News & Brews September 30, 2021
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Lawmakers (temporarily) extend COVID regulatory waivers
With many COVID regulatory waivers set to expire today, lawmakers yesterday voted to extend these waivers through March 2022 as they consider legislation to make them permanent. The waivers address areas including telemedicine, allowing out-of-state health practitioners to treat patients in PA, and more.
Lawmakers grill PLCB on liquor rationing
At a joint hearing yesterday, House and Senate lawmakers questioned PLCB officials on their decision to ration several dozen products. The PLCB claimed the decision was based on supply chain issues, but some lawmakers were skeptical of the PLCB’s decision-making process.
McSwain campaign to focus on three things
Following the interview I shared yesterday with GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill McSwain, Broad + Liberty has another piece reporting that McSwain “intends to focus his campaign on three main themes: crime, economy, and his Marine Corps experience.”
Op-Ed: End educational chaos by passing HB1
The Commonwealth Foundation’s Nathan Benefield has a new op-ed highlighting that the educational “discord” of the past 18 months wasn’t just caused by COVID but by “a government bureaucracy and union leadership that imposes increasingly divisive (and often unpredictable) statewide mandates on every child, regardless of circumstances.” The solution? Transformative educational reform proposed by Rep. Andrew Lewis (Dauphin County) in House Bill 1.
WSJ Editorial: Biden’s energy price shock (PA mention)
Pennsylvania gets a mention in a Wall Street Journal editorial (paywall) blaming President Biden’s energy policies for “contributing to [a] global oil supply shortage.” The Editorial Board writes, “On Monday energy companies scrapped a 116-mile pipeline to deliver gas from Pennsylvania to New Jersey due to regulatory obstructions. Pipeline blockades by Democratic states in the Northeast have depressed gas prices and investment in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.”
Allegheny County to fire unvaccinated employees
Allegheny County executive branch employees who choose not to receive the COVID vaccine (and who fail to get an exemption) will be fired as of December,County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced yesterday. Meanwhile, as we continue to see news about a shortage of healthcare workers, across the state St. Luke’s University Health Care Network forced 155 employees out of work for declining the vaccine.