Ben Christly

Artificial intelligence isn’t going away. The federal government has largely stepped back and taken a hands-off approach, even though the scientists who understand this technology best have raised real warnings. That leaves it to states like Washington to get this right.

Data centers have an obvious appeal. They show up promising jobs and tax revenue. During construction that’s true. They generate good, family-wage building trades work. But once construction wraps, what’s left is a massive building that runs around the clock. It pulls enormous amounts of power off our grid. It uses a lot of water for cooling. And in many cases it drives up utility rates for everyone else on that system. Communities are increasingly finding that the long-term footprint doesn’t match the short-term sales pitch.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether this is a decision that belongs with individual communities or with the state legislature. My instinct is that local communities should have real say over what gets built where they live. But I also know that small towns and counties are often the ones being courted hardest by these projects, and they don’t always have the resources to independently verify the promises being made to them about jobs, water use, or grid impact. A company with a slick presentation and a big number on a slide can be tough to push back on without outside expertise.

That’s where I think the state has a role to play. Not to override local decisions, but to make sure those decisions are informed ones. The state should require full and transparent accounting of water use, grid impact, and effect on ratepayers before a project moves forward. Independent, verified numbers, not projections from industry. Right now too many of these approvals are happening on hope and conjecture instead of facts, and that needs to change.

KEYWORDS: local input, tax incentives, responsible growth, accountability, grid capacity, ratepayer protection, water usage

My top priority is continuing to invest in green energy, wind, hydro, and geothermal, especially now that the federal government has largely checked out on climate policy. States have to fill that gap. I don’t think everyone agrees on exactly when fossil fuels become scarce or obsolete, but we all know that day is coming, and Washington should be positioning itself now rather than playing catch-up later.

Skamania and Klickitat counties are well suited for this kind of investment. They have the geography for it, and green energy development can bring real family-wage jobs to parts of our district that don’t always get that opportunity. I want to see the state continue funding and incentivizing that kind of development in rural Southwest Washington specifically.

I want to keep pushing those projects forward. That means staying on the cutting edge of energy production while also delivering good, family wage jobs to our communities. This is a place where clean energy and rural economic opportunity can grow together, and I think our district should lead on that, not follow.

KEYWORDS: green energy, wind, hydro, geothermal, carbon credits, timber revenue

Science literacy in this country has a real gap, and it’s worth being honest about it. Only about half of American adults can correctly identify what a scientific hypothesis even is. At the same time, a strong majority of people still trust scientists to act in the public’s best interest. That tells me the problem isn’t that people distrust science, it’s that we’re not teaching people how science actually works, how a hypothesis gets tested, how evidence gets weighed, how conclusions get revised when new data comes in.

That’s the piece I’d want to strengthen in our K-12 standards. Less memorizing facts to pass a test, more hands-on, inquiry-based learning where kids actually run an experiment, get it wrong sometimes, and learn why the process still worked. That builds real scientific thinking, not just recall, and it sticks with people long after they leave the classroom.

I’d also want to make sure rural schools have the same access to lab equipment, outdoor learning opportunities, and qualified science teachers that schools in wealthier districts already have. A kid in Skamania County deserves the same shot at a real science education as a kid anywhere else in this state.

As someone who spent years in nursing relying on evidence and data to make life or death decisions, I know firsthand how much it matters that people trust and understand the process behind scientific conclusions, not just the conclusions themselves. That’s what I’d want our schools to be teaching.

KEYWORDS: evidence based, scientific literacy, critical thinking

The Bear Gulch Fire is a warning we can’t ignore. It burned over 20,000 acres and caused $42 million in damage, the worst fire on the Olympic Peninsula in nearly 75 years, in a year with close to 2,000 recorded fires statewide.

Here’s what’s frustrating: we know what works. Since 2020, our state’s wildfire program has added 151 firefighters, foresters, and forest health workers, restored nearly 89,000 acres of forest, and kept over 93% of fires to ten acres or less since 2022.

And in 2025, the legislature cut $60 million from that exact program, right as the federal government eliminated $182 million in wildfire, flood, and landslide prevention funding for Washington. That’s two levels of government pulling back at the same time our fire seasons are getting worse. The state restored its funding this year, but only through June 2027. That’s not a real commitment, that’s a countdown clock.

I also think we have to be smarter about how timber and forest management fit into this conversation. A well-managed, actively thinned forest isn’t just a revenue source, it’s a wildfire mitigation tool. Overgrown, unmanaged forests are the ones that burn hottest and fastest. My approach is to maximize sustainable timber revenue and active forest management together, not treat forestry and fire prevention as separate conversations. Done right, smart forest management pays for itself while directly reducing the fuel that turns a small fire into another Bear Gulch.

KEYWORDS: wildfire prevention funding, forest health management, sustainable timber harvest, federal budget cuts, fuel reduction

When we pass big policy like the Climate Commitment Act, there are sometimes unintended consequences, and this is one of them. Our farmers and our agricultural lands are a prized resource, and we need to be better stewards of helping the people who grow our food actually succeed.

I’d support eliminating any additional fuel charges on farmers, full stop. That exemption already exists in law, it’s just not being honored the way it should be, with some fuel distributors charging surcharges up to 70 cents a gallon anyway. That needs to be fixed at the point of sale, not through a rebate program farmers have to chase down after the fact.

Here’s the bigger point I want to make. Farmers are the first environmentalists. Nobody has a bigger stake in healthy soil, clean water, and sustainable land than the people whose livelihood depends on it working for the next generation, too. We might need to work with them, nudge things along, and help them adopt more sustainable practices over time. But we shouldn’t be making it harder or more expensive for farmers to do their jobs. We should be finding ways to make it easier, so we can keep our commitment to sustainability without treating our farmers like the problem.

KEYWORDS: farm fuel exemption, Climate Commitment Act, point-of-sale enforcement, sustainable stewardship, agricultural affordability