WILLIAMSPORT — Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, has always been bullish about the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania.

His district is in the heart of the northern section of the Marcellus Shale belt, stretching diagonally across the state. The powerful chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, Yaw is a recipient of the Shale Gas Advocate Award from the Marcellus Shale Coalition.

Even so, he may be even more bullish than usual now.

“The only reasonable solution that we have to our energy problems is using natural gas,” Yaw said in an interview with CapitolWire/State Affairs at his Williamsport district office.

Yaw said he supports efforts to boost other forms of energy generation over the long term, but in the short term, natural gas offers the best opportunity to meet growing electricity demand.

“The most immediate thing that’s gonna help us right now, that’s available here in Pennsylvania, is natural gas and gas power plants,” Yaw said. “We’ve got that resource.”

Across the country, state governments are confronting an uncomfortable political and economic reality: The transition to cleaner energy is colliding with soaring electricity demand, aging infrastructure and the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and data centers.

And increasingly, many states are turning toward natural gas as the fastest and most politically viable solution, after years of political battles over climate policy and fossil fuels. Natural gas is once again being treated by many states not as a bridge fuel — but as an economic necessity.

Nowhere is that tension more visible than in Pennsylvania, where the fracking boom transformed the economy, reshaped entire communities and helped make the state one of the nation’s energy giants.

Due to the growth of the hydraulic fracturing industry over the past 20 years, Pennsylvania produces more natural gas than any other state except Texas. Hydraulic fracturing, often called “fracking,” is a drilling process that injects high-pressure water, sand and chemicals into underground rock formations to release trapped natural gas.

Gas production in Pennsylvania has increased 38% over the past decade, and natural gas has overtaken coal as the dominant source of power feeding into the electric grid.

In 2025, gas production increased 5.1% compared with 2024, and drilling companies started more wells in 2025 than they had in the previous year for the first time since 2022, according to the state Independent Fiscal Office. The 446 wells drilled in 2025 represented a 44% increase over the 2024 total of 309. Drilling companies have started 169 wells so far in 2026.

The IFO reported Tuesday that the number of new wells started in the first quarter of 2026 was up 7.5% compared to the prior year.

Pennsylvania gets 60% of its electricity from natural gas. The state now has more natural gas power plant projects in development than all but three states: Texas, Louisiana and Ohio.

Gov. Josh Shapiro said in his budget address that ensuring data centers do not continue driving those prices through the roof will be a top priority, even as his administration works to encourage AI infrastructure projects.

The state budget deal inked in November formally eliminated a planned entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a move that would have opened the door to even greater investment in natural gas. That development comes at the same time state officials have faced increased pressure to relieve the strain on the electric grid due to spiking demand from data centers.

“We need to be selective about the projects that get built here. I know Pennsylvanians have real concerns about these data centers and the impact they could have on our communities, our utility bills and our environment. And so do I,” Shapiro said. “Developers must commit to bringing their own power generation — or pay entirely for the new generation they’ll need, and not saddling homeowners and businesses with added costs because of their development.”

Critics say the state’s flirtation with the climate change cap-and-trade initiative slammed the brakes on infrastructure development for natural gas- powered electricity generation, prompting the industry to turn to Ohio and West Virginia rather than the Keystone State.

Between 2012 and 2019, Pennsylvania built 17 new or converted natural gas power plants, worth over $14 billion in private capital investment to the state. But it has not seen a new natural gas power plant since 2021, when the Hill Top Energy Center opened in Westmoreland County. Ohio has opened at least four natural gas power plants since then, including one just 20 miles from the Pennsylvania border.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, at least four major gas power plants are in development, and construction of a 2-gigawatt facility in Doddridge County, W.Va., is scheduled to begin in 2027.

“Quite frankly, right now, Pennsylvania is losing to West Virginia,” Yaw said. “West Virginia has actually incentivized the gas industry to come there and build. Ohio is revising their approach to energy and regulating utilities and everything. If we really don’t get off of dead center and take a stand on a lot of this stuff, we’re going to get left in the dust.”

But as demand for power to fuel data centers has amped up and the state has moved away from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, massive gas power plants are now on the drawing board, led by the proposal to convert what had been the largest coal-fired power plant in the state into the largest natural gas power plant in the nation.

The $10 billion megaproject in Homer City will result in a 4.5-gigawatt gas-fired power plant, with most of the power dedicated to generating electricity for data centers.

But Homer City may not hold the title of largest natural gas power plant in the country for long: A 7.65-gigawatt plant is under development in Texas, and a proposal in Ohio calls for the construction of a 9.2-gigawatt facility.

As the race to build intensifies, Pennsylvania once again finds itself at the center of a national debate over energy reliability, affordability and the future of power generation in America.