Chris Storm, an Indiana-based volunteer firefighter and EMT with no current office, issued a press release on Monday defending a recently introduced bill centered on a nuclear power reactor and clarifying a key point about funding that he said had been misunderstood.

In the statement, Storm said public discussion around the proposal had included “a lot of statements being throwed around without any facts,” and argued that the project should be debated on its details rather than on assumptions. He acknowledged criticism and said voters should “think for themselves and ask the hard questions,” while also urging them to “paint the picture with facts.”

Storm described the reactor plan as a long-term investment aimed at jobs, power reliability, and local development. He said modern nuclear reactors have stronger safety protocols than in past decades and argued that placing a reactor “under water” would help with cooling. Storm also said he is not an engineer and did not claim technical expertise, framing his support in practical terms tied to local needs.

According to the press release, Storm sees the project as a response to both employment concerns and storm-related power disruptions. He wrote that “jobs are needed just as much as power during a wind storm,” linking the proposal to economic development as well as utility resilience. In a political climate where cost of living and infrastructure reliability are high-salience issues, Storm’s message appeared aimed at making a large energy project sound both forward-looking and locally grounded.

The most concrete clarification in the release concerned money. Storm said he had made “a mistake” in how he originally wrote about the proposal’s price. He said the wording made it sound as if the plant itself would cost $6 billion, when what he meant was that Indiana’s reported $6 billion in savings from last year could be used over time to improve residents’ lives. He added that he was “not saying spend it all at once.”

That distinction could matter politically, especially after recent scrutiny of costly public projects and how elected officials describe them. Storm did not provide a detailed financing schedule, cost estimate, or timeline in the statement, though he said the plan would take “a few years” and argued that Indiana had shown it can budget responsibly, citing those savings as a “rainy day” reserve.

Beyond the reactor itself, Storm highlighted related local spending as what he called the “best part” of the bill. He said the measure would bring multiple fire departments in the surrounding area “up to par.” He did not provide a list of departments, a dollar amount for those upgrades, or specific equipment and staffing changes, saying instead that local departments know what they need and that he did not limit that part of the plan.

Storm also argued the project could have secondary benefits for a sparsely populated lakeside area if environmental testing confirms safety. He said the lake could draw tourists once it is “tested and confirmed to be safe,” presenting that as part of a broader effort to restore trust and invest in the future.

The release did not address several likely points of debate in detail, including siting, regulation, environmental review, or how the proposal would move through the game’s combined State Legislature, where bills apply to one state at a time but are voted on by members from all states through a weighted system. Storm, who holds no office, did not explain his role in formally advancing the bill beyond saying he introduced it.

For now, the statement functions mainly as a political defense and correction. Storm’s central message was that the reactor proposal is intended as a long-term Indiana investment, not an immediate drawdown of the full $6 billion in state savings, and that criticism should be tied to facts rather than rumor.