As a Wyoming State Senator in 1991, Lisa Kinney complained that rural health was ignored by the Senate Education and Health Committee during a meeting in Cheyenne. Senator Kinney called for the committee “to focus on rural community health issues prior to the upcoming budget session” (Laramie Daily Boomerang 10/10/1991). The article continued, stating that “In response to her call, the bipartisan legislative committee voted to ask the Legislative Management Council for two full meeting days for the entire interim committee to meet and hold hearings on rural health care topics.”  Indeed, the Health Committee of both parties worked together to resolve issues facing Wyoming.

Previously, Senator Kinney sponsored and passed a bill allowing optometrists to prescribe medication. Dr. Sue Lowe, Laramie optometrist, asked her to sponsor this legislation to allow optometrists to provide cost-effective, essential, and accurate treatments for patients. Prior to Senator Kinney’s bill, if a patient saw an optometrist and needed medication, the patient had to get a second appointment with a family doctor for the prescription. “Passing my bill served rural patients because the optometrist could prescribe the medication immediately without the patient seeing a second doctor,” Kinney stated. “I will continue and am determined to help resolve rural health care issues when I am elected to the US House,” Kinney concluded.

My immediate goal when I am elected is to introduce funding for geothermal development using oil and gas techniques, infrastructure, and employees. Wyoming should join the four-state group, the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium. This group partnership was formed in May 2026 and includes Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.  They are working to develop “underground clean energy.” Utah has received federal funds to create “Utah Forge,” an underground field laboratory which “has developed and refined enhanced geothermal using oil and gas techniques.”  More information here.  A primary need of geothermal is to find where the hot rocks exist and go below that. Drillers PanTerra Energy in Colorado dug 1,000 feet under the Aspen high school football field in its geothermal project which usually stops around 500 feet. Aspen will “use the new system to bring clean, low-carbon energy to school and administration buildings across its campus”, according to an article in the Colorado Sun.  The funding for this project included federal and state grants and tax credits. Colorado also created an office that retrained coal workers. We must transition fossil fuel equipment, infrastructure and employees over time to geothermal for our great-grandchildren by creating and continuing congressional funding in these areas, which is what I will do.

I have developed a five-point legislative bill to address new Data Centers being considered throughout Wyoming. I hear or read about city councils and county commissioners making plans to possibly annex data centers into their areas. The Cheyenne City Council on August 10^th approved the annexation of a 34-acre property for a data center development staging area according to Cap City News. The Laramie City Council and Albany County Commissioners met August 11th to look at options in both places, and while there is nothing large enough in Laramie’s city limits, there is in the county. Wyoming is cool, dry, and empty. Our kids need jobs. However, we do not have enough scientific information to fully analyze what these centers mean to our well-being. They should be required to go through the Industrial Siting Act, which they can now avoid by being annexed into an industrial park, or claiming the project is worth less than $250 million. An adept State Senator or Representative can fix this by adding the words “data center” into the required list. But as a member of Congress, I plan to introduce a bill that:

1. All data centers must have closed loop systems;
2. All discharge must be regulated to avoid toxic contamination of water sources;
3. Companies must incur cost of increased energy so that the cost of electricity does not increase for citizens;
4. Location of centers with set back of five miles from housing and neighborhoods and;
5. A cap on noise operational limits.

I would propose a moratorium of six months to a year minimum for research in order to create regulations that determine what other issues exist and to work with other levels of government to protect our citizens. We are moving too fast on these possibly damaging projects.

Our rural areas need reliable internet. Wyoming received $348 million under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Act in 2023 authorized by President Joe Biden and in 2025 the money was approved and deposited with the Wyoming Business Council. The Wyoming Joint Appropriations Committee reduced the Business Council’s budget to $15 million in 2026, so the $348 million was transferred to the Governor’s office. This grant to connect Wyoming’s 39,000 under-served rural homes and ranches is a high priority even though several issues exist. The money for high-speed internet must be spent within four years. It is a great opportunity to connect our small businesses, schools, and agricultural producers with the internet communication we have in the cities. I spent the last 15 years traveling through Wyoming visiting schools and hospitals for AIG/VALIC, Corebridge as a financial consultant and experienced the problems our rural areas face. I will not let the current administration waste Wyoming’s rural internet funding. We need to make sure this money is utilized by Wyoming and I will work with the Governor’s office to ensure the funds get used appropriately.