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A state lawmaker serving Lycoming and Sullivan counties shared his priorities for the next two years in Harrisburg.
State Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, serving the 84th House District, said he looked forward to putting strong emphasis on the following topics as the House begins the 2027-2028 Legislative Session:
Fiscal responsibility
"We cannot continue down the path of excessive spending, drawing down reserves, massive tax increases, increased borrowing, and accounting gimmicks like overestimating revenue and deferring payments," he said.
The General Assembly and Governor must work to keep spending under control, otherwise Pennsylvania will continue to experience what is currently happening in California, New York, and Illinois.
Those states are losing population because of excessive taxation and overregulation driving working families to states with more sensible tax rates and regulations like Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
"We must get spending under control in Harrisburg or Pennsylvania will continue to fall further behind those other states which are growing their populations and economies," he said, adding the best way we can accomplish this is by passing the Taxpayer Protection Act, which would put up guardrails to limit the amount the state budget can increase every year to the three-year average rate of inflation and population growth.
Reducing regulations and red tape on businesses and providing permit predictability
"We must take regulatory reform seriously if we ever want Pennsylvania to truly compete and win on the national and international stage," Hamm stressed.
"We have nearly 167,000 regulations - over 10.5 million words," he said, citing a need to "peel back the heavy hand of state government and empower citizens, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and consumers to control their lives, not government."
"Sensible, coherent, and understandable regulations encourage economic growth without compromising public health and safety and our environment . . . many other states effectively achieve this balance and Pennsylvania must follow suit," he said.
Business owners need to have permit predictability.
"Our state has lost massive projects that would have brought billions of dollars of investment and thousands of family-sustaining jobs," he said, citing the example of US Steel, a Pennsylvania-based company, that wanted to build a new facility in western Pennsylvania a few years ago.
The company eventually cancelled the Pennsylvania project and located the new facility in Arkansas because they could get the permits in Arkansas within six months.
US Steel waited over two years in Pennsylvania and never received approval to build their facility,.he said.
"This also affected us locally when the natural gas power plant planned for Renovo was abandoned by the developer since they encountered difficulty obtaining state permits when groups outside of our area who opposed the project continued to file unwarranted appeals," Hamm said.
Pennsylvanians also encounter this bureaucratic stalemate every day when they just try to get simple permits for building projects, farmland utilization, and stream cleaning, he said.
Achieving energy independence
"Pennsylvania has an incredible opportunity to lead the way toward American energy independence, economic prosperity, and securing our national security because of our vast reserves of natural gas," Hamm said.
Those opportunities will only be realized by having predictability on permitting, regulatory reforms to cut the bureaucratic red tape and getting the infrastructure in place to get Pennsylvania gas to market, he surmised.
Pennsylvania is second in the nation in natural gas production behind Texas.
"It is time we unleash Pennsylvania Natural Gas and provide energy security for our Commonwealth and the United States of America," Hamm said.
Pennsylvania should also immediately abandon all efforts to implement cap and trade energy schemes like Governor Josh Shapiro's "Lightning Plan" that will hinder natural gas production and increase utility bills by nearly 40%, he added.
"I will continue to fight against these policies that will artificially increase our electricity bills," Hamm stressed.
Supporting public safety
As a former volunteer firefighter, Hamm said he knows the level of commitment and sacrifice displayed daily by first responders.
"That is why I believe the state government needs to significantly increase the amount of funding we provide to our volunteer fire and EMS companies," he said.
Hamm said he agreed with the governor the last two years on his plan to double funding to those programs and thinks that could be an even higher increase.
As a member of the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, Hamm said he will continue to work on legislation which reduces the barriers volunteer first responders face when trying to serve.
"The General Assembly needs to make their jobs easier, not harder, and I am fully committed to doing that," he said. "I intend to continue to push for permanent Basic Life Support Ambulance Staffing regulations, protecting law enforcement, firefighters, EMS professionals and first responders with the HALO Act, and fighting for additional funding," he said.
Fighting for our Veterans
As a combat veteran, supporting the men and women who wore the uniform is very important to Hamm.
The General Assembly should put partisan politics aside and pass legislation which helps those who voluntarily wrote a blank check to serve our great nation, he said.
"One of the many things we can do is to pass my legislation to ensure members of the Pennsylvania Army and Air National Guard's life insurance is in effect during all types of activations," he said.
Currently, state law is silent on their life insurance payment for activation orders out of state or in another U.S. territory, making families who are already grieving the loss of their soldier or airman have to fight with insurance companies.
Standing with our seniors
"Every day I hear from seniors who are on fixed incomes that are struggling to make ends meet," he said.
Rising property taxes, costs of heating their home, ever-increasing food prices and the price at the pump are making it harder for seniors to live comfortably
"I will continue to fight for property tax elimination and/or freezing property taxes once someone hits retirement age and increasing the supply of energy which will drive down the cost of heating our homes and the price at the pump . . .if we drive the costs of diesel fuel down, we can stabilize food prices," he said, citing how all of these shared items remain a priority for the lawmaker.