2nd District candidates try to out-rural each other on housing, water, energy

Candidates for Utah’s 2nd Congressional District competed over water, housing and energy regulation Monday in a cordial debate over who is the most committed to constituents outside of the Wasatch Front.
Rep. Celeste Maloy, the Republican incumbent who has represented the district since winning a special election nearly a year ago, said her focus on federalism in Congress, her knowledge of water management in Beaver and her background battling over public lands in Washington County justifies her campaign slogan, “I am the 2nd District.”
Nathaniel Woodward, the Democratic nominee who works as a small-town attorney in his native Price, countered Maloy’s claim with his own, “I am rural Utah,” arguing that his decision to return to his roots after law school, his embrace of all forms of energy production and his willingness to place Utahns above politics made him the most qualified for the job.
While the candidates strained to differentiate themselves when it came to their shared emphasis on Utah’s natural resources, they found clear disagreement on federal spending, foreign trade and abortion policy. Despite having opposing views, Maloy and Woodward went out of their way to maintain civility during the debate Monday evening moderated by FOX 13′s Max Roth at Utah Tech University in St. George.
Many of the most pressing problems Utahns face can be traced to federal government overreach, Maloy said. This is especially true on energy, where Congress should limit legislative, and executive, involvement to investing in research about how to expand an “all-of-the-above energy policy” to include more forms of geothermal, she said.
Woodward said members of his own party have applied a one-size-fits-all approach on energy to the detriment of communities like his own in Carbon County, which is not in the 2nd District. Woodward said he sees a bigger role for federal subsidization of energy innovation to do things like convert coal-fired power plants into small-cell nuclear operations.
“If you’re going to close one plant, you’re going to destroy an entire culture,” Woodward said. “If we want to keep affordable energy in our homes, we have to invest heavily in these sources.”
Maloy’s job in Congress is to follow Utah’s lead on water, she said. The state is already on the “cutting edge” of water conservation, according to Maloy, who said the best thing she can do is prevent Congress from slowing that progress. This is why she joined the Colorado River Caucus, Maloy said, to remove federal barriers to state innovation and educate her colleagues on the stewardship taking place back home.
Water access in the West is under threat, Woodward said. Utahns have to get better at restricting their individual water use and being more “proactive” in regulating how water is apportioned once it is flowing in Utah rivers, he said. Woodward proposed that the federal government invests in desalination plants in Southern California so more water rights can return upstream to Utahns.
As with water and energy, Maloy said she is working to get Washington, D.C., out of Utah’s housing issues. By reducing excess federal spending and introducing permitting reform bills, Maloy said she has helped fight inflation and interest rates. Maloy said she fully supports Utah’s lawsuit questioning the federal government’s control of unappropriated public lands.
“If the Constitution’s charge of the federal government to dispose of public land means they can hold on to public land, then we need to know the answer, can they do that in perpetuity?” Maloy said. “A lot of people are moving here, but if we want it to stay a wonderful place to live, young people have to be able to afford to stay here.”
While Woodward is hesitant to support the lawsuit for fear it could negatively impact Utahns who live on public lands, Woodward agrees that Congress should open up public lands to reignite America’s “manifest destiny” by renewing the “Homestead Act,” which distributed public lands to Americans willing to improve the land and created affordable homeownership for over a hundred years.
Debt:
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Abortion:
Despite these fundamental disagreements, Maloy and Woodward agreed that incivility is a problem today. Both candidates emphasized the importance of bipartisanship in achieving wins on behalf of residents of Utah’s 2nd District, which covers South Salt Lake, West Valley City, Bountiful and most of western Utah.
“That is the only reason to run for Congress,” Maloy said. “Every time I can solve a problem for someone in the 2nd District, it’s all worth it.”