Local lawmakers are reflecting on what they accomplished in 2025, and what they consider unfinished business for 2026.<\/p>\n
State senator Gene Yaw represents Tioga, Bradford, Sullivan, Union, and Lycoming counties. As chair of the Environment Resources and Energy Committee, Yaw saw movement on multiple oh his policy priorities this year- like eliminating the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a heck of an impact on energy generation in Pennsylvania and it\u2019s going to take many, many years for us to recover from that,\u201d Yaw said.<\/p>\n
From a non legislative perspective, his office has been educating the broader public on how the energy industry works.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to get people to understand how fragile our electric grid is, what we need to do with it, and how in need of more generation capacity, is out there,\u201d Yaw said.<\/p>\n
Locally, districts have benefited from the Neighborhood Assistance Program- a total of $9.5 million this year.<\/p>\n
Yaw is also working on economic development projects- like a new baseball tournament complex and Bass Pro Shop in his district. As a leader on the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, Yaw says tourism is one solution to declining population trends in rural counties.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything that we can do to attract people to come to the area, to come and visit\u2013 increases the likelihood that somebody may come in and actually say, \u2018hey, it\u2019s not a bad place to live\u2019,\u201d Yaw said.<\/p>\n
When asked about unfinished business for 2026, the senator had a chuckle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe list is long.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yaw says data center policy will be critical to pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want them to come to Pennsylvania. I think that we need to do that. We\u2019ve got all the resources here,\u201d Yaw said. \u201cBut if they come, we need to make sure that we\u2019re not hurting the ordinary household consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The senator is also working on an independent energy office, banning PFAS in firefighter training, and plugging more wells that leak methane- that last one controversial in Harrisburg as lawmakers argue over the best way to plug wells.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, this is one of those things where looking for the perfect gets in the way of the good,\u201d Yaw said on the delay of the issue.<\/p>\n
Skill games also remains a priority for many lawmakers who see it as a needed new revenue source. The senator wants to keep regulations and taxes on the industry to a minimum- while others want higher state profits from the gambling machines.<\/p>\n
\u201cSkill games are jobs. It\u2019s a jobs issue. And then it\u2019s taxing, trying to tax an industry out of existence,\u201d Yaw said.<\/p>\n
Finally- Yaw will likely be chairing the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which has members from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.<\/p>\n
\u201cPennsylvania lately has gotten very high marks as far as what it\u2019s done to improve its water quality,\u201d Yaw said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local lawmakers are reflecting on what they accomplished in 2025, and what they consider unfinished business for 2026.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2288,37,28,5929,30,29],"class_list":["post-75826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bureau","tag-harrisburg","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-capitol","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}