Utah Public Radio published this article in collaboration with KOAL News as part of its election coverage.
Aiming to flip a district that has been consistently red for over a decade, Democratic Congressional candidate Dr. Kent Udell joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss his time on the campaign trail, his platform and what he aims to accomplish if elected.
When we first spoke with Udell in the primary election, we asked why he was running. Now, with an extended amount of time on the trail since then, we asked what has surprised him the most over the course of his campaign.
“I’ve been so surprised at how much support that I’ve had from the public. I’ve met with thousands of people, and all of our money that has been coming in from donations has been coming from individuals. And there is just so much hope out there that I can win this election to be able to do great things for the people that live in this district.”
A hot-button issue affecting residents across CD-3 is artificial intelligence data centers. Udell shared his thoughts on these facilities, including how communities where they are placed can be protected from potential negative impacts.
“Everybody wants to be talking about it, and I see AI as being an ability to be taking all the information that we have out there and giving some sort of a knowledge base to that, but it’s not going to replace human wisdom,” said Udell. “And so that’s the next step. We need to make sure that it is bound in terms of what is going to be able to provide regulations to make sure that it cannot act as an agent that is restricted only to human kind of input and human kind of experience and human kind of wisdom.”
He continued, zeroing in specifically on data centers: “The way that I think of it is right now it seems like it’s a bunch of billionaires playing Minecraft; that they’re not doing any engineering. They’re saying, ‘Well, we’ve got to have a power plant here. We’ve got to have a warehouse holding equipment over here.’ And that’s about all of the detail that they are giving to the public. They’re not disclosing the financials. They’re not showing what the return on investment is. They’re not showing how it’s going to be benefiting the local communities. It’s not going to be showing how much water they’re going to be using, so all of these questions remain unanswered. And until those questions are answered, we should have a moratorium, and I’ve called for a moratorium from the very beginning. When I went up to Tremonton and saw what they were doing up at Stratos.”
Another major topic of public discussion in the district is nuclear energy production, as well as renewable energy sources. Udell shared his perspective on these forms of energy production and the policies he would like to see enacted if elected.
“The nuclear energy problem is something being pushed on very hard right now, and it’s being pushed from a lot of different directions. Our state is pushing it; the financials behind it seem to be a bit of a pyramid scheme as far as I can see. I can’t really see what the return on investment is because it is shown to be the most expensive way that we’ve been getting energy in the past. These small nuclear reactors that have been shown to produce power. They can produce heat, but none of them have been shown to be producing power. They have not been described in terms of what their return on investment would be. And as far as I can see, it’s not a return on investment. It’s not ROI. It’s what financial people tell me is ROM: risk others’ money.”
Udell added, “To turn Ronald Reagan’s words around, where he looked at Nuclear disarmament, he said, ‘Trust, but verify.’ And I want to turn that around: verify before we trust. I want to see some verification in terms of what the financials are. What is the water use, who’s providing the fuel, who’s taking care of the nuclear waste? And what is it doing to the communities until they show us those? Answers to those questions transparently and tells us exactly what that means within our communities, we should just say no; let’s just stop until you give us the right information because it’s hurting people. We just went around and did a loop around Coal Creek, and talking to some of the residents out there, and they’re panicking like, why are they pushing this on us? And why is it that this government overreach and they’re being supported by the state government? Why is it being pushed on us without giving us input and without giving us a say in what’s happening in our community?”
One issue affecting not just CD-3, but most of the western United States, is water. With current Colorado River Agreements phasing out at the end of 2026, Udell explained what role he thinks the federal government should play in negotiations and how he’d advocate for his constituents across the district if elected.
“You can’t regulate Mother Nature, and Mother Nature is telling us that we have a problem with global warming,” said Udell. “When we look into the future, we need to be a little bit concerned that the water that has been promised to go downstream from Glen Canyon Dam is not going to be available and allow us to meet the needs of the people that are upstream of that dam. Two things we need to be looking at very closely and two things that I push as a congressman, are to get a good study, probably USGS (United States Geological Survey) to be able to get good documentation on what we have for groundwater, because once our streams go dry, that’s our battery, and hopefully that’s going to be able to get us through. The other thing is that we have to look very seriously at Lake Powell. Lake Powell looks like it is going to dry up. Hopefully this winter we’re going to be able to get a little bit of a reprieve, but long term it does not look good. So I would also want to be getting money out to the National Academy of Engineering to come up with some plans for what’s going to happen next. What are we going to be doing with Glen Canyon Dam? What are we going to be doing in terms of getting the water past it because once we hit deadpool, we’re going to have a problem with operating just the diversion channels.”
He continued, “I’d like to see that a good engineering study is done and having that plan out there in place and having the public looking at it, having that agreed upon by all the interested parties. And at that point, if we need it, we can pull the trigger, but wait till the last minute and think, ‘Oh no, panic! What are we going to do?’ You’re like, no, that’s not going to be the right approach. We need to have a plan in place. So those are two things right away that I’d be looking at. But you know, of course, you’d have to go back and look at climate change, and we have to do something about that. And that goes back to renewable energy, and what are we going to be doing in terms of our energy future? And the plan I have is what I call ‘C4,’ and that’s the idea of putting a fee on carbon emissions, having that go 100% to the people, so they have a little extra money in their pocket to be able to put in the conservation technology that they might be wanting to implement so that they have that responsibility to get that done.”
Rounding out our conversation, Udell shared why residents of CD-3 should vote for him come Nov. 3. “Because I am going to work for them. 100% of my campaign donations come from people. I have taken no PAC money; I’m taking no corporate money because I know what’s been happening in terms of this flow of money from the bottom up, and so I’m going the opposite direction. I want to make sure that people know that I’ll be there working for them, and not working for some corporation or some PAC that has bought my campaign so that I’m going to be working for them in the future. 100% of my money is coming from people. There are two kinds of politicians: There are the kinds of politicians that are there to work for people, and the kind of politicians that are there to work for themselves. I’m the kind of politician who’s jumping into this race because I know I’ll be working for the people. I don’t want to be a career politician; I want to be the kind of politician that people look to for integrity, common sense, working for them, and very clear direction. I know who I’m working for – it’s the people in this district.”
This article does not serve as an endorsement for the candidate featured. All candidates in the 2026 election cycle are entitled to one free interview. To schedule, email news@koal.net.
