Jennifer J. Qualteri

“A practical approach treats science as a tool for discovering truth, not a political weapon or blank check for bureaucracy. Evidence must be reproducible, transparent, and weighed against costs, liberty, and unintended consequences, not treated as “settled” by captured institutions.

Key mechanisms: Mandate independent red-team reviews and adversarial scientific analysis for major regulations. Dissenting researchers and economists must be formally included, not sidelined by “consensus.”

Require full public release of raw data, methods, and funding sources before policy is written. Replication and falsifiability come first. Impose statutory cost-benefit analysis that includes economic growth, energy reliability, and individual freedom. Models with high uncertainty (especially long-range climate or public-health projections) cannot override observed outcomes. Sunset clauses and periodic empirical reviews: policies expire unless real-world data, not updated models, justify continuation.

Limit agency capture by rotating outside experts, prohibiting revolving-door influence, and prioritizing decentralized state-level experimentation over one-size-fits-all federal rules.

Elevate observational data and randomized evidence over precautionary modeling that expands government power.

Science informs; it does not dictate. Policymakers remain accountable to voters and the Constitution, not unaccountable expert panels. This keeps evidence central while preventing the substitution of ideology for results.”

“A practical approach starts with property rights, markets, and results, not central planning or climate narratives that raise input costs. Colorado farmers already operate under prior-appropriation water law; policy should reinforce that system rather than overlay new federal restrictions.

Priorities:Protect senior water rights and expand voluntary water markets so farmers can lease or transfer water efficiently instead of facing bureaucratic takings or environmental set-asides that idle productive land.

Cut energy and fertilizer costs at the source. Abundant domestic natural gas and streamlined permitting for production and infrastructure lower nitrogen prices without subsidies. Oppose policies that restrict reliable energy in the name of emissions targets.

Remove regulatory obstacles to precision agriculture, drought-tolerant varieties, and on-farm storage. Evidence comes from yield data and soil metrics, not models. Fast-track proven technologies through USDA and state extension rather than funding activist research agendas. Defend export markets. Agriculture is Colorado’s top export; reject trade barriers and retaliatory tariffs that punish producers while favoring other sectors.

Invest in storage and conveyance where cost-benefit analysis shows clear returns, reservoirs, lining, and efficiency upgrades funded by users and states, not endless federal programs with strings attached.

Sunset and review existing conservation rules against actual farm output and water-use data. If a regulation reduces production without measurable resource gains, it goes.

The goal is resilient farms and working landscapes, not managed decline. Evidence means observed productivity, voluntary conservation that pays, and policies that treat farmers as stewards in the thick of it, rather than subjects of distant experts.”

“A conservative stance does not treat every data-center proposal as progress. AI buildout concentrates power in a few firms, socializes energy and water costs, and delivers thin local benefits relative to the strain on Colorado farms, households, and the grid.

Right balance: no special deals. Developers pay the full cost of power, water, transmission, and backup generation. If a project cannot clear the market without ratepayer subsidies, tax abatements, or reserved water that farmers need, it does not belong here.

Electricity: New load must bring its own firm generation, gas or nuclear, not shift peak costs onto families and irrigators.

Reject “economic development” rates that hide the bill. Grid reliability for existing users comes first.

Water: Prior-appropriation rights are not a buffet for out-of-state tech. Voluntary purchases only, at market prices, with hard caps on consumptive use. Recycled or air-cooled systems required where feasible. Measured gallons and impacts on agriculture beat corporate sustainability slides.

Economics and privacy: Count real jobs and tax receipts after incentives, not press-release figures. Most value leaves the state. Do not expand state surveillance or data-sharing mandates in exchange for construction. Existing fraud and contract law is enough; new AI-specific industrial policy is not.

Policies: ban targeted subsidies and expedited tracks that other industries do not get; require published cost-benefit and water/power audits before permits; state rules that stop localities from racing to give away resources; sunset any remaining incentives. Evidence is load growth, farm water availability, and household rates, not AI hype. Colorado should not underwrite a sector that consumes scarce inputs while concentrating control elsewhere.”

“A practical approach starts with individual liberty, parental rights, and measured evidence, not panic or standing emergency powers. Colorado’s measles cases since March 2025 have been real but limited: mostly unvaccinated people, some hospitalizations, and no deaths in the state’s published counts. That supports targeted response, not coercion.

MMR is effective for those who choose it. Make shots available, publish age- and status-specific risk data, and leave the decision with families. School exclusion should be narrow and tied to active local transmission, not a permanent mandate. Documented vaccination and prior infection both count. Public-health emergencies expire.

Outbreak work should be practical: isolate the sick, protect hospitals, notify known contacts. Multi-million-dollar traces of every public place are not a durable model. Put money where transmission actually occurs.

Infectious disease is only one threat. Fentanyl, obesity, diabetes, and weak primary care harm far more Coloradans. Evidence-based prevention means addiction treatment, honest nutrition guidance, and access to doctors, not expanding agency control over routine family medicine.Trust has to be rebuilt. Release raw case data, costs, and vaccine-status breakdowns. Do not silence dissenting clinicians. Colorado should not turn CDC preference into state statute.

Government informs and contains outbreaks; it does not conscript healthy people to manage a preventable, concentrated risk.”

“Science literacy is weak because schools too often teach conclusions and institutional authority instead of method. Students learn to recite “the science” on climate, health, or identity and to treat dissent as ignorance. That is catechism, not literacy.

Real science is measurement, replication, falsifiability, and the habit of asking what would prove a claim wrong.K–12 standards should put the method first. Teach experimental design, controls, error, statistics, and the difference between a model, a correlation, and a cause.

Require students to read conflicting studies and state uncertainty in plain language. History of science belongs in the curriculum: discarded theories, frauds, and corrections. Authority is not evidence.

Separate science from policy. Energy, vaccines, and land use involve trade-offs, costs, and values. A literate citizen can understand a finding without being told what law must follow. Drop activist frameworks that treat science class as climate or social-justice training.

Local control and parental review matter. Standards should be specific and testable, not vague “equity in STEM” language that crowds out content. Restore labs, shop, and quantitative work. Screens and slogans do not produce competence.

The goal is adults who can weigh evidence, spot overclaiming, and live with incomplete knowledge. That builds a healthier relationship with science than slogans about trusting experts.

Experts are useful; they are not oracles. Schools should form skeptics who can do the work, not believers who outsource judgment.”