Melat Kiros
DemocraticQ1 What advisory mechanisms will you implement to ensure that evidence and scientific findings play a crucial role in your policymaking process?
“Evidence based solutions and policy will always be a regular practice of my policymaking process. Ensuring that the experts I reach out to are looking up case studies, gathering data and researching all potential benefits as well as consequences should be the basis of putting together good policy from inception. Most of the policies I believe in have been studied and tried in real time situations and results have been measured.”
Q2 Colorado farmers are facing multiple threats, amidst water scarcity and rising prices for fertilizer and other imported materials. As agriculture is our #1 export sector, in what ways do you imagine using your role to support evidence-based advancements to protect and support our farmers and natural resources in the years ahead?
“Protecting our natural resources should be one of our top priorities and I will work with top environmental leaders and organizations to conserve them and look for sustainable consumption and usage. Something like the Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program within the Bureau of Reclamation is something I would seek to enhance and reproduce in other areas. With skyrocketing prices that our farmers are incurring, I will look for ways for Congress to cap the costs of supplies that are essential for our farmers survival and success.”
Q3 America has a growing AI industry, supporting cutting-edge innovation but raising issues of resource use, privacy, and economics. What is the right balance of costs and benefits for new data center construction in Colorado, and how would your policies accomplish that balance?
“AI is a tool and with all tools, they can be used for both good and evil and it is incumbent on members of Congress to ensure that the people are protected from any harm with oversight and regulation. We need more information regarding how harmful data centers are to our environment, how it affects residents with respect to energy usage, how the technology is implemented and how it will affect jobs and our workers. I believe we should have a moratorium on data centers to force these corporations to the table to negotiate strong regulations that protect our resources and long term workers.”
Q4 Colorado has experienced a lingering measles outbreak since March of 2025. What evidence-based policies do you support to improve community and preventive health for your constituents, for infectious diseases and other threats?
“I support the work that doctors and epidemiologists have been doing for many years to prevent and protect the public from these infectious diseases. I believe that it is our duty in Congress to trust science and medicine to make sure our vaccines are up to date to prevent these types of epidemics. We should be empowering the CDC and working with the World Health Organizations to track and combat all these types of threats. The outbreak in Utah, which has affected more than 670 people, includes many children whose parents chose not to vaccinate them. Not having these protections can endanger a whole community and increase the spread of the outbreak.”
Q5 What are your opinions on the current state of science literacy, and how could K-12 education standards be adapted to form a better public understanding of and relationship building in science?
“I believe public education is an essential need for every human and that science literacy is part of that need. And with the current state of affairs in education, I think our society and our world can benefit so much more from a strengthened focus on science and math in K-12. Our innovation and development depends on the understanding and manipulation of science; Building more curriculum and having more science classrooms can correct some of the disconnect we have with all the disinformation we are seeing today.”