- OK, hey, welcome everybody. Have a seat if you're just coming in. We have 80% of our candidates here.
- We're going to start in in the interest of time. Hopefully, Tim Peck will be joining us shortly. He
- confirmed that he's going to be here. Maybe one of the topics of conversation will be traffic and parking
- in Bloomington or something like that.
- My name is Michael Hamburger. On behalf of our group, Concerned Scientists at IU, I'm really pleased
- to welcome everybody to our Candidates Forum on Science, Technology, and the Environment. A special
- welcome to our four and hopefully soon five candidates to be here. Our audience here, we have a live
- stream audience, maybe both on YouTube and on BCAT.
- Thank you, all of you, for joining us. I want to say a word quickly about Concerned Scientists at IU.
- For those who don't know about it, we are a nonpartisan campus and community coalition started by IU
- faculty, staff, and students in 2017 in response to threats to the scientific
- mission of our of our research world We've grown to over a thousand members we Sponsor a whole variety
- of community and campus events speakers and activities legislative action Regular weekly news digest
- educational programs and I'm going to be pleased in a second to introduce our student group advocates
- for science at IU Who's been very active the last couple years if you haven't done so yet?
- On your way out, please join our CSIU mailing list and you can hear about upcoming events. I want to
- make a few important acknowledgments to our, in addition to Advocates for Science at IU, we have three
- community co-sponsors, Citizens' Climate Lobby of South Central Indiana, the Green Sanctuary Task Force
- of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington, and the League of Women Voters of Bloomington Monroe County.
- And also a big thank you to the library staff and BCAT for setting up this beautiful venue. How about
- a little round of applause for all their help setting this up. I believe this is the third candidate
- forum that we've sponsored, focusing specifically on science and science policy. And we claim until
- proved otherwise that this is the first ever in the country with that kind of specific focus. We've
- invited all of the candidates for the ninth congressional district election to join us today.
- And five of, no, four of them are here today. Jim Graham, Brad Meyer, Tim Peck hopefully will be joining us, Kyle,
- Rourke, and Floyd Taylor. And we did invite our incumbent Representative Erin Houchin. She declined,
- but all of the candidates will be invited to submit written answers to questions following the forum,
- and she and others will have a chance to respond. I do have an important request for all of us. This
- is kind of an old-fashioned exercise in civil discourse, so let's be sure to show how well it can work.
- Everybody just be nice to one another, just be nice to the audience, be nice to the candidates, to one
- another, and to our student moderators. And I think we have to be cognizant of time, including myself.
- We have a short window here because the library, thanks to budget cuts, now closes at 7 p.m. sharp.
- So we're gonna get everybody, me, I'm supposed to be out? No, no, no, no. Tell everybody to turn their
- phones off. Oh, thank you. I thought that was a sign I should get off.
- This is the sign for me to get up. Okay. Yes, turn your silence your damn phones. And an important reminder,
- one of the things that we regretted about squeezing it in before seven o'clock is that we won't have
- time for that informal conversation. So we are inviting all of you and our candidates to join us afterwards
- in the upstairs at Lenny's Brew Pub, just out to the left.
- Down the street, the beers are on your own, but a good chance for conversation with our candidates if
- they're available. So please join us afterwards. So I think that's it for now. Without further ado,
- let me ask our student moderators, Emma Broach and Tyler Morris, to introduce themselves, say a little
- bit about Advocates for Science at IU, and get us started with the forum. Emma, take it away.
- Hi everybody, my name's Emma Broach and I'm a sophomore at IU. I'm majoring in Journalism and Environmental
- and Sustainability Studies and myself and Tyler and Adela and a few other people around here all lead
- the student affiliate organization Advocates for Science at IU. We work with CSIU in all of our events,
- but we also do some student-centered things. But we're here today to co-sponsor and Tyler and I are
- going to be in charge of asking all of the questions and introducing all of
- the structure of today. So I wanted to talk about how today is gonna work. First, we're going to allow
- all of the candidates to give one-minute introductions about themselves. Then, we're gonna have a general
- questions section with questions that we prepared. It's gonna be four questions, and each candidate
- gets two minutes to answer each question. These questions were provided to the candidates in advance
- so they could kind of think through them ahead of time. But after this general questions section, we're
- going to have a lightning round section.
- This is going to be four to five questions that are a little bit more yes or no type answers, and the
- candidates were not provided these in advance.
- And then after that, we're going to have time for a few audience questions. We apologize. We're going
- to have to limit that number to probably only three or four questions, depending on our timing. The
- candidates will also have about 45 seconds to respond to those. And unfortunately, to anybody who's
- joining on the livestream, we will not have time to answer any livestream questions. But yeah, that's
- kind of the general structure. And now Tyler can introduce himself and talk about audience questions
- and how that's going to work.
- So hi, everyone. I'm Tyler Morris. I'm a senior nutrition science student on the pre-med track here
- at IU. And as Emma mentioned, I'm one of the co-presidents along with her and a few others, and I'll
- be co-moderating today. So just one thing I wanted to mention real quick about the general questions.
- Those will be the first four questions. Candidates are gonna have two minutes to answer those. I'm gonna
- hold up a little 30-second time sheet to let you know you have 30 seconds left, so just look for me
- over there while you're doing that.
- And then, we'll have to cut you guys off at two minutes to keep things going. And then, yeah, after
- the general questions, as Emma mentioned, we'll go into the lightning round questions. And then,
- after that, hopefully, we have time for about three or four audience questions. And Adela over there,
- one of our co-presidents, she will collect index cards from you guys if you guys have questions.
- And then, yeah, after that, we'll have closing statements from candidates, and that'll be it.
- Yeah, if you want an index card and you didn't already grab one, just raise your hand, flag down Adela,
- and she can come give you an index card. You can write your question and then have them into her by
- the middle of the lightning round. OK, so without further ado, I'm going to allow all the candidates
- to introduce themselves. So whoever wants to start first. Go for it. Hi. Is my mic on? No. A little
- closer to it, maybe. Hi. OK.
- So I'm Jim Graham, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 9th District. I grew up here in Monroe County
- and I actually attended a high school science summer institute at IU after my junior year at Edgewood.
- I studied engineering at Rose-Hulman and worked for General Motors for some years. I did graduate study
- at that university up in West Lafayette and then I taught engineering
- at Purdue Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Speed School at the University of Louisville, where
- I was a department chair for seven years. As I got close to retirement, I got together with some of
- my colleagues and tried to commercialize some of the research that we had been doing for the Department
- of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and started a tech startup company, and I served as CEO for seven
- years. As a science person my entire life,
- I've always felt that we should use rational analysis for problem solving. That's why I'm so dismayed
- by what's happened in this country for the past 25 years. The anti-science misinformation and disinformation
- that has flooded the internet, in my opinion, now threatens to slow or even reverse a lot of
- the science-based progress made since World War II. I hope we can talk a little bit about that
- tonight, why science is not held in the same high regard it was back in the 60s. I look forward to this
- discussion today, answering some questions, and I look forward to a lively debate. Hi. I'm Brad Meyer.
- Thank you all for being here tonight. I'm an electrical engineer. Most of us are electrical engineers.
- So I'm a user of science and certainly appreciate it. And science is under attack. This administration
- is purging science like 10,000% from decision making. The proposed science cuts are historic.
- NIH is 40%. NASA's 47. NSF is 58%. Thousands of grants have been delayed, frozen, or terminated due
- to structural changes that they've made to undercut science.
- This is how we're losing science capacity and we're going to lose talent. But the same things are happening
- here at IU where they're increasing centralization of decision making, political power is overtaking
- university governance, and suppression of free speech is coming through, you know, what they did with
- Don Meadow and then the Indiana Daily student. Congress has the authority to stop all of this, but right
- now our congresswoman is rubber stamping everything that goes through.
- The Union of Concerned Scientists is critical because they defend accuracy, bridge expertise to policy,
- and engage the public with evidence. That work matters because facts require defenders. I'm asking for
- your vote on May 5th to be that defender in Washington. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Kyle Rourke.
- And I'm a former semi-line mechanic, UAW, and Navy officer, and electrical engineer as well, licensed
- electrical engineering. I actually took the exam while I was in the Navy. And so when you take the exam,
- you're legally responsible to, you know, indicate that on any type of advertisements relative to consulting.
- But regarding that, I've had a,
- broad experience at Chrysler, Cummins, Rolls Royce, and at Ford doing design and development work all
- the way from a mechanic perspective all the way through design and development, reliability, quality,
- releasing, and taking into account the voice of the customer and what requires there. So I have a broad
- experience from that. I also taught at Ivy Tech.
- for three or so years. So I understand what it takes to take a technology and teach it and have folks
- use it out in the real world so they can get a good paying job. My background is, you know, I came here,
- got married into the state in 95, my first wife's from Jackson County, and I've been raising my four
- children here since then pretty much, since basically I was seven. And deeply worried about this country
- relative to disinformation.
- And the fact that we don't follow the truth anymore, what facts are and what, you know, you hear a lot
- about alternative facts. That's discouraging, that's very disheartening, because facts are facts. There
- is no alternative facts. And while I'm one of those evidence-based type folks, I want to follow the
- data, where it goes, where it lies. And I support that, you know, from a public policy standpoint and
- from a STEM perspective.
- When I was in the Navy from an educational standpoint, I did notice that a lot of our folks coming into
- the Navy just trying to get STEM-type roles, whether it's to be a mechanic or electrician, they were
- really struggling with mathematics. And so we need, from a public policy standpoint, to look at solutions
- that provide folks to get into those STEM communities pretty easily because we need STEM professionals
- I've read an article just recently. We're falling behind. A lot of folks are retiring, and we need to
- backfill those roles. So appreciate your vote. My name is Kyle Rourke. Go to KyleRourke.com, and appreciate
- your vote, May 5th. Thank you. I'm Floyd Taylor. And while I'm not a career scientist, I have deep respect
- for the scientific method, and I've spent my entire career in technical fields. I worked as a chemistry
- lab technician,
- manage hazardous waste treatment, and run a wastewater treatment plant, jobs where evidence and procedure
- are paramount. I'm a platinum sponsor of the American Association for the Advancement of Science because
- I believe in supporting robust independent research. I'm running to bring that same evidence-based approach
- to government. And in all seriousness, as we tackle these complex issues, it's good to keep perspective
- and remember the immortal words of Socrates who said,
- I drink what? Thank you all for introducing yourselves. One other thing I wanted to note before we get
- started is that since we have such limited time, each of you only has two minutes to respond to these
- questions. So there's not much time for response to the other candidates unless you want to use some
- of those two minutes to respond to another candidate. But kind of our goal here was to be educational.
- So yeah, take that as you will.
- All right, now we can get started with general questions. You guys can go in whatever order you want.
- And reminder, it's two minutes answers per question. Number one, over the last two years, a combination
- of executive actions, personnel losses, and funding decisions have deeply impacted academic and government
- research institutions. What congressional actions would you support to help restore U.S. leadership
- in scientific research?
- and we might as well just go down the line every time. No? Oh, yeah. Got to be really close to this
- mic. The bottom line is we're killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Basic research done at places
- like IU has driven the American economy since World War II and made us the envy of the world.
- Yes. Test, test, test. Yeah, is there an electrical engineer in the house? Okay, so let's just try this.
- I was a university professor for 30 plus years. Can you hear me in the back? Good. All right. The bottom
- line is we're killing the goose that laid golden egg. Basic research like the university and that place
- up in West Lafayette.
- have driven our economy since World War II. And we made us the envy of the world. Now, obviously, the
- Trump administration, as Brad pointed out, definitely is hostile to science. In the FY 2026 budget,
- he suggested a 57% cut to NSF, 40% cut to NIH. The good news is the Congress didn't do that. They basically
- left NSF flat, gave a small,
- increase the NIH. But basically those same numbers are back for next year's budget. So we'll have to
- see what happens there. In addition, as pointed out, there have been many of the leaders of NSF and
- NIH have been forced to resign. Either they've resigned or they've just had so much pressure. Some of
- them have actually been fired. As Brad pointed out also, there have been
- constitutional sequesters of research money, money that was allocated in the administration. No, you
- can't have this unless you do this, unless you do that, okay? So, now let's talk about reality for a
- minute. Congress appears to think more of science than the president does. That's good. I think we have
- to be realistic how much we can do as a newly elected congressman. The next two years is gonna be a
- war. Let me tell you, we're gonna be playing defense.
- for everything that's decent and good about this country. And science is no exception. Thank you.
- Mic check. All right. Here we go. Say again. Okay. Thank you. So, as I mentioned,
- propose the science cuts 40% NIH, NASA 47, NSF 57, and then the Department of Energy between 15 and
- 50%. And they're undercutting the basics of funding, but they're also doing things like interference
- and competitive grant review, centralized control of funding, and program prioritization based on, there we go.
- Bingo. Thank you. Based on political criteria, this is undercutting our ability to do research, and
- it's also undercutting the ability for people to speak freely. Now we've gone, we've fallen off the
- other side of the horse, as the Hungarians would say. All right. Sorry.
- there's a wide variety of organizations or different mechanisms like the CBER and CIDR and EPSCOR and
- DARPA and Small Business Administration that all play together in this and basically if they cut the
- funding there isn't going to be anywhere to put that and research is hugely important and
- The big thing that I'm concerned about is freedom of expression and the ability for people to speak
- the truth. I don't know where I am in time because of the interruptions. But, you know, the difference
- between a good idea and a dumb idea, it's actually the same. It starts out with one person believing
- it. And science is the way we figure out which is a good idea and which is a dumb idea. And we can't
- turn away from that.
- Yeah, I'll take the opportunity. Thank you so much. So I'm Tim Peck. I'm a physician, an ER doctor in
- southern Indiana. I'm so sorry that I was a bit late here, had some travel difficulties. I was chief
- resident at the Harvard Program for Emergency Medicine, did some genomic research, published in the
- New England Journal of Medicine.
- have had a number of health tech companies and invented telemedicine technology. So that's my credentials
- in terms of this particular forum. But maybe most importantly, I've spent years by the bedside as an
- emergency physician with increasingly skeptical public. What I've learned treating those people is this.
- We know how to develop new science and technology. That's not the problem, although it is under great
- pressure, and we need to fight to protect it. But the deeper challenge is helping people understand
- it, trust it, see how it applies to their farms and their jobs and their food and their health and their
- freedoms. And because if people don't trust science, they won't use it, and if they don't use it,
- It doesn't matter how good the science and technology is. So I'm running to be a leader to bridge that
- gap, to bridge the gap between facts and beliefs, and make sure that all of our work as scientists is
- trusted again. In terms of this question, I'll be very brief, but the basics here is that we need to
- move back to peer review and from political appointees, and back to evidence away from politics,
- and that our academic research and our academic freedoms and our institutional independence should be
- tied to federal funding. If we want to give out federal funding, we need to make sure our systems, our
- schools, are allowing us to be free to make the decisions we need as academicians. And so through that,
- we can restore some trust and leadership. Thank you so much.
- Testing, testing, oh, excellent. Okay, so, you know, my first step would be to obviously reinstitute
- the funding cuts, you know, for any and all science programs. You know, DOE, CIA, NSA, and the like.
- I mean, that's step one. Two, we need to fire
- all the appointees, obviously, who don't have a science background. Okay, so let's start with the Secretary
- of Navy who has an investment banking background. I bet a million dollars he's never been on a carrier
- in his life, but yet he's managing the Department of the, yes, Secretary of the, Department of the Navy,
- right? So we need to start with that. Let's put people who have that electrical engineering, math, science
- background in those roles. And then secondly,
- We don't talk a whole lot about patents and copyrights. I have some friends of mine at the patent office.
- They need patent agents like no tomorrow. I mean, it takes probably a year and a half to two years to
- get a patent through, and it's getting worse and worse and worse. We need to pay patent agents more
- money to keep people, and we also need to fully fund them to encourage
- Innovation, right? Because if patents don't flow, innovation doesn't occur. And if innovation doesn't
- occur, you don't have a good economy, and companies won't invest and create jobs. And that's what I'm
- all about, is creating jobs and opportunities for our people here in the 9th congressional district.
- So from a funding perspective, yes, obviously, I would return any and all funding cuts back to the normal
- basically Biden levels.
- But also, we have to get back to science as facts, not alternative facts, no misinformation. And obviously,
- I'd be an advocate for that. I'm a licensed election engineer. I'm obligated to stick to the facts wherever
- it goes. And that would be my policy position and my approach as a US congressional representative.
- Thank you.
- Over the past two years, we've seen alarming erosion of our scientific infrastructure. I would support
- several key congressional actions. First, fully funding the Chips and Science Act to restore our research
- capacity. Second, establishing protected research funding streams that can't be diverted for political
- purposes. Third, creating a congressional science office similar to the Office of Technology Assessment
- to provide lawmakers with nonpartisan scientific analysis. Fourth,
- strengthening protections for government scientists from political interference. Fifth, expanding the
- grant programs based through NSF, NIH, and DOE with particular focus on early career researchers who
- have been disproportionately affected by funding instability. These actions would help restore global
- leadership while ensuring science remains independent and robust. Thank you all. Our second question
- is about health policy.
- Health policy decisions at the state and federal levels have deeply impacted healthcare in our district.
- Among them are Medicaid funding cutbacks, changes to vaccine and public health policy, and limitations
- on government and academic research labs. With this as context, what congressional actions would you
- support to strengthen public health in our country? I'm gonna start with an accusation that Robert Kennedy Jr.
- There's a crackpot and a charlatan. Yeah, and Brad can add to that. What an insult to American science
- to have a person who doubts basic vaccine science as the leader of our health policy in this country.
- As a result, there's been lots of key turnover and key resignations at the National Institute of Health
- replacing highly qualified
- career world-renowned scientists with marginally qualified hacks who support RFK's crackpot views. Sad.
- Again, I'm going to be the guy, I think, that does the reality check every time. It's going to be very
- hard to undo the damage in a single Congress. I think that we can personally probably put together
- impeachment in cases against other agency heads. I'm not so sure if that'll work for RFK.
- Maybe he'll say something that insults Trump and he'll get fired. That's probably our best hope. But
- regardless, like in the case of NSF, we have to fight against politicization of funding for health research
- and basically get back to the science. Thank you. I try to...
- a quota that I don't agree with Dr. Peck more than twice in any of these debates. And we're using one
- early, and that is he made an important point, which is we need to help people get trust in medicine,
- trust in science back. If we don't have people that trust these results, then we can't make progress
- anywhere. On the issue specifically of healthcare, I'm advocating for Medicare for all.
- So everybody gets covered, universal health care. And we need to fight for that. And there are things
- that we need to do. We need to stabilize hospitals. And we need to make sure that people don't go bankrupt
- while we're in the process of transitioning, because that's what's happening right now. But Jim also
- mentioned, from the big picture, aside from health care at the ground level, the NIH and
- You know, what they're doing there is a travesty, and Congress needs to provide tighter oversight, and
- they need to have hearings, and they need to get these people kicked out. They should have done their
- job and never have allowed these people into leadership positions. You know, one of the things you're
- going to hear a lot of people say, not me, is we can't do much. You know, it's going to be hard, and
- we're going to have a razor-thin majority, and you know what?
- The Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the House and the Senate. And while we're wringing our
- hands saying we're not going to be able to do much with a razor-thin majority, they are checking things
- off their list on Project 2025. So we've got to fight for this. Thank you. This is about trust, a thousand
- percent. And, you know, there's two pieces where trust has been violated well before this current administration.
- by our Congress, by our leaders, no matter what party they're in. First of all, it is too expensive
- to work in this country. And a lot of that has to do with the money that you pay for health care. And
- that has been ignored by our Congress. They haven't been able to work together to solve that. It's also
- about shared decision making. As a physician, I do a lot of that with my patients.
- just say that vaccines are fine. Vaccines hurt people sometimes. Sometimes. They help a whole lot more
- people. But if we don't communicate the ups and the downs, we don't get truthful about things, it's
- really hard to talk to people and they don't trust you. And I see that by the bedside and I've seen
- that in Congress and I think that's why we've gotten those two reasons or why we've got to the point
- that we have the leadership that we do.
- And Congress has abdicated its role of oversight of the executive branch. And some things we need to
- do are codify our vaccine advisory group. Congress can do that. The executive branch just wiped it out
- without Congress saying a word. We need to invest in local public health. So federal dollars from, we
- think about the NIH and the FDA, et cetera,
- That money needs to go down to the local places where people are actually talking to their local neighbors
- about the bird flu and how it actually affects them. And then finally, loan repayments of our scientists
- and our physicians and health workers to be in rural areas, because if your hospital is gone,
- Your only scientists in your community are gone if you live in a community like I do, farming community
- like I do. We need to invest in the people who will invest in those communities. Thank you. Okay, so
- first step is I would advocate for ACA subsidies to be reinstated. That's reality. I think we can actually do that.
- The next step is I would advocate for a universal healthcare policy, like Kentucky or Maryland, where
- you keep your private insurance, but at the same time you have a supplemental policy that could help
- deal with catastrophic issues. And that primarily would be for folks who are 250% of the poverty line,
- which is about $78,000 a year.
- And one of my issues with that is we need to have choice, and we do have a doctor's scarcity here. So
- if we go down the path of Medicare for all, the question is how are we going to come up with all the
- doctors to deal with Medicare for all? So that's the issue. So that's my issue with Medicare for all.
- I mean, in a perfect world, yes, I think it would work, but the question is how do we pay for it, how
- do we get it through? And then the last thing, prevention.
- You know, I've had the privilege of working for a number of different companies, Ford, Rolesworth, and
- the like. And they actually give you, if you get a medical exam, you get a echocardiogram, you get a
- dental checkup once a year, right? They give you $500. They give you $1,000 off your health care bill.
- I am very interested in that because when somebody starts throwing money at me to go get a doctor check,
- I'm very interested in that. I don't know about you all, but I am. If somebody says, I'm going to give
- you an extra $1,500 off your health care costs, now you have my attention just to go get a dental exam.
- So I'm very interested in policies around providing private insurance or health care policies, tax credit.
- You get a tax credit off your, you know,
- 2025 or 26 return. I think that's a very popular program. I actually have that now. And then lastly,
- something that's free. It's just standard stuff. Eating healthy, exercise, and getting good sleep. That's
- free. We can do that right now without costing anything. All right, thank you.
- The current state of national health policy concerns me deeply. We need to strengthen HHS by insulating
- it from political interference and restoring evidence-based decision-making. I would support expanding
- NIH funding for both basic and applied research, particularly in emerging health threats. We need to
- modernize our public health data infrastructure and ensure CDC can conduct research without political
- constraints.
- I'd also support legislation to address health disparities through targeted research funding
- and community-based implementation studies. Additionally, we must strengthen our pandemic preparedness
- by establishing permanent funding streams for research on emerging pathogens and vaccine development
- platforms. Public research and implementation should be bipartisan priorities, not political footballs.
- The third question is kind of two parts. What do you see as the proper role of the federal government
- in protecting air and water quality? And how should environmental protections be balanced against compliance
- costs in an economic development? And what do you see as the proper role of the legislative and executive
- branches in creating and enforcing these environmental regulations? Okay, I'm going to use a few seconds
- to rebut something that was said earlier.
- about how the Republicans have been able to pass things through the Congress with narrow margins, you
- forget the little fact that they have a Republican president who's been signing those. If you think
- that Trump or Vance, as the case may be, will sign things passed by a narrow Democratic majority in
- the next two years, I have some Swamp Land and Salt Creek that'll sell you, okay? It's just not gonna
- happen. So again, we have to be realistic. We'll try.
- All five of us here will try to get things changed in the Congress. I just don't want to oversell
- expectations. Returning to the question, in the late 1960s, the damage of pollution was so evident,
- we can think of Los Angeles smog or burning rivers that it led to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water
- Act. Unfortunately, they did such a good job that people today, a lot of people weren't born.
- when that was the situation. They don't understand what's happening with the invisible pollution that
- comes out of factories and carbon dioxide and so forth. The big polluters have tried very hard to neuter
- the EPA for years and they finally got the right administration in place to do that. I would try very,
- very hard to restore funding to the EPA and limit political influence.
- Again, it's going to be difficult. We'll try. Thank you. Test. Test. OK. All right. We'll go again.
- So first of all, Jim stole my lead line. So I'm going to have to check that one off. A river did catch
- on fire. And that is, in fact, why we got the Clean Water Act pushed through.
- But today, Indiana has some of the worst rivers in the United States. There's a lot of places you can't
- fish and actually eat the fish. But it's always in our peripheral vision. We're always so focused on,
- hey, it's the economy, it's the economy that we always, we get so focused over here about jobs that
- we forget about, we need a place to live, right? So the role of the government is to ensure
- In the simplest instance, the reason that businesses pollute is it's more expensive to do it right and
- be responsible. So they move that cost off of their books onto our backs and into our water and into
- our air, and that is unacceptable. The government's responsibility is to ensure that they don't do this.
- ensure that they have a plan to act responsibly, and ensure that they monitor to make sure that they're
- actually following through on their plan. That's the responsibility of the EPA, and that's why they're
- being undercut. A quick thing, one of the other things as we're responding cross-doctor shortages, what
- they're really saying is we don't have enough doctors to take care of everybody right now.
- That is something Congress needs to worry about. Whether it's universal health care or regular insurance,
- we don't have enough doctors to care for everybody. That is a real problem that has to be addressed.
- It has nothing to do with what our health care system is. We've got a shortage. So our government has
- aligned itself with corporations much more than people. And I'm not sure about the others at this table,
- but I've sworn off corporate PAC money.
- and we need to get money out of politics, or this climate emergency we're in does not change. We have
- to shift to clean energy. We have to shift to making sure that our air quality is well, and we need
- energy independence. And I wanted to tell you a quick story. Again, I live on a farm in Clark County,
- and we had a solar corporate company come to the, excuse me,
- How is this? Great. We need money out of politics. And then we had a corporate solar company come to
- my area. And we need the transition to clean air, excuse me, to clean energy. And what happened here
- is they came in as a bull in a china shop.
- And they went into our local community kind of throwing dollar signs around, but not really understanding
- what they were doing in terms of talking about people's ways of life, about talking about the farmland
- that had been in people's families for generations and generations. And there was no real government
- support for what they were doing. And there was this huge county council meeting that had three times
- the amount of people that are here at it just spilling out.
- And I stood up, and I stood up for solar power and that we need clean energy, but I also stood up for
- the people that were there saying that we need a federal government that will prioritize lands that
- aren't farmlands to put our solar power, whether that be highway dividers like they do in Asia, whether
- that be brownfields or on the top of garages like in the farmers market here.
- And so having that relationship to people and understanding the people that we need to gain trust from
- while also standing up for science is possible. And that's one example of doing so. We need to translate
- that into larger policy in Congress. OK. Well, relative to climate policy, my view is we are in a world
- of trouble. There is no way around it.
- I'm not going to tap dance around it. I used to work in emissions. I know the chemistry like the back
- of my hand. And it's scary out there. It's just scary. Every time you turn around, there's a landslide.
- There's an earthquake. There's a tornado, hurricane, you name it. It's all happening. And it's deeply
- scary. And we talk about two years, four years. It's happening right now.
- So we need a drastic, we need a JFK going to the moon in 10 years. That's what we need for climate change.
- Five to 10 years, all fossil fuels, period. That's it. There's no way around it. We have to seriously
- look at fuel cells. Fuel cells have been around for a long time. They've been successfully deployed
- on NASA's programs, right? They're very efficient.
- Obviously, they don't work on all applications, but the emissions is water, right? H2O, beautiful thing.
- We need to look at green hydrogen to fuel fuel cells. And that's basically, you probably see all the
- wind farms out in the water, they create green hydrogen, right? Or alternating current, right? So we
- need to look at that.
- as a potential solution, we need to be in a hurry. From a vehicle perspective, we need to be really
- pushing electric vehicles. I know a lot of companies push this for a long time, but they're not going
- away. Electric vehicles aren't going away. Everybody and their mom knows that we need to get off hydrocarbons
- quickly. And we need to start looking at residential incentives, tax incentives.
- for people to get off fossil fuels. I think, really, at the end of the day, it all comes back to money.
- When you start saving folks money, either in their gas bill, their electric bill, they're going to be
- very interested in what you have to say. And they're going to be very interested in signing up to author
- your legislation to make those actions happen. So as a legislator, I'd be at the forefront of making
- that happen, getting folks to sign up with me.
- And because I'm all about saving people money. But we need to be responsible. Obviously, there's some
- Department of Defense and national security exceptions that we have to adhere to as well. So there's
- a balanced approach. But we need a JFK style, five to 10 years, no fossil fuels. Thank you. The federal
- government must play a central role in protecting Aaron Waller.
- water quality, because pollution costs the state and local boundaries. Clean air and water are fundamental
- not rights, not optional luxuries. I support strong environmental standards based on scientific evidence,
- not political considerations. That said, we can balance environmental protections with economic development
- through smart policies like providing technical assistance to help small businesses comply with regulations,
- creating market-based solutions that incentivize innovation, investing in green technologies that create
- jobs, and ensuring regulations are clear, consistent, and based on sound science. The legislative branch
- should establish clear environmental goals and provide adequate funding for implementation, while the
- executive branch should develop and enforce specific regulations based on scientific expertise.
- Both branches must work together to protect our environment while supporting sustainable economic growth.
- Among the most controversial environmental decisions of the current Trump administration is the abandonment
- of the 2009 endangerment finding, which establishes the role of greenhouse gases in climate change and
- requires the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions. What do you see as the impact of this action, and what do
- you see as the ideal role of the federal government to address the challenge of climate change? Well,
- I said earlier that neutering the EPA
- And in particular, the endangerment finding has been a goal for the big oil and gas company and the
- big polluters for years. Clearly, I understand that climate change is real and a threat to our world.
- And if elected, I will fight hard to restore the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. I think we had made
- some good steps in the right direction. We had incentives for electric vehicles,
- We had incentives for using more renewables and that's kind of all been put on hold and in some cases
- being rolled back. I would fight for the best of my abilities to fully fund the EPA and to isolate its
- mission from political influence. And I would certainly advocate the rejoining of the Paris Accords
- to climate change when we get a more rational administration in place in this country.
- Climate change is real. We have a responsibility to address it. And we had some mechanisms, and we tried
- to provide leadership, and every four years, we had a switch, and we backed out, and we've undercut
- our credibility in the world in leadership on this issue. That doesn't mean that we can't reengage,
- and it doesn't mean we shouldn't reengage. One of the things that...
- that happened recently is they just repealed some of the legislation or some of the rules that made
- coal-fired power plants less attractive to run, and they're firing up coal-fired power plants. This
- is how far we've gotten. Coal-based energy is more expensive and pollutes, and they're advocating for
- it instead of cleaner, cheaper fuels.
- This is an ideological battle. This is not an economic battle at this point. And we have to understand
- that, and we have to change that. One thing that we need to do is realize that we have subsidized over
- the years. Every time we've had a change in our energy, we have, as a government, fostered that through
- government action. And we did that with fossil fuels.
- And now we're transitioning to something new. And those fossil fuel-based incentives need to be moved
- over to green energy. And this is where we need to go. And we need to move there energetically, to use
- a phrase, and aggressively. Climate change is an emergency. We need action now. And we have an addiction
- to fossil fuels that we need to rid ourselves from.
- Again, there's way too much corporate money in everything that our government is doing, and we align
- ourselves with corporations instead of people, we lose trust. We lose on the issues, and the Democratic
- Party has not done a great job of getting that out of its party, and I think it can start right here
- in Indiana 9 by making that commitment.
- in that process of changing over of our energy, in that process of changing over in behaviors of how
- we have to act as a society, we can do that in such a way where we prioritize people or corporations.
- And if we just say, okay, we're going to keep the wealth gap the way it is, we're going to keep the
- power in the hands of those who are rulers in corporate world,
- then we're just going to have other companies putting in solar and hydroelectric and small nuclear or
- whatever it might be with the same wealth gap. This actually is a moment in time that is an opportunity
- for us to dovetail our desire to bring power back to people and our desire to clean up this environment.
- We need to do so by making sure that whatever government money goes to this goes to workers as much
- as it goes to corporations.
- And that is the basics of making sure that people get power back in their hands. OK, I want to veer
- off topic just for a second. If anybody challenges you on climate change, I want you to point them to
- our good friends, the actuary scientists who works for all the insurance companies. They're very good
- at numbers, and all you have to do is tell them, well, why
- aren't they insuring a lot of properties down in Florida on the coastline? Because if you go down there
- on the coastline, a lot of these communities, there's no insurance. Insurance companies won't insure
- property along the coastline. Just a little side note. That's just something I deal with when people
- say there's no climate change. I point them to the actuaries, and then they're like, OK, I'm good. Anyway,
- back to climate change.
- So something that's not talked a lot about is we call this circular economy. The circular economy is
- recycling, bottles, glass, cans, and such. We need to expand that to building materials, concrete, steel,
- because it's been studied over time that concrete kicks off a lot of carbon dioxide if you pour concrete,
- so much so it rivals the transportation system. So we need to look at,
- You know, developing policies that encouraging not concrete or other alternative forms to build buildings
- that are equally or great or strong in terms of strength levels. And we need to look at tax policies
- that give tax credits for builders who do that. Because that is, I think I saw in the numbers upwards
- to 40 or 45% of total CO2 is from concrete and building. Huge number.
- So we have to look at it as another problem we have and a potential solution that I think we can provide
- relative to dealing with the climate crisis. And then obviously, we have a lot of power society on what
- we do with our dollars, right? We can buy a gas engine or we can buy an electric vehicle. We can buy
- investing causes, you know, for the stock market, for example. We can buy, you know,
- certain stocks and bonds from a company that supports climate change, or we can buy from companies that
- support fossil fuels. We have a lot of power as consumers to directly impact climate policy by just
- watching where we spend our dollars. And I truly believe we just need to make the public aware of that.
- I think once people really realize where their dollars are going and how it's impacting the climate,
- I think that would change people's minds because I'm deeply concerned about not only our future here
- on the table, but my kids' future, your kids' grandkids' future in this planet. And I would do everything
- as the 9th Congressional District to support those policies that make our economy stable, support our
- economy in terms of jobs, but at the same time, attack the climate crisis head on. Thank you.
- Abandoning the endangerment finding is scientifically indefensible and dangerous. This decision undermines
- the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases and delays critical climate action. I would support immediate
- legislation to codify the endangerment finding into law, making it harder to overturn administratively.
- Additionally, I'd propose a comprehensive climate action package including
- carbon pricing with dividends returned to households, expanded tax credits for renewable energy development,
- infrastructure investments in climate resilience, and research funding for carbon capture and storage
- technologies. We should also rejoin the international climate agreements and take a leadership role
- in emissions reduction. The science is clear. We need bold action now to avoid catastrophic warming,
- and the economic costs of inaction
- far exceed the cost of mitigation. Thank you all for answering the general questions. Before we begin
- the lightning round, I wanted to remind you all, if you have a question that you want to be submitted
- into the audience questions pool, please flag down Adela or Michael and send in your questions by the
- end of this lightning round.
- Reminder about the structure of this round, these are gonna be shorter questions and you guys will each
- have about 45 seconds to answer. In the interest of time, I'm only gonna ask three questions instead
- of four so that we can get to the audience questions a little bit sooner. And you guys can once again
- go in any order you'd like. This first question, one of the most controversial aspects of AI development
- has been the growing need for data centers.
- prominently within the state of Indiana, with very large demand on electricity and water resources.
- What do you see as the potential costs and benefits of these initiatives, and to what degree should
- local, state, or federal governments play a role in regulating data center development? I think data
- center decisions should be primarily at the local level. However, I think in most cases, it's not a
- good bet for those communities.
- As you say, they use huge amounts of electricity, often pollute the water, and the job creations. There's
- construction jobs initially, but long-range is usually like in the single digits. So you don't get a
- good economic return to the community. I'm against irresponsible implementation of data centers.
- That doesn't mean I'm against data centers. It means I'm against irresponsible. And we need to define
- what is responsible. What does good look like? What does responsible in the community look like? And
- then we need to ensure that there is an open process so that you can't have somebody come in and say,
- hey, I want to start a data center, but I'm going
- Let's have a secret meeting. Let's have secret agreements. Let's keep this away from the people so that
- they can make decisions about their own communities. That is unethical and that's inappropriate. We
- need to prevent that. Transparency is key here when building data centers. Communities don't find out
- about them until after contracts are made.
- And at the same time as we need to do regulate at the federal level actually, to make sure that as these
- companies are creating data center that they are dealing with their water needs responsibly and that
- all of their electricity needs are generated by themselves. Our grid can't handle these data centers
- growing at this pace that they think that they need to. And I have a data center going up in
- our backyard, almost our backyard, and they are building their own transformer there. So I feel like
- that was responsible by them. It's Facebook. But they aren't very responsible with water right now.
- So we do need the federal regulations to make them act appropriately. Yeah, so we definitely, relative
- to data centers, we need value proposition for the communities.
- It's that simple. What's the community gonna get out of the deal? Are they gonna get a five or 10 year
- or 20 year revenue stream from that company? We also need transparency, right? So, back to the value
- proposition. Years ago, when a semi-plant came in from GM or Ford, right, you'd see five or 10 years,
- 20 years, 30 years of revenue streams. We need the same thing from a data center.
- We also need responsible regulations, environmental regulations that deal with water and electricity,
- like we talked about. Those are some positive things I can say. They do create jobs. And another thing
- that's going on around the world is we have to deal with this from a national security standpoint. I
- know we don't talk a lot about this, but China's doing it, Russia's doing it.
- I was a Navy officer for 11 years. I'm acutely aware of some of the security issues. And we have to
- keep up with technology. We can't let China or Russia beat us on the technology front, right? Because
- if they attack us, we need to be able to deal with them effectively and forcefully. And so
- we need responsible data center deployment, but we can't stop it. I mean, we have to be able to do it
- in a responsible, very responsible way. Thank you.
- Yeah, I've actually written draft legislation on this exact issue. Data centers need to be clean, they
- need to be efficient, and they need to provide benefit for the local economy, for the people who live
- there. They have to provide their own infrastructure and provide support for the community. They should
- provide jobs, they should provide money, and provide all of the infrastructure needs of a data center.
- And I've written draft legislation to address exactly that issue. Thanks. Thank you all. The second
- question, what do you see as the role of the federal government to ensure high-quality reproductive
- health care for all Americans? And that's a very loaded question, because you get very strong feelings
- on both sides of the aisle.
- the reality of the state, the reality of the situation right now is based on the Dobbs decision that's
- at the state level. They make those decisions. And I think, basically, at some point in time,
- if a constitutional amendment were brought forward, I would seriously and prayfully consider it. It's
- a tough decision.
- We're live again. Wonderful. So I believe that we need to restore Roe v. Wade, full stop. This is something
- we need to work for. There are serious challenges because of the way the Supreme Court did the ruling,
- which they passed it back as much as they could to the states, and we need to try to work against that.
- We need to try to get a federal law in place.
- One of the things that I am advocating for is a constitutional right to healthcare, and we can include
- that as part of it. We can include the right to freedom of choice as part of a healthcare thing. One
- of the things that we don't talk about very much, we spend a lot of time talking about Roe v.
- Wade and choice, but also Planned Parenthood and contraceptives is under attack in this country.
- When my wife and I were first married and we were poor, living poor, we used Planned Parenthood. They
- provide a lot of important services to the community and I don't think that they get the support and
- advocacy that they need. So I wanted to include that. Thank you. I'm an emergency physician coming off
- a night shift last night.
- I've drank plenty coming up here. I'm an emergency physician, and even this week, it happens all the
- time, I've treated a lot of women who've been raped, and girls who've been raped. And never once, when
- giving my counsel, having those conversations, did I ever consider what the government had to say before
- these laws came down, the Supreme Court decision came down.
- the government just does not belong in my exam room. And healthcare is a human right.
- It is not, unfortunately, a constitutional right. But through privacy laws, through working to keep
- the government out of our exam room, whether that means abortion rights, whether that means vaccination
- rights, whether that means having our ability to make medical decisions through
- AI versus doctors, whether that means having insurance companies get out of our exam room when it comes
- to prior authorization. How is that legal? It shouldn't be. It will be illegal if you elect me to Congress.
- And the answer here is remove the government from the exam room and we will be able to get a lot done.
- Yes, I'd be in favor
- Reinstating Roe, of course. I'd also be in favor of a constitutional amendment if we could ever get
- it passed. And then obviously, I would definitely support funding for Planned Parenthood, any and all
- those services for women to support women. I'm per women's choice, so I truly believe in funding and
- supporting whatever women need in that regard. Thank you.
- Yeah, I actually wrote health care legislation on my website. It specifically defines reproductive health
- care as health care and denial free. So that's my answer. All reproductive health care is just health
- care, and you should get it without question. Last question, should the federal government
- play a role in supporting or subsidizing energy initiatives to support US energy independence and economic
- leadership? Well, it seems like we've been trying to do that for a while. I guess we actually do produce
- more oil than we consume, but there's actually an issue with the refineries. We can't refine all the
- oil that we produce in various parts of our country, so we end up having to ship that out.
- and then bring oil back in from other places. We really need an overall US energy plan. Somebody mentioned
- a space-shot-type program to try to bring our energy into the 21st century with heavy emphasis on renewables,
- declining emphasis on fossil fuel. All of those are things I think all of us would try for.
- It's gonna be difficult. The United States government was involved in supporting, which probably is
- a bad thing to say in this room, but we supported whaling when that's where we got a lot of our energy
- from. We supported the transition to coal. Then, we supported the transition to oil. And then, we were
- supporting the transition to natural gas. And now, we're gonna be supporting, and we have been supporting,
- to renewable. This is not a new thing. This is something that we have done for a couple hundred years,
- right? So this is a core responsibility of the government to, for the federal government, to look at
- what our energy policy is, what makes sense at one year from now, what makes sense 10 years from now,
- and what makes sense 100 years from now. And how do we get to that point?
- And if we're going to transition sometime in the next 100 years to a better, cleaner energy, how do
- we do that quicker instead of slower? We need to be at the leading edge. That is the purpose of the
- government, is to work on big things, especially when initially they are not profitable, and eventually
- they become profitable, like solar and like wind was. A big, beautiful bill is an abomination. A lot
- of people think of it as a health care bill.
- tax bill, it's also an energy bill, where pretty much every incentive you had to get clean energy has
- been rolled back. And we have incentivized people to invest in fossil fuels by really manipulating the
- capital gains tax. And so that needs to be torpedoed using your whale analogy immediately.
- And I just want to say one thing. This is a moment. This is an emergency, climate change, but this is
- a moment that we can actually bring people together. I've knocked on thousands of doors. People are
- mad about gasoline prices right now. And it does not matter if you are a Republican or an Independent
- or a Democrat. We don't get unity like this in many things. And so, this election becomes an opportunity
- to get into office
- and bring some people together. So yeah, my first step in office would be to repeal and replace the
- big, beautiful disaster of a bill. It's that simple. It's an abomination. So anyway, back to energy.
- Solar panels seem to be working. Solar panels, years ago, they were like, oh, that's a pipe dream. It's
- not cost effective. It's not efficient.
- But actually, they're starting to shut down some power plants because how cost-effective and how efficient
- solar panels are. So that's amazing how the market is working. If we continue to do that, that's a clean
- energy policy that is effective, and that's actually saving folks money because there's tax credits.
- While there was tax credits, now they stopped them.
- You know, as a House representative, a newly elected official, I would obviously advocate to have those
- reinstated. You know, it'd be really hard the first two years, of course, until we get a new president,
- but obviously I'd advocate for those. And we need to continue to look at other recycling policies. I
- talked earlier about the circular economy and other alternative fuels. We need to continue to do that.
- And I also talk, and by the way, Jim, it was me talking about JFK, man to the moon, that was me, Jim.
- Yeah, but we need a JFK-style man to the moon in 10 years with the climate change. No kidding,
- has to happen, quickly. You see the markers all over the planet, right? The global temperature keeps
- going up and up and up, and it's not going down, unfortunately.
- So anyway, that's kind of my policies on energy independence, and we need to continue to advocate and
- basically cancel what the Trump administration's doing and reinstitute those policies so we can get
- an active and have them really supercharge the industrial base to encourage financially people to buy
- that product so we can limit the CO2 and methane gas emissions.
- Thank you. Yeah, I'm pro-wind, pro-solar, and pro-new nuclear. Those molten salt reactors are the bee's
- knees. I mean, I would have one in my backyard if I could. I mean, I burn 3,000 kilowatts a month. So
- nuclear's about the only way I could go. Thanks.
- Now we're moving on to audience questions and Tyler is going to take this over. All right. Yep. Thank
- you all for your answers. So we've got a lot of audience questions here now. We're not going to be able
- to get to all of those. So again, I'll remind you, we'd love to see some of you at Lenny's afterwards
- if you have further questions. So let's actually reverse order here. So we'll start with you Floyd,
- this first one.
- Thousands of people throughout the country are concerned about the unregulated explosion of AI in the
- accompanying data centers that gobble energy and water. Would you support a moratorium on data centers
- to allow appropriate policy to be developed? I can't really support a moratorium on data centers or
- AI. No other country will be doing it, and it would just put us behind to do it ourselves.
- We need to do some responsible funding, responsible research, and responsible development. But a total
- moratorium would just put us in the backseat to everybody else. Yeah, I... I would be hesitant to institute
- a full moratorium because of the national security implications, right? China and the other countries
- are doing the same thing. But like I said earlier, we need to have responsible environmental policies
- we need to have a clear value proposition for that community. And when I mean value proposition, I want
- to see tax revenues going into that community, roads, bridges, schools, additional funding to support
- that community if they're putting in a data center in the backyard. And then we also have to
- have transparency, of course. We can't have a shadowy company coming in building a data center and nobody
- knowing who's
- who the company is, where the materials are coming from. So that's kind of my position on AI moratorium.
- Thank you. You can't build a data center unless you comply to our environmental regulations, water,
- electricity, to our local community needs. That should be the law. That will be the law that I would
- pass. So in that way, if you want to call that a moratorium, great, but I'm pretty sure that
- Google, Facebook, whomever can do that immediately, and still build the building, and still build their
- data centers. So moratorium with regulations. We should immediately pass legislation that requires
- transparency. That's the first thing. Let's start with getting transparency.
- and then we also need to engage the EPA, and then we need to fund the EPA so that they can do proper
- enforcement. So there's things that we can do now that we're not, and one of the reasons is that what
- they've done is they write a law, and then the EPA comes up with policy and implementation. And through
- recent Supreme Court, they said, no, no, no.
- you've got to go off of the law, you can't go off of the regulations. Which means that it's pushed it
- back into the responsibility of Congress to act. And that's not an excuse for us not to act. That's
- why I want to get into Congress, because we need to write legislation that actually addresses these
- quickly. And we should be able to do that as quickly as we can get a law passed that would be a moratorium.
- to center, so I'll address the AI situation. I think we should all be aware that because of the nature
- of these deep artificial neural networks, there are two key technical shortcomings. The first is that
- unlike the earlier rule-based systems that they had some years ago, these new systems can in general
- explain how they do their reasoning.
- They're just interconnected networks, and they've done iterative adjustment of the weights until they
- reach a stability point, and then they give it a prompt and a result is created, and they can't explain
- it. And the even more scary thing is, you're probably all aware of it, sometimes they just simply make
- things up. Facts and citations and everything else. They cheerfully refer to that as hallucinations.
- And then they say, well, we should use this for medicine, and we should use this for this and that,
- and for military applications. That's ludicrous. Obviously, we need some guardrails on the development
- and deployment of AI. We need guardrails about children being exposed to chatbots. And beyond that,
- my opinion is that strict liability laws should apply.
- Someone is injured as a result of AI, the company that developed that should pay for it and should be
- accountable. You have a bunch of good lawyers in Bloomington and lots of other places that would hold
- these people and would probably they might think twice about some of the things that they would release.
- Thank you. So for our second one, again, start with you, Floyd. What will be the first bill you will
- introduce in the twenty twenty seven twenty twenty eight Congress?
- That's a good question because I have an app that I call the Congress app and where all my constituents
- get to vote on which bills they like and I've written like 26 of them and So whichever ones my constituents
- decide they want me to push first is what I push first. I Don't have a personal priority All right,
- I'm gonna tell you a little bit about me so
- Couple jobs ago, I was sitting at a desk, and I was trying to figure out this complicated engineering
- problem. And I was sitting there, and I was thinking, man, this is gonna take probably two hours. And
- then a friend of mine says, well, just go to the guy next to you, like literally five feet away,
- and ask him, he could tell you in about three seconds. So I go to him, he goes, oh, three seconds. So
- I guess that's my answer. I'm all about efficiency. I want things done quickly. First answer is ACA
- subsidies. I think that can happen.
- quickly. So I'm all about getting that done. Because that can happen quickly, like literally probably
- in the first session of Congress. Assuming the Democratic Party or party takes over. I believe
- the legislation is already there. It's just turning the key. Thank you. Our health care system come
- January 1, 2027 is under threat of collapsing. We
- ACA subsidies are going to have millions of people be off of insurance, but so is the Medicaid rollbacks.
- There will be another 10 million or so coming off in the next 10 years. And then Medicare rates are
- not going up with inflation. And all of this needs to be fixed.
- immediately because we are going to move into, on day one, a system. When we take office on day one,
- the same day, all of these things will start to be cut in great, very deeply.
- So that is the emergency that we will have on our hands that we need to address. So before going to,
- yes, health care is a human right. We need everybody to have health care. We need to roll back all of
- these big, beautiful bill cuts that happened. Otherwise, we're going to lose our hospitals, and we'll
- lose hospital services. And your hospital here will be even more busy than it already is. Comp check?
- Good, it works. OK, so we have number two.
- in my night of agreeing with Dr. Peck, and that is repealing the Big Bad Beautiful bill is really important.
- After that, impeachment and removal for the Iran War. I'm done.
- You asked me what number one was, and I snuck in number one and number two, and I didn't want to press
- my luck and go for number three. You know, I think tonight, if nothing else, there's so many things
- that need to be repaired. It's going to take the next Congress and Congress after that, and maybe some
- more. But for me, the first legislation that I would push for is to restore the cuts to veterans' programs
- and veterans' hospitals.
- Those people put their lives on the line, and we owe it to them morally to take care of them.
- Thank you. We got time for one more. Let's make this quick. What is your view of nuclear power development
- in Indiana? I haven't reviewed any of the current nuclear power development in Indiana. I'm 100% pro-nuclear.
- I think it can be great if done properly.
- We're not gonna put any carbon reactors or, you know, no Chernobyl, no Three Mile Island, but a nice
- salt, molten salt reactor would be nice. Other than that, I'm not aware of it. I mean, I've heard of
- it, but I don't have anything to say about it. Yeah, I mean, I don't know a lot about the local regulatory
- issues right now with nuclear fission,
- if what I've heard is correct, is I'm hearing they're very efficient, and they're very efficient, and
- they put out a lot of electricity. But there's a lot of concerns with the regulatory, the environmental
- impacts, the cost, and everything else. One good thing about nuclear is no emissions, right, other than
- you have to deal with the spent rods and such. So that has to be dealt with efficiently, like it has
- been done in the past.
- And to be honest, like a good engineer, I don't know all the answers. I will find them and make a good
- policy decision. Thank you. We have a very interesting new pressure on nuclear to accelerate the technology
- to make it smaller and even portable, which is we are going to the moon.
- We are going to put a base on the south pole of the moon, which doesn't get much light. The reason is
- that's where the water is. Because of that, we need small nuclear reactors that can go on a spaceship
- and then land on the moon, etc. That's going to accelerate the technology greatly. I think instead of
- looking at large nuclear reactors, we should be pushing on this technology to go small,
- and safer, and get it to the point where, thank you, get it to the point where we are all having nuclear
- be much more efficient. I wish I could support nuclear. I really do. I would love to be a nuclear supporter,
- and I'm not. My feeling is, if you want to put a nuclear reactor on the moon, that is an excellent place
- for it. Okay? And here's my issue.
- As Kyle said, as an engineer, I wanna know the facts. I wanna know how it works. I wanna know, you know,
- what the issues and what the control surfaces are, and all these details. And corporations are gonna
- say, we've got it, this is what it is. And then, we're gonna have to rely on the government to do that
- analysis, to make sure that they've covered it, to make sure that they implement it as they said, to
- test the edge cases,
- because when nuclear goes wrong, it goes really wrong, okay? And if you look at the accidents, they're
- not one thing that happened that you look at it and the engineer goes, oh, yeah, I should have thought
- of that. It's five or six things, and the engineers look at it and go, crap, I never would have thought
- that happened. If we don't have a strong federal government that can really do its job to make sure
- that it's safe,
- that I can't trust the analysis, and therefore, the only place I want that stuff to be is on the moon.
- Like all technologies, there are benefits and there are risks, and I think with the small nuclear reactors,
- they certainly sound promising. A number of them being built across the country. We'll have some test
- data for you pretty soon, Brad, so... Tell me again in 30 years how it worked.
- because of the moon thing. But I understand you're making light of it. But the amount of technology
- advancements that we've had in this country and this world because of space travel makes up much of
- the technology that we have. I would give it a chance to see what's coming of this.
- incredible pressures on people to come up with new technologies. And if we don't at least embrace the
- possibility to get energy independence to save the world of its climate disaster, then we're playing
- with one arm behind our back.
- Sorry. So NASA's funding is they're going to cut it by 47%, so they're going to be doing their work
- on a shoestring. I agree 100%. I want to be for nuclear. It's not that I'm against nuclear. It's that
- I can't trust the government to do its job when it's politically motivated, when we've got people that
- think that they can inject bleach and make things go away. When we don't have credibility, when we don't
- have the trust in the government to do their job,
- When they're captive to industry, we can't rely on the science because the science is being undercut.
- That's my issue. I want it to work. I want us to develop it. But it has to be done responsibly. It has
- to be done safely. It has to be done with oversight that we can trust. And I cannot trust this administration
- and what they've been doing.
- Well, that concludes our question period. So now we'll move to some brief closing statements from each
- one of you. Floyd, we'll go ahead and start with you again. Science just isn't a body of knowledge.
- It's our best method for understanding the world and solving problems. As your representative, I'll
- bring my technical background and practical experience to every policy decision, ensuring we're guided
- by evidence rather than ideology. We face complex challenges.
- And that demands scientific solutions, from climate change to public health to technological disruption.
- And let's be honest. Sometimes looking at our government, it feels like strange things are afoot at
- the Circle K. But we don't panic. We get to work. By restoring scientific integrity to government, investing
- in research and development, and supporting our scientific workforce, we can build a healthier, more
- prosperous future.
- I'm committed to making decisions based on facts, data, and rigorous analysis, because that's what works.
- Thank you. Sure. I don't know if most of you are aware, but STEM professionals in Congress are definitely
- a minority, okay? Most of them are lawyers, non-STEM-related. So we need a candidate who can explain
- things of around policy,
- in economics. Economics and policy have to go hand in hand. Because the reality is, as a representative,
- we're going to be trying to sell and communicate why this policy improves economics from a governmental
- standpoint. How are we going to be able to bring in higher tax revenues? How are we going to be able
- to create jobs? It really all comes back to economics and dollars.
- So we have to create STEM policies that drive that home. I believe I am the candidate that can effectively
- do that with a cross-function of groups. I spent 11 years in the Navy. I used to deal with two, 300
- folks in my battalions. I was a production supervisor. I used to deal with many folks in different
- communities. And I have that experience and breadth and background to be able to communicate and work
- with people in different backgrounds.
- and build those relationships, and agree to disagree, because you're going to come across folks that
- you just, quite frankly, you have to disagree with. But at the same time, you have to be able to talk
- to them at a human level, ask them about their family, ask them about how they're doing, and learn to
- agree to disagree, but be civil. Because if you build relationships, if you know how to build relationships
- in this job, you will be successful.
- People will come up to you and help you support your legislation when you didn't think would show up.
- And that's what the job is. It's relationship building. It's a leadership. It's being able to deal with
- folks from all across the country and to get them on board with your legislation. You have to have those
- people skills. You have to have that empathy. And you have to have that human contact, asking them how
- they're doing, how their family's doing. Get to know them.
- Because that's how you build those relationships. That's how you get things done for our community.
- My name's Kyle Rourke. I appreciate if you just go to KyleRourke.com and appreciate your vote.
- Thank you. I think we've seen from a lot of these questions here that science is one of the answers
- to save the world, is to save our environment and save so many things. And I spent my career translating
- science into real life, whether that be by the bedside
- to policymakers. I spent years in DC doing bipartisan legislation to make telemedicine a reality. And
- with public, the public in southern Indiana. So I say about Indiana 9, it's a microcosm of America right
- here when it comes to science. It's pretty incredible. We have this world-class research institution
- that we're sitting in right alongside a rural community.
- In that rural community, just like rural communities across the United States, skepticism is real. And
- our future does depend on the translation to those people of what's happening. So this line of communication
- of what's happening here in Bloomington to those people in Bedford, but then back to the people in DC
- who support the actual research and policy to make the people here in Bloomington actually be able to
- do their work, that
- Circle is broken right now because trust is broken. And we need leadership that can bridge that world
- between facts and belief. And that's the work I've done. That's the work I'm ready to do. And if you
- have your trust in me and your vote this May 5th, I will bring that work to DC. Thank you so much. This
- planet is not our inheritance.
- This planet was given to us in trust from our parents to give to their grandchildren. It's what we passed
- down. It's not something that we use up so that it's all used up the day after we die. It's something
- that we have a responsibility to future generations and to ourself. And economics is always, there's
- always this pull between economics and the environment
- And what are we going to do? And the answer is always, unfortunately, economics, right? Our environment
- loses so often in that tug of war. And one of the things that's really nice about science is it begins
- to give us answers to how we can balance that better and how we can move forward and optimize those
- two things that people are trying to keep an eye on. It is our future.
- it is at risk, it is being undermined. And that's why I want to go to Congress to fight for this.
- You know, when I talk about fighting, I'm not talking about duking it out or having a knife fight. Sorry,
- for those of you that weren't in the other... he sometimes references knife fights, so that was not
- a threat, so don't anybody get triggered. But it's about standing our ground and saying, these are our
- values, these are our priorities,
- and helping people understand why we see this and understand why it's in their best interest. It is
- about relationships. It is about trust. But that doesn't mean that we have to lose ourselves and blend
- in with the people that are causing this mess. It just means that we can disagree without being disagreeable.
- And we need to stand up for what we believe in. Thank you.
- Yeah, the actual quote, Brad, was that we're in a street fight for our democracy. And I can handle a
- street fight. As I said in my opening, I've been a science guy all my life. If elected, I would put
- a high priority in trying to bring back rational problem solving and particularly looking for compromises
- that lead to win-win solutions. They're out there. We just need to apply ourselves to do that.
- I would certainly do my best to try to bring back the independence of the National Science Foundation
- and maintain its funding. I would do my very best to fully fund the EPA and isolate it from political
- influence. The other thing I think is that I have the technical background, including a PhD in the science
- area, applied science, and I think I'm capable of...
- very capable of analyzing the new technical challenges that we face in things like artificial intelligence,
- small nuclear reactors, and cybersecurity. I've been through the rounds of actually writing proposals
- to the National Science Foundation, to DARPA, and other places. I know how that science works. I know
- how important that is. I would appreciate your vote on May the 5th. Thank you.
- Thank you all. I'll hand it over to Michael now for the closing remarks. No real remarks. I just want
- to thank our candidates for doing a beautiful job here, showing us how it's done in a civil and thoughtful
- manner. Again, round of applause for everybody at the library who's helped us set this up. And big kudos
- to the leaders of Advocates for Science at IU, especially Emma and Tyler, for doing such a beautiful job.
- I want to remind you that we have got to be out of this building in seven minutes, but the good news
- is, if you're willing, I don't know how many of you can join us, but we have a few tables reserved upstairs
- at Lenny's, out the front door, down a block and a half to the left, just before the sample gates, and
- we can continue some conversation. And also, we're going to invite all the candidates, including
- Representative Houchin, to submit answers if you'd like in writing
- as a follow-up. Okay, thanks everybody and thanks for being here.