Emily Thabes

“My professional foundation is library and information science, so my instinct is to go to the people who did the work and read the evidence before I make decisions.

I would bring scientists in at three points. Before a bill is drafted, so the policy is built from what the evidence supports rather than reverse engineered to fit a conclusion. During committee, where I would ask researchers directly what their findings can and cannot tell us and where the uncertainty sits. After passage, because a law nobody measures cannot be corrected.

I want more than one source at the table. University of Minnesota and Minnesota State researchers, Extension, staff scientists at the MPCA and DNR, and tribal natural resource and environmental departments, who hold both scientific expertise and sovereign authority over their own lands and waters. I also want independent monitoring funded by the state, so a community is never left reading only the numbers supplied by the party responsible for the problem.

Science tells us what is true and what is likely to happen. The vote is a question of obligation. I want both answered honestly, and I want the record open so constituents can check my work.”

KEYWORDS: Evidence-based, Independent verification, Transparency

“Water in northern Minnesota belongs to everyone downstream. When sulfide ore is exposed to air and water it produces acid drainage that carries heavy metals, and no one has a site anywhere that has done this cleanly. The Rainy River watershed runs north into the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs, and Canada; a failure there is permanent and shared.

My position is no sulfide mining in this watershed. I would support a state prohibition on nonferrous sulfide mining in the Rainy River headwaters, which is authority Minnesota holds regardless of what Congress does with federal land.

I would also support restoring the federal mineral withdrawal, full financial assurance posted in cash or its equivalent before any permit issues anywhere in the state, with no self-bonding and no corporate parent guarantees that vanish in bankruptcy, state-funded independent water monitoring, protection of the wild rice sulfate standard, and thorough consultation with the Ojibwe bands who hold treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather in the ceded territory.

Northern Minnesota deserves an economy that pays well and lasts. I want the public investment aimed at work that does not put the water at risk.”

KEYWORDS: Sulfide mining prohibition, Financial assurance, Watershed protection

“Nobody should have to research their own drinking water to find out whether it is safe.

Minnesota already has the strongest PFAS law in the country in Amara’s Law, including the class-based definition covering any chemical with at least one fully fluorinated carbon. I would defend that definition and vote against the industry carve-outs that will be brought forward as the deadlines get closer.

Beyond that, I would push in four directions. Enforceable state drinking water standards for PFAS, with compliance deadlines that do not slip. Testing money and treatment money for the small rural, tribal, and township systems that cannot spread the cost of a filtration plant across many ratepayers. Coverage for private wells, which is how a large share of households in my district get their water and which no federal standard reaches. Limits on PFAS in biosolids and sludge applied to farmland, plus soil and groundwater standards, so we stop moving the contamination around.

The cost belongs to whoever made and sold these chemicals. I would support strengthening state cost recovery so manufacturers pay for testing, treatment, and health monitoring, and Minnesota families get clean water without a new line on their bill.”

KEYWORDS: Amara’s Law, Private wells, Polluter pays

“These facilities use enormous amounts of electricity and water in a state where utility bills are already climbing. A project that builds here has to leave the community better off than it found it. Anything less takes from a place that cannot afford the loss.

I support repealing the data center sales tax exemption. Minnesota is giving away revenue to the world’s most profitable companies for a small number of permanent jobs, and that money is needed for schools, water systems, and roads.

I support a temporary moratorium on new hyperscale facilities until the Public Utilities Commission completes a study and the state has rules in place, along the lines of SF 4298. That gives us time to write the rules before the concrete is poured.

Every rule I want is measured against net gain. Closed loop or recycled cooling with enforceable withdrawal limits, so the aquifer comes out ahead. Public reporting of actual water and energy use, not projections. The company pays for the grid upgrades and generation its load requires. Ratepayer protections that lower bills for customers already on the system.

Water, power, tax base, and jobs: communities should be ahead on all four.”

KEYWORDS: Net community gain, Repeal exemption, Ratepayer protection

“Research funding is rural economic development, and people in my district do not always see it that way because the labs are in the Twin Cities and Duluth. The Extension trial that saves a farmer a spray pass, the wild rice and fisheries work, the rural health studies that tell us why our clinics keep closing. That work is done by grant-funded scientists.

Federal support has become unreliable. Grants have been frozen and terminated midstream, which leaves graduate students without stipends and multi-year studies abandoned partway through. I support a state bridge fund that lets the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State carry interrupted projects through a disruption instead of losing the people and the data.

I also support stable base funding for higher education so research is not paid for by tuition increases, protecting Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and Clean Water Legacy dollars for applied research, and building research capacity at tribal colleges and regional campuses so studies about our communities are conducted with our communities.

Minnesota built a research economy over decades. Maintaining it means paying for it consistently, and the return shows up in jobs, in farm income, and clean water for generations.”

KEYWORDS: Bridge funding, Research capacity, Rural return on investment

“The decline is real and it happened because people did the work: naloxone in more hands, fentanyl test strips, syringe services, and treatment that meets people where they already are. I would fund all of it at a level that keeps the trend moving.

The disparities tell us where the resources have not reached. Indigenous Minnesotans in my district are dying at rates that would be treated as an emergency anywhere else. I support direct funding to tribal nations and Native-led organizations, on a government to government basis, rather than routing dollars through county intermediaries and hoping they arrive. The programs that work are built by the communities carrying the loss.

The other constraint is workforce. In rural northern Minnesota the availability of substance use and mental health providers is falling faster than the need is, and a person ready for help can wait weeks for an opening. I support higher and indexed reimbursement rates, loan repayment tied to rural and tribal service, training pipelines through tribal and community colleges, and cutting the regulatory paperwork that pulls counselors away from clients without improving oversight.

Treatment on demand, close to home, is how the number keeps falling.”

KEYWORDS: Harm reduction, Tribal-directed funding, Treatment workforce