Moulton pitches new leadership, policy shifts in swing through region

HOLYOKE — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a six-term congressman challenging Sen. Ed Markey in this fall’s Democratic primary, argued during a swing through the region on Thursday that sticking with the status quo means outdated rail systems, lagging education, and aging leadership shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

“If you think that the [Chuck] Schumer-Markey establishment is getting the job done, then that’s what you should vote for,” Moulton, 47, a former Marine, said at the Holyoke Public Library event that he dubbed a “fireside chat.” “But if you think we can do better, it’s time for a new generation of leadership.”

Moulton shared his views and listened to the 20 residents who gathered in the library during his one-hour stop in the Paper City. Conversations touched on energy costs, inadequate transportation, the housing crisis, education, the war in Iran and bipartisanship.

The stop in Holyoke preceded a trip to Springfield and marked one of a handful of trips Moulton has made to western Massachusetts in the last four months.

In Congress, Moulton currently represents suburban towns north of Boston and lives in Salem. But given that he’s “applying” for the job of senator, Moulton said he is seeking to learn more about western Massachusetts. He has some familiarity with the region since his grandparents lived in Springfield.

He said that if elected, he would continue visiting western Massachusetts and criticized Markey for a lack of presence in the region.

“It feels like everywhere I go out here, I hear people saying they never hear from the senator [Markey],” he said. “And you’ve got to show up, you’ve got to be on the ground, you’ve got to listen and learn from the people that you’re here to represent.”

Markey last visited the region in March with stops in Easthampton and Amherst. He also attended an anti-Trump rally in downtown Northampton a year ago.

Transportation, housing

According to Moulton, housing and transportation involve interconnected issues. A key issue is that people often live too far from housing they can afford, and a lack of transportation can often hold people back from regions of the state with better-paying jobs, he said.

Despite his passion for transportation, he is not a fan of the proposed east-west rail, a planned project designed to eventually link Boston to Albany.

“They want to build it to the 1910 standards. That means it’ll take two-and-a-half hours to get from Springfield to Boston, which is slower than the trains did it in the 1950s,” he said. “I think that’s pathetic.”

Moulton referenced a recently completed rail line in Morocco, an African country with one-third of the gross domestic product of Massachusetts. The Moroccan rail line is approximately the distance of Springfield to Boston and runs at 186 mph. At that speed, the trip takes 40 minutes.

“So imagine if you could get to downtown Boston in 40 minutes from western Massachusetts,” said Moulton. “That would open up amazing job opportunities for people out here. It would also open up amazing housing opportunities for people in the eastern half of the state.”

He added: “We’ve got to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to building our infrastructure.”

Moulton also said high-speed rail would help bridge the divide between the two halves of the state, saying, “The state would be better if we were connected.”

Energy costs

Moulton advocated for a next generation of energy production, including nuclear, and said that relying only on clean energy sources will not help combat swelling energy costs.

Despite what he called the “highest electricity bills ever,” Moulton said the cause is simple: the state doesn’t have enough electricity supply.

He said that while the Trump administration made the situation worse by cancelling off-shore wind projects, for example, those clean energy plans were not enough to lower costs.

“We’ve got to embrace new energy in Massachusetts, and so one of the things that I’m a champion of is next-generation power sources, like next-generation nuclear,” he said. “Whether it’s 10 years or 20 years or 30 years from now, everything is going to be fusion.”

After saying that the state needs to make it easier for energy companies to do business in Massachusetts, he added, “I’m all for carbon-free energy, but we’ve got to be able to think beyond just wind and solar, and we’ve got to make it possible and easy, frankly, for these companies to do business here at a time when many of them are being scared away.”

Education, AI

Advocating for universal prekindergarten, rethinking college, bolstering vocational education and coming to terms with artificial intelligence are all things that need to be spearheaded to bring education up to date, Moulton said.

The college workload revolves around memorizing facts, which Moulton argued isn’t as useful as it once was. Given the now widespread use of AI, “There’s not as much value with remembering things as we have all that knowledge at our fingertips,” he said.

Meanwhile, Moulton is advocating for an expansion of vocational programs statewide, especially given the growing interest in these studies among young people.

“We’re having a big debate about how to lottery off vocational school seats,” he said. “What we should be doing is just building more seats at vocational schools. That’s the kind of change that I think we need.”

On the subject of AI, he said that younger people at the nation’s capital need to be involved in the conversation.

“We need new leaders … because I don’t think anyone looks at the 80-year-olds who are running the place right now and says, ‘hey, they’re going to figure out AI,’” he said.

On other topics, Moulton spoke about the importance of bipartisanship, noting that legislation agreed to by two sides compromising rarely gets reversed. He also believes Trump’s attack on Iran was blatantly unconstitutional since it was done without congressional approval.

As far as his personal values, he said that as a Marine, lesson one is integrity, and wished that honesty was the ethics code of elected officials.

The state’s primary election will take place on Sep. 1 ahead of November’s election.  Also running are William Gates Jr., a professor and architect, and Alex Rikleen, a history teacher and the only millennial in the race.