Bob Chew

“First, I am an engineer: Chemical, nuclear and pharmaceutical. Engineers solve problems based on science, economics, risk, and feasibility. I don’t like narratives; I seek to find the real root causes of problems before looking at solutions that get to those root causes. I will look to three advisory sources: those whom I assess to be neutral and a subject matter expert, plus those who hold science-based viewpoints from each side of a question. I will seek input from stakeholders, primarily constituents. I will also avoid being swayed by those who have fallen to narratives by influencers, who might be paid by outside (often foreign) interests.”

“Trump’s tariff vacillations are hurting farmers by shutting them out of export markets. Trump’s war with Iran has caused diesel fuel and fertilizer costs to skyrocket. I will fight to maintain global market access for farmers, and take steps to reduce cost of diesel, both by ending this war and finding alternative supply solutions.

We need a long-term solution to water shortages in Colorado. There are at least four ways we can do this: More reservoirs with federal help to build them; conservation, recycling, and lastly, federal projects to supply water to downstream states from alternative sources. Downstream of the Eastern Plains, those states could be supplied by floodwaters of the Mississippi, if we can build the holding capacity somewhere downstream. For the Colorado River compact states, we need to look at a federal project to build desalination plants on the Gulf of California or the California coast, powered by nuclear and solar energy, and pumped to Las Vegas, Southern California, and Arizona.”

“AI is both our best friend and potentially our worst enemy. Almost 100% of the electricity supplied to a data center is turned into heat. This is tens, and often hundreds of megawatts of power consumed and turned into heat. Data centers require huge amounts of electricity, sometimes water depending on design of cooling systems, and they generate noise and a significant heat dome over the data center. Farmers in Iowa report lower crop yields in the vicinity of data centers. Data centers can provide significant revenue to local and state governments. A county in Virginia has seen property taxes plummet, and Mississippi was able to pay meaningful bonuses to teachers because of revenue from data centers. It should be up to the local municipality to decide on each data center project.”

“As someone who has worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing, I know first-hand the design and operation of vaccine manufacturing. I understand the safety and efficacy studies for new drugs. I am 100% behind vaccines that have been proven safe. The notion that vaccines cause autism has never been proven, and numerous studies have been performed to demonstrate safety of these vaccines. Just about every pharmaceutical therapy has side effects, some trivial and some severe. Drug approval is usually a risk-benefit analysis best left to the medical experts at FDA, not internet influencers or quack science based on faulty evidence.”

“I think science literacy has declined alarmingly since I was in school in the 1970’s. There are many causes. Fundamentally, science is about questioning, discovery, experimentation. Science is never “settled” – history is littered with “settled science” that turned out to be wrong. The public does not have the attention span nor the education to assess and question narratives.

K-12 science needs to be about discovery, experimentation, and include a robust history of failed and discarded science. It should not be simply memorization, nor a reliance on internet and AI searches – which only summarize current thinking. K-12 science would benefit from more clubs to explore topics from robotics, to AI, to astronomy, to biology. In these clubs, kids become excited and engaged to stretch their minds.”