Jerry McNerney doesn't just tilt at windmills — he builds them. An environmentalist and mathematician, McNerney spent 20 years developing wind-farm tech. And in the last election, he beat California representative Richard Pombo, a Republican who was for selling national parkland and against the Endangered Species Act. WIRED talked to McNerney about how nerds rule. — Jeff Howe
How has the reception been on Capitol Hill? It's been incredibly warm. When Senator Jon Tester learned who I was, he did a bow with his hands stretched out. That was cool.
What’s first on your agenda? Doing away with subsidies to oil companies and reforming the oil royalty system. A lot of companies have been drilling without paying royalties, and that has to stop. It’s up to government to collect that money, a lot of which will go to developing renewable energy.
Your son persuaded you to run for Congress. What did he say? He said no one was running against Pombo. That was it. I’d never had political ambitions, but I felt this guy was such an extreme anti-environmentalist that it was my duty.
What's the biggest difference between science and politics? Science is all about truth. You gather your evidence and logically prove your claims. Congress is all about people, relationships, and rules. There are a lot of rules.
You don’t have any political experience. Isn't that a liability? It's an asset. People are looking to me for help on certain issues, and I'm getting a lot of respect for what I bring to the table. It would be even better to bring in scientists when they're 29 years old — they’d know the science but would have time to learn all the rules.
So we should be combing university labs for political prospects? Sure. But you’d have to teach them to be nice to people. That’s not part of the job description in science.
credit: Timothy Archibald
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The Political Scientist
