The state Senate seat for the 41st District will be contested for the first time in 16 years.

Incumbent Sen. Don White, R-41st, who was first elected in 2000, will have two challengers for the seat: Democratic nominee Tony Deloreto and third-party candidate Stanley Buggey.

White and Deloreto ran unopposed in the Republican and Democratic primary elections earlier this year.

Buggey, who is running as the nominee of the USA Minutemen party, received enough petition signatures to be on the ballot with about 690. The minimum needed is 500.

White said he welcomes the challenge.

“You could say it’s my first report card,” he said.

White has been on several state committees while in office, including serving as chairman for the Banking and Insurance Committee.

He said the biggest issues facing the Commonwealth include pension reform and the heroin epidemic, the former being “critical.”

“We’re fighting all the public sector unions and trying to come up with a pension plan that’s similar to the 90 percent of the people in this Commonwealth where if they have a pension plan, it’s a 401(k),” White said of the state’s pension situation. “And we’re still in the dark ages in funding to find a benefit plan that’s sustainable.”

The state Senate approved a bill in 2015 restructuring the state’s two public employee pension systems — the State Employees’ Retirement System and the Public School Employees’ Retirement System.

As for dealing with the heroin and opioid crisis, he said he gives credit to Gov. Tom Wolf.

“He (Wolf) visited Indiana and we talked about it,” he said. “We had a lot of help from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania to engage in the issue.”

White said the war on drugs has been “ineffective” and that instead of just putting criminals in jail, doctors and pharmacists should be held accountable for giving patients more medication than needed.

“The doctors overdo it and the pharmaceutical companies love it,” he said.

He cited the example of a friend who received medication after surgery.

“The doctor prescribed her 40 Percocet, of which she only used one,” White said. “Why was that prescription necessary?”

Along with that, he said better education is needed to address heroin and other drugs.

“We need to treat the disease for what it is with rehabilitation,” White said. “Schools need to make it part of the curriculum.”

White is also on the board of directors for PENNVEST. In 2013, he introduced Senate Bill 196, which amended the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority Act to expand PENNVEST’s ability to use Clean Water State Revolving Funds to pay for stormwater and other projects.

PENNVEST is an independent authority that was established in 1988 to improve water quality in Pennsylvania by providing low interest loans and grants for drinking water and wastewater projects.

“It’s one of the best things Harrisburg ever developed,” White said of PENNVEST. “It’s helped our region for water and sewer.”

This will also be White’s final term if he is re-elected.

“I feel like I’ve done my public service,” White, age 66, said.