Ethan Wechtaluk

“Maryland’s energy cost crisis has a specific accelerant that most candidates are not addressing directly: unchecked data center expansion. Individual facilities consume tens of megawatts of power continuously and Maryland has been approving them without adequate analysis of cumulative grid impacts. I support the Sanders-AOC Data Center Energy Sustainability Act, which would impose a moratorium on new data center construction until federal energy and water impact standards are established. Demand-side discipline is as important as supply-side investment.

On supply, I am a strong proponent of nuclear power as the only proven zero-carbon baseload energy source capable of meeting Maryland’s growing electricity needs reliably. Next-generation reactor designs address the safety and cost concerns associated with older facilities. Federal investment in advanced nuclear deployment should be a priority, and I will push for it in Congress.

I also support full funding for federal weatherization and energy efficiency programs that reduce demand at the household level, expanded transmission infrastructure investment to move renewable energy from where it is generated to where it is needed, and restoring the clean energy incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act that the current administration has moved to dismantle.

High energy costs are a solvable problem. They require honest diagnosis first — and that means confronting the data center demand crisis directly.”

“The damage here in Maryland extends well beyond the workers directly terminated. Federal contractors, small businesses, and local economies built around stable federal employment are all absorbing cascading impacts from cuts that were made without analysis, without transition planning, and without congressional authorization.

My immediate priority in Congress is fighting these cuts through appropriations, oversight hearings, and legislation to restore wrongfully terminated employees and cancelled contracts. NIH, NASA, and NIST are not bureaucratic abstractions — they are engines of scientific discovery, economic productivity, and national competitiveness that took decades to build and are being dismantled in months.

On long-term economic resilience, Maryland’s highly educated workforce and concentration of research institutions are genuine assets for private sector growth — but realizing that potential requires federal policy that supports commercialization pathways, keeps research spinoffs in the state, and invests in workforce development programs that create opportunity across education levels, not just for workers with advanced degrees.

That last point matters in a district that includes both Montgomery County research corridors and western Maryland communities where manufacturing, trades, and service sector jobs are the economic reality. Workforce policy that ignores that breadth is not workforce policy for MD-06.”

“The through-line connecting Maryland’s public health challenges — opioid crisis, behavioral health gaps, rural access, health disparities — is a healthcare system that treats these as separate problems rather than symptoms of the same structural failure. I support Medicare for All as the foundation for addressing all of them, because universal coverage is the most evidence-based intervention available for reducing health disparities rooted in socioeconomic inequality.

On the opioid and behavioral health crisis specifically, the evidence strongly supports harm reduction approaches — expanded access to naloxone, medication-assisted treatment, and syringe service programs — over criminalization strategies that research consistently shows make outcomes worse. I support full federal funding for these programs and removing the bureaucratic barriers that limit their reach in rural communities.

Rural mental health access in western Maryland is a particular gap that requires targeted investment in telehealth infrastructure, programs to attract behavioral health providers to underserved areas, and community health worker programs that meet people where they are.

Evidence-based public health policy requires both adequate funding and the institutional capacity to implement it. Congress has undermined both.”

“A strong STEM pipeline starts with fully funded public schools — and federal education policy that stops diverting public dollars to private institutions with no accountability to the communities they serve. Voucher programs that drain resources from Title I schools disproportionately harm the students most likely to be locked out of STEM pathways by inadequate early education.

At the K-12 level, I support expanded federal investment in hands-on STEM programming, computer science education, and teacher training and retention incentives specifically targeted at high-need schools. Research consistently shows that early exposure to applied science and problem-solving produces sustained interest — and that access to that exposure is deeply unequal along socioeconomic lines.

I support free community college and vocational and trade school programs as the most direct federal investment in closing the transfer gap and expanding economic opportunity across education levels. Not every STEM pathway runs through a four-year university — and federal education policy that treats it as if it does leaves enormous talent and potential on the table.

Maryland’s concentration of federal research institutions — NIH, NASA, NIST — also represents an underutilized pipeline asset. Federal investment in internship and apprenticeship pathways connecting Maryland students directly to those institutions would strengthen both the workforce and the research enterprise simultaneously.”

“Maryland’s 6th District contains some of the most ecologically significant land and water resources in the mid-Atlantic — the Potomac River, C&O Canal corridor, Seneca Creek, and substantial agricultural land in western Maryland that sits within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Protecting those resources requires federal policy that treats land and water as public assets.

On water specifically, the data center expansion crisis is a direct threat. Individual facilities consume millions of gallons daily for cooling, and Maryland is approving projects in the Bay watershed without adequate cumulative impact analysis. I support a moratorium on new data center construction until federal water and energy impact standards are established.

I support full funding for Land and Water Conservation Fund programs, expanded agricultural conservation easements, and robust federal investment in the Chesapeake Bay Program’s nonpoint source pollution controls.

Open space preservation in rapidly growing Frederick and Montgomery counties requires federal partnership with state and local land trusts. The development pressure on remaining agricultural and forested land in the eastern part of the district is acute and accelerating.

Federal infrastructure investment decisions — roads, utilities, broadband — should explicitly account for land use and conservation impacts rather than treating them as secondary considerations.”

“Evidence-based policymaking requires deliberate institutional commitment, not just good intentions. Here is how I will structure that commitment operationally.

I will establish a formal scientific advisory process for my office — a standing panel of researchers, public health professionals, climate scientists, and technical experts drawn from across our district. This panel will be consulted on legislation affecting their domains and their input will be documented and made publicly available.

I will require that policy positions taken by my office on scientific questions — energy, public health, climate, emerging technology — be accompanied by citations to peer-reviewed research or federal agency findings. Where scientific consensus exists, my votes will reflect it. Where genuine scientific uncertainty exists, I will say so explicitly rather than defaulting to false certainty in either direction.

I will oppose legislative and administrative efforts to suppress, alter, or selectively cite federal scientific findings for political purposes — including the ongoing politicization of CDC, NIH, EPA, and NOAA data and research. Congressional oversight of those agencies should protect their scientific integrity, not undermine it.

Finally, I will apply the same evidence standard to my own prior positions. If the science changes, my position should change with it. That is the baseline standard a representative serving a scientifically literate district should be held to.”

“Federal science funding is a foundational investment that has produced so much that the world now depends on. The return on that investment is not speculative — it is among the most thoroughly documented in economic history. Congress has treated it as discretionary for too long.

My starting point is straightforward: restore and expand NIH, NASA, NIST, NSF, and DOE research budgets that have politicized by the current administration. These are Maryland employers, research partners, and economic engines whose capacity is being dismantled in real time while we are having this conversation.

Beyond restoration, I support several specific initiatives.

First, increased funding for high-risk, high-reward research programs that the private sector will not fund because the return horizon is too long.

Second, expanded federal support for research commercialization pathways that keep innovation and the jobs it creates in the United States.

Third, strengthened university research partnership funding that connects federal investment directly to the academic institutions training the next generation of scientists.

I also support making federal research findings publicly accessible by default. Taxpayer-funded science should not sit behind paywalls.

Scientific leadership is national security. Treating it as optional is a strategic error we cannot afford.”