Following is a listing of legislative and executive action from the week of Feb. 10. Both houses of the General Assembly were in recess at press time. Members of the Pennsylvania Senate and state House of Representatives were scheduled to return to session March 16.

Senate Leadership

Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, on Feb. 12 announced his decision not to seek election to a sixth term as a member of the General Assembly's upper house.

Scarnati has served in the Senate's top post for 14 years and served as lieutenant governor from 2008 to 2011. He was first elected to the Senate in 2000.

"I have worked with five governors and throughout this time I am proud to have been a leading advocate for rural Pennsylvania values," Scarnati said in his statement.

Scarnati entered the Senate after unseating an incumbent Republican and beating a Democrat by 197 votes in a three-way race. He joined the GOP caucus upon entering Senate service.

"My independent streak never ended there in my tenure," Scarnati said. "I have always believed that both sides of the aisle must work together on behalf of our constituents and compromise on issues without compromising on our values. At the same time, I have always sought to protect working families and their hard earned tax dollars."

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, hailed Scarnati in a statement for his "unmatched ability to build consensus, encourage civility and ensure common sense would prevail."

Residential Facilities

Gov. Tom Wolf on Feb. 12 vetoed Senate Bill 906, which would have put a moratorium on the closing of state residential facilities for persons with intellectual disabilities.

The measure was introduced in the wake of the Department of Human Services' announcement of the closing of two of the remaining four state centers: Polk, in Venango County; and White Haven, in Luzerne County.

The bill would have blocked the closure of any state center for at least five years and put the decision to close any state center in the hands of a task force.

"This legislation does not promote this investment and transition to community-based care for individuals with a disability. Instead, this legislation continues the reliance on institutionalization and is a barrier to community living," Wolf said in his veto message.

"The debate around this closure has been polarizing. I look forward to the parties coming together and shifting our focus to ensuring a thoughtful and successful transition for each resident and each employee."

Legislative Counsel

Crystal Clark, an attorney with McNees Wallace & Nurick, is set to take the position of general counsel to the Pennsylvania Senate Republican Caucus beginning Feb. 24.

As general counsel, Clark will be responsible for managing all litigation for the GOP caucus, working on advancing priority issues and overseeing day-to-day legal matters for the Senate majority, according to a statement from the leadership.

"It is an honor to join this unparalleled team of individuals serving Pennsylvania in the Senate," Clark said. "There is exceptional work already being done by the Senate, and plenty more to be accomplished; it is exciting to be a part of that process moving forward."

Clark previously served for four years, from 2011 to 2015, as Lancaster County solicitor.

Clark, who joined McNees in 2015, represented employers on a wide range of legal matters including harassment and discrimination claims, as well as compliance with federal and state regulation, according to a statement from the law firm. She practiced in McNees' labor and employment and public finance and government services groups.

At the same time, Gregory Mahon was named Scarnati's chief of staff.

Clark and Mahon are succeeding Drew Crompton, who was counsel to Senate Republicans and chief of staff to Scarnati. Crompton was appointed to a seat on the Commonwealth Court by Gov. Tom Wolf and was sworn in to the bench in January.

Bills Signed

Wolf signed the following bills into law:

• House Bill 330, which brings the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006 into line with a recent amendment increasing the homestead exclusion. HB 330, which has been designated as Act 5 of 2020, was sponsored by state Rep. Joe Emrick, R-Northampton.
• House Bill 427, which prohibits health plans covering treatments for Stage IV, metastatic cancers from excluding or limiting drugs for patients if the drugs are FDA-approved and consistent with best practices. HB 427, which has been designated as Act 6 of 2020, was sponsored by state Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre.
• House Bill 1001, which licenses and regulates donor human milk banks in Pennsylvania. The measure, which has been designated as Act 7 of 2020, was sponsored by state Rep. Donna Oberlander, R-Clarion, and dubbed the Keystone Mothers' Milk Bank Act.
• Senate Bill 432, which allows Medicaid managed care organizations to have access to information in the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. The measure, which has been designated as Act 8 of 2020, is aimed at allowing for better identification of potential prescription drug abuse among people enrolled in the state's Medicaid program. It was sponsored by Pennsylvania Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York.

Electronic Waste

A bill that would establish a statewide program and task force to spur recycling of electronic devices was introduced Feb. 11 with bipartisan co-sponsorship.

State Rep. Mike Zabel, D-Delaware, introduced a bill Feb. 11 that would address Pennsylvania's existing electronic waste recycling law.

House Bill 2299 would establish the Manufacturer E-waste Program and the Advisory Electronics Recycling Task Force.

"The e-waste law enacted in Pennsylvania several years ago is failing," Zabel said, adding that the current program is underfunded because the cost to manufacturers is based on weight of devices previously sold. Since newer devices weigh less, he continued, manufacturers are required to recycle fewer old devices.

"The imbalance is leading to an increase in illegal dumping in forests, empty lots and other locales, both blighting our environment and costing our communities."

Zabel's legislation would utilize best practices that have been implemented in other states to make Pennsylvania's e-waste recycling law more effective.

"E-waste is the fastest growing portion of the municipal waste stream," Zabel said. "While it represents only 2% of America's trash in landfills, it represents 70% of the toxicity in the waste stream. Properly recycling e-waste would not only reduce negative environmental impacts, but it would add value to our economy."

Zabel cited Environmental Protection Agency figures that recycling 1 million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 U.S. homes in a year, and for every cellphone recycled, 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered.

Child Advocate

Wolf announced Feb. 11 that Nicole Yancy has joined the newly created Office of Advocacy and Reform as Child Advocate, a position recommended by the Council on Reform commissioned as part of his executive order to protect Pennsylvania's vulnerable populations.

"Pennsylvania can now focus more effort on the specific needs and support of some of its most vulnerable—its children—through the work of Nicole and her office," Wolf said in a statement.

"Nicole's experience and dedication to children throughout her career will be a big asset to the work already under way at the Office of Advocacy and Reform."

A lawyer, Yancy most recently served as a judicial law clerk for the Administrative Office of the Juvenile Court in Boston. She previously worked in the Children & Youth Division of the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services in Philadelphia as a training and development supervisor in the area of child abuse and neglect, risk and safety assessment and case planning for families.

She also has experience working with immigrants on legal matters, including residency status and housing and has represented families in cases of abuse, neglect and dependency petitions.

General Assembly

A renewed effort to reduce the size of the state House of Representatives has been initiated by Republicans.

State Rep. Valerie Gaydos, R-Allegheny, announced Feb. 10 that she had introduced House Bill 2151 to reduce the number of lawmakers in the lower house from 203 to 151.

"Pennsylvania has the second-largest state legislature in the country," Gaydos said in a statement. "Reducing the number of seats in the House of Representatives will not only provide a significant cost savings to taxpayers, but also streamline the legislative process and make it easier for lawmakers to reach consensus."

As a constitutional measure, HB 2151 would have to pass both houses of the General Assembly in two consecutive sessions and then secure approval in a ballot question from voters statewide. Similar measures have failed in the last two sessions of the Pennsylvania legislature.

The bill was referred to the House State Government Committee.

Payday Lending

Pennsylvania Treasurer Joe Torsella is among the leaders of a bipartisan coalition of state treasury officials that have protested a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) proposal. That would give payday, car title and other high-cost lenders' ability to bypass state regulation.

"This proposal by the FDIC is a direct departure from protections put in place at the state level and previous federal guidelines to keep consumers from entering an inescapable revolving door of debt," Torsella said in a statement. "These high-cost lenders work the system for their own benefit, with no regard for the well-being of borrowers. As treasurers, we oversee the fiscal well-being of our states, which is dependent on the financial health of every one of our constituents. As American families struggle to make ends meet, allowing predatory lending to expand will add to the financial burden of our most vulnerable."

Torsella and 15 other state treasurers said the FDIC proposal would undermine state laws that protect consumers from high-cost lenders by creating a loophole opening the door to interest rates far in excess of state rate caps.

The loophole would be created, the treasurers said, by allowing high-cost lenders to purchase loans from a state- or federally chartered bank. The practice was called by the state officials as "rent-a-bank" and have allowed rates of up to 780% to be charged to borrowers.

The Trump administration is considering the proposal, which would reverse a regulation established in 2005 under the George W. Bush administration that banned "rent-a-banking."