Colorado Congressional District 4 Republican candidate Lauren Boebert on immigration, water, and energy development

After four years in office, Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is nationally known for her vehement calls to seal the southern border and crack down on government spending.

On the campaign trail in Colorado, she also touts her record on issues like water and agriculture as she seeks to win over residents of what is, for her, a new congressional district.

Boebert, who has represented Western Colorado since 2020, moved across the state earlier this year and announced a bid for the 4th Congressional District seat vacated by the retirement of Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Buck.

“It’s the right move for me personally and it’s the right decision for those who support our conservative movement,” she said at the time.

The 4th is Colorado’s safest Republican district but Boebert has also said she needed to move on after a difficult divorce.

She faces Democrat Trisha Calvarese in the battle for the 4th, which includes the rural Eastern Plains along with Front Range population centers in Douglas County to the south, and cities like Loveland and Windsor to the north.

Water, she said, is a critical issue everywhere. “I know how important it is that this water is available for our farmers and our ranchers throughout the state but I also know that we can be creative when it comes to managing the water resources needed to aid the development we’re seeing in places like Douglas County.”

Boebert also spoke with Colorado Matters about the high cost of living, the energy industry, and government regulations that she says put an unfair burden on farmers and ranchers.

This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Ryan Warner: I’d like you to name a problem in your community and explain why voters should send you to DC to address it.

Rep. Lauren Boebert: I would say the border crisis is our number one issue that has an impact at a federal level where we could secure our southern border and stop the increase in crime. But if we’re going to just talk about the Colorado issues that I hear about on a daily basis that aren’t necessarily from this administration, well, it would be water. Water is something that I hear about all the time and we have solutions to protect our most valuable resource in Colorado, and it starts with water storage. It’s something that I have worked on for three and a half years here in Washington, DC, and I am always looking throughout our state for different avenues to provide water storage, to help us keep more of our water in Colorado, and ensure that other lower basin states aren’t taking more than what’s allocated to them.

Warner: We will break down those issues together. Why don’t we start as you did with immigration? And invoking the border crisis, you talk about crime. I’ll just say researchers have repeatedly debunked the idea that immigrants, whether or not they’re documented, commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans. Other research has found no connection between the number of undocumented residents in the community and its crime rates. Why do you talk about immigrants in the context of crime as opposed to the context of opportunity?

Rep. Boebert: Well, the folks who have come here under the Biden-Harris administration, the 10.6 million people who are now in our country, broke the law to get here and I believe that we are a nation of law and it is the president’s utmost responsibility to secure our country and uphold our nation’s laws. He took an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution, and going against our nation’s immigration law, well, that goes against the oath of office that he took. We are facing the worst border crisis in US history with over 10 million illegal crossings under Joe Biden and his border czar Kamala Harris. Their negligence has empowered cartels, driving surges in human trafficking and deadly fentanyl, costing the US over $150 billion per year.

There’s even more when you consider the loss of American lives. We’ve seen the devastating effects on our communities, whether it’s Aurora, Denver, Carbondale, or rural communities who’ve had their hospitals and public infrastructure overwhelmed.

The Biden-Harris administration has failed us. And to fight this, I have led efforts to secure the border and hold Biden and Kamala Harris accountable, including introducing articles of impeachment against Joe Biden. I also introduced the Build The Wall and Deport Them All Act to bring back President Trump’s successful border policies like stopping “catch and release,” ending sanctuary cities, and completing the border wall. I voted to impeach Secretary of the Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for his role in this crisis. I as a United States representative have secured millions for counter-drug programs and passed the robust H.R.2 Border Security bill. I also introduced bills to classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction and block taxpayer-funded lawyers for illegal immigrants, and I will keep fighting to protect America’s borders and put our citizens first so when President Trump returns to office, the country’s border policies can return to the level of his previous administration. Since you mentioned opportunity, it’s so unfortunate the way most media, especially a public media like CPR, poses questions and phrases them to make it seem so insulting to want to secure country, to want to secure border.

One of my favorite things as being a representative is participating in naturalization ceremonies. America is one of the most generous countries in the world when it comes to legal immigration. Accepting more than a million people into our country legally every year. These are folks who I’ve had the privilege and honor of connecting with and speaking with, hearing from, who have counted the cost to be an American citizen. They’ve invested themselves entirely.

Warner: I just want to say that there have been illegal crossings, but there are also many people that are seeking asylum, which is a legal process. Just to put a finer point on it.

Rep. Boebert: There is a legal process for asylum, but asylum isn’t just because you want to be here. Unfortunately, the processes have been expedited. They know exactly what to say. Many times they are sitting in front of a computer processing their own forms for asylum claims and not actually having those face-to-face interviews with border patrol agents or anyone else in the administration, because they are so overwhelmed that they needed to expedite the process.

Warner: I do want to ask about immigrant labor as it relates to the industries in particular of the district that you’re seeking to represent. I don’t have to tell you that agriculture is huge in the 4th Congressional District, so is reliance on migrant labor. How do you see that feeding a different kind of system or reforms that you’d like to see?

Rep. Boebert: Well, I’m not of the mind that indentured servitude is something that we should be accepting. We have legal processes. We have visas that certainly allow migrant workers to come here legally. The systems are not perfect. They are broken. There have been many band-aids placed on them that do not work. Unfortunately, there is not a clear exit strategy for many of the workers who do come here legally. And sure, some of them follow those laws well. They come here, they do the work that they were hired to do, and then they go home and live like kings. And unfortunately, it is a broken system and to incentivize someone with this indentured servitude, come here and do the work that we think our people don’t want to do, aren’t strong enough to do, don’t have the willpower to do, or too dumb to do, is insulting on a very humanitarian basis.

To say, come here and do our dirty work and then we’ll give you amnesty in return. There are legal ways to be in our country and legal processes to remain in our country, and there are parts of the system that need to be reformed and fixed, but we can’t even get to the reforming process until we have a secure southern border.

Warner: If that’s the case, why do you think President Trump scuttled a border deal that was proposed by one of the most conservative members of the Senate?

Rep. Boebert: I’m extremely disappointed in the bias of your questions already, and I would like that reported and made very clear. It’s very unfortunate that we are having this time together to communicate policy and every one of your questions is so far skewed and is so partisan. President Trump is not in office. Excuse me. President Trump is not in office. We have a slim majority in the House. The Democrats have the Senate and Joe Biden is in the White House. Joe Biden is the one who opened the southern border, who eliminated President Trump’s border security policies. The House of Representatives, one of the first actions we took in this Congress was to pass the most conservative and strongest border bill that has ever been passed out of the House and that sat in the Senate for over a year. The bill that the Senate brought forward was not a border security bill.

Warner: I believe it would’ve hired hundreds of border agents.

Rep. Boebert: Yes, the border agents that would’ve been hired would have been processing agents, so they could expedite those 4,998 people who are breaking our laws and coming into our country daily, faster. That’s what our border agents are subjected to under the Biden-Harris administration. They are not even able to do their jobs. I have gone to the border and I have talked to our border patrol agents. I have talked to our border patrol agents in Washington, DC, I have talked to ICE agents in Colorado, former ICE directors, and our border patrol agents are demoralized. They’re unable to do the job that they signed up to do to secure our border and keep our country safe because they are too busy processing, filling out forms, and changing diapers.

In fact, it was so overwhelming that they even changed from a notice to appear for the illegal aliens who are coming in, they were once required to receive a notice to appear where they have their day in court to state why they are here. Then, it went to a notice to report. You just got to give us a call and say where you ended up. Now, they’ve moved even farther away from that because the Biden-Harris and Mayorkas plan is to overwhelm the system and create chaos so our border patrol agents cannot do our job.

Warner: Let’s talk about water now, Congresswoman. You’ve made reference to that as being an important issue to you in the 4th. It’s fascinating, right, the district is so diverse. It’s rural and agricultural. It’s also suburban and exurban when you talk about the neighborhoods closer into Metro Denver. How do you see the water needs and what do you see as a representative’s role in Congress to maintain them, to expand them, especially in the face of climate change when we know that hotter weather will actually mean less in the way of water in the West?

Rep. Boebert: Wow. There’s certainly a reason I don’t listen to CPR news, and this is-

Warner: Wait, because I said climate change?

Rep. Boebert: It’s just interesting that we’re talking about water, our most precious resource in Colorado–

Warner: Water would be reduced.

Rep. Boebert: And there has to be something slipped in there that is partisan and it’s not even fact-based.

Warner: No, I’m going to stop here and say it is… I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Congresswoman. It is not a partisan statement, to say that warming temperatures-–

Rep. Boebert: Okay, so I will answer your question about water. Thank you, sir. When we are talking about water in Colorado, it’s not just 3rd District or 4th District specific, it is our entire state. The interesting dynamic with water in Colorado being a headwater state, 90 percent of our water originates in the western slope of Colorado, west of the Continental Divide. However, 90 percent of the population is east of the Continental Divide. So, more than there being a rural-urban divide in Colorado, I’m learning more and more every day that there is an east-west divide in Colorado. It’s been wonderful to be a part of bridging that gap and bringing east and west together on an issue that is so important to each and every one of us.

There’s an old saying, “whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting,” and I have the experience on working across the aisle with stakeholders who have diverse needs when it comes to finding real water solutions. One of the top priorities needs to be doing a better job of storing our water before it goes to these lower basin states, especially California. We have to be smarter about managing this resource, which is why I fought so hard to secure $20 million in water and infrastructure projects for the state of Colorado. I secured two amendments in the fiscal year of 2024 in the energy and water appropriations bill that redirected $5 million in funding toward the Colorado River Storage Project to increase that water storage and improve the Colorado River Dam Fund.

I know how important it is that this water is available for our farmers and our ranchers throughout the state, but I also know that we can be creative when it comes to managing the water resources needed to aid the development we’re seeing in places like Douglas County. I’ve recently introduced the Finish the ABC Act to help local governments finish a very long overdue project that started in the ’60s, as well as securing an additional $279 million for the Arkansas Valley Conduit, and $5 million for the Wolf Creek Reservoir in Rangely, creating jobs, supporting agriculture, and ensuring that water access for thousands of people is available. I’ve also introduced legislation with bicameral support to protect endangered fish, while ensuring 1,200 water projects can continue to operate. I’m also fighting forest mismanagement, which is a huge issue, especially if you want to talk about climate change, but this mismanagement impacts our water supply by creating unhealthy watersheds. My work on that is improving forest health and even reducing wildfires.

Warner: No doubt there’s a connection as well between wildfires and water quality as well, and what happens to the soil after fires.

Rep. Boebert: Correct.

Warner: You’ve been very clear in your support for oil and natural gas, but renewable energy is also a big part of the 4th District. Companies there have taken advantage of green energy tax credits under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Some of your Republican colleagues want to see those credits stay in place. Would you be in support of keeping parts of the IRA that support an energy transition in the 4th Congressional District, which includes so much of the plains with solar and wind resources?

Rep. Boebert: Isn’t it interesting that the first thing we talk about with the Inflation Reduction Act is green energy? Joe Biden and Joe Manchin both said we should have named this bill what it was. It’s not an Inflation Reduction Act. Unfortunately, that’s the con game that’s played here in Washington, DC, you put a pretty title on a bill and then the text doesn’t line up to the actual title. There’s over $350 billion in this bill that goes towards subsidizing renewable energy, which is extremely unreliable and it did nothing to reduce inflation. In fact, it’s expanded inflation with the-

Warner: Well, inflation is easing.

Rep. Boebert: … with a $1.2 trillion price tag.

Warner: I just want to say inflation is-

Rep. Boebert: Are we having a debate or an interview? I’m just checking.

Warner: Well, first of all, I get to say things as a journalist to set the record straight, so inflation is easing.

Rep. Boebert: Oh, you’re going to fact check me during the interview?

Warner: That’s exactly right, and inflation is easing.

Rep. Boebert: Okay, this is adorable. Go to your local King Soopers or your City Market and ask the shoppers if inflation is down when they’re buying one dozen eggs for $7, $10, when they’re trying to purchase steaks for their family and have to put it down because the price tag is so high. Then, they turn to the pork and that’s still too high. Then, they go to the chicken and they’re still shaking their head and say, “Well, I guess this will do.” The price of everything is up and it is inflation, and it is the reckless spending in Washington, DC that has attributed to that. It is canceling our nation’s good energy policies and relying on tyrants and our adversaries for oil and gas rather than producing the world’s cleanest energy right here in America and creating those good-paying American jobs.

Coloradans have been regulated into poverty because of these green new deal extremists who are advocating for the subsidizing of wind and solar rather than allowing the market to decide what energy is most efficient, most affordable, most reliable. In fact, we have places like Craig, Colorado where they are decommissioning the coal-fired energy plant, Tri-State, and they are planning to put in quite a bit of solar panels. So in Colorado’s 4th District, to more go back to your direct question, there certainly is a lot of wind and solar. We also have a lot of private lands, so what people choose to do with their land is their choice. Certainly, the incentives for the wind and solar are appeasing, especially to our farmers and ranchers who can’t afford to operate their farms and ranches any longer because of inflation, because of the cost of fuel, because of over-regulation. And so, it’s easier for them to utilize that space and that agricultural land for these wind and solar projects. We also have counties in the 4th where commissioners approved some of these wind and solar projects to take place, and they all lost their primaries because the voters were not happy with them.

I’m a big advocate on keeping the wind and solar off of our federal lands and having multiple use that makes sense and isn’t a long-term detriment to our public lands. Also, having an energy that is more affordable and more reliable like our liquefied natural gas, our oil, or even our uranium here in America. We need to explore more nuclear if we really want to go green, and that is what’s so disingenuous about many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle’s argument for green energy, is the lack of desire to even consider more nuclear options.

Warner: What do you propose to make farmers’ lives easier? What are you hearing from them as you tour the district?

Rep. Boebert: Our farmers want less regulation. Our farmers want to be able to do their jobs without the federal government on their back and creating more difficulties. The ag industry is the backbone of our economy and a major driver for the state. It generates $47 billion annually and supports over 195,000 jobs. I hear directly from these ranchers and farmers about the negative impacts from the BLM, the EPA, and the bureaucrats in DC who don’t understand their way of life, and those are the people that I fight for. The regulations are crushing these businesses, which are often multi-generational and family-run.

I had a staffer visit the Sterling livestock auction recently and the owners mentioned the EPA’s mandates on holding ponds instead of just allowing farmers to more efficiently take care of their cattle as one costly example of harmful mandates. Another example tied to water is a resolution I just co-sponsored that calls for holding Mexico accountable for not distributing our country’s water share from the Rio Grande evenly. This severely harms our ag community’s ability to compete in the global market, and we need to take action here. We need to have food security in America. It’s a national security issue.

I’ve worked tirelessly to defend our farmers and ranchers from federal overreach like blocking efforts to list the sage grouse as endangered and introducing the 30 X 30 Termination Act, to protect the private property from the Biden Administration’s land grabs. I’ve fought burdensome regulations, delayed new livestock hauling rules, and passed the Trust The Science Act to delist the gray wolf and protect livestock. I also secured $3 million to compensate ranchers for the wolf-related losses. This is something that is already impacting our ranchers throughout Colorado and I plan to continue that work in the 4th and bring all of Colorado together on these issues.

Unfortunately, liberal policies designed by out-of-touch bureaucrats from Washington and Denver don’t work for rural Colorado, and I’ll always stand for our farmers and ranchers to protect their way of life.