with the State Department—advancing his efforts to bring a permanent passport agency to Salt Lake City.

For years, Utah and the American West have seen catastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters which have, in many cases, been strikingly difficult to recover from. This week, Senator Romney introduced two key pieces of legislation—one aimed at bolstering our ability to restore water infrastructure damaged by wildfires and the other to avoid deficit spending on disaster relief by requiring Congress to plan ahead. He also pushed for his legislation to stabilize the national debt, argued against calls for socialist healthcare policies, and met with several Utahns.

The State Department, in coordination with the Utah Congressional Delegation, will hold five “Passport Fairs” throughout the state to provide Utahns with an opportunity to obtain expedited passport services closer to home. Utahns in need of a passport, or those whose passports have expired or will expire in the next year, may register for an appointment from February 13 – 17 at one of five locations. Bringing a passport agency to Salt Lake City is still a top priority of mine, but these passport fairs are an opportunity to help Utahns in the meantime.

Illicit vaping products, designed to target young people with flavors such as blue cotton candy and pink lemonade, have gotten more and more of our youth addicted to nicotine. Senator Romney continued efforts to tackle the youth vaping crisis by introducing bipartisan legislation to crack down on illicit vaping products, most of which come from China. He also called for an immediate and permanent halt of U.S. funding to UNRWA following reports that members of its staff participated in the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7.