Accepting our Role

It doesn’t matter if you believe in man made climate change or not because the truth is, people exist, interact with their environment and usually leave a mess, so it is up to each of us to do our part and leave our piece of the garden better off than the way we got it.

People will say that the Earth has gone through climate changes many times before but all that really matters is this time not then. Back then, there weren’t hundreds of millions of cars and trucks spewing fumes in the air, 8 billion people building mountains of waste daily or thousands of factories polluting waterways. All the garbage we put into the land, sea and air is on every single one of us.

We can be better just by accepting our role in leaving behind a better environment, and voting for those candidates who support measures to help clean things up. Growing up I spent time as a Boy Scout and after every weekend camp, we’d line shoulder to shoulder and police our area, leaving it better than when we arrived. This needs to be our attitude going forward.

My campaign accepts that humanity has a great responsibility ensuring that the environment is fully protected from generation to generation, and the role of Ohio setting that example.

Protecting the Land

There is no other option here. We must learn to respect the ground beneath us and take care as to its use above. We will always need regulations that make sure we reduce harm to our land resources as much as possible, holding violators accountable, and restoring it back to a good use.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts have programs designed to help communities revamp neighborhoods, demolish condemned buildings and create new open spaces for public use and enjoyment. As your Representative, I will be committed to seeing legislation of this kind passed so as to speed up the rebirth of small towns across Ohio.

It is important we keep encouraging best practices by our farmer industry in making sure that toxins are being reduced in the soil to lessen runoff that pollute our waterways. My plan is to promote the use of hemp as an alternative cash crop for farmers to be planted as borders between corn and soy plantings and waterways. Hemp is known to absorb toxins in the ground caused by fertilizers and pesticides and this would lessen runoff.

Water is Life

Even after the disaster in Flint, Americans are left wondering why we’re still not doing it enough to save our water resources. Part of our national security is to provide clean, fresh water to all of its citizens so all communities can thrive and live healthy.

There must be a renewed emphasis on getting our watchdog agencies, like the EPA, the resources they need to make sure our water resources are protected.

The Bank of Ohio could help finance projects across the state to help communities get rid of the lead pipes contaminating their public water.

The Air We Breathe

Probably the most important resource of all is the very air around us and how this one resource affects us all. Air has no boundaries so what one person puts in the air can have an immediate effect on a person nearby. As a single state, we may not be able to reduce toxins by any measure on a global scale, but we can do our part doing as much as we can in our own backyard and that includes starting with landfills, open air holding ponds and chemical burn-offs.

Reducing emissions must be one of our major tasks ahead. Cleaning up our air is going to help our land and water resources just making sure the rain and snow that fall on them are that much cleaner.