Children and Youth Committee - Senate

Jpr meeting that went that saturday and but this meeting is going to tie with the other meeting that we had in january where we looked at elder fraud and a lot of the issues going on there and one of them that was mentioned was crypto currency fraud that went on with the elderly and even used out there so we're following up on that and with the crypto mining issue that's going on and we know that's possibly going to look like to be addresses and accession we felt like that they're offered like it was good to have any more information a meeting from people that had to do that our first presenter is president from zoom from new york and I want to read a professor read it's been teaching money and banking for thirty years and also teachers history of economic and finance thought for the past ten years he served a board of a bank then on the board of the nasdaq trade public holding company and a number of banks and insurance companies is regarded as an independent director in a financial expert in his own the rome professor read served his mayor of the new york town we know that professor read has been talked about in several my colleagues and so I felt like it was good to contact him and professor rejoined the spot zoom and we want to thank you and we just want to kind of open it up to you a professor to talk about your experience to mayor and crypto and the crypto mining up there and just basically open up to you and in we'll have some questions for you so with that pressure read your recognized thank you I trust you can hear me okay. Are you able to hear me okay yes we are okay well thank you for the introduction yes I learned an awful lot about bit coin in my experiences mayor and i've started it academically quite a bit even recently came up with the book called the bit coin dilemma plastered the video plasburg was really in the first wave of mind the expansion back in twenty seventeen which seems like an awful long time ago a first let me state that i'm amazed a fan of block chain innovation I think it's very useful technology I think digital currencies are going to be uh big part of our future most nations are moving towards some sort of central bank digital currency as we speak I expect it's going to transstreamline transactions and save consumers billions of dollars i'm an advocate of any monetary innovation that certain not all technologies are equal central bank's world widely developed protocols to protect the sound this is safety of their digital currencies and a technique called proof of state makes most privately provided digital currencies both safe and very efficient there is one out wire though bit coin almost uniquely re- retains a method of digital security that most all other major currencies have abandoned a rejected bit coin used to something called proof of work memorialized transactions and prevents subscribe tampering that is the root of all the problems we now see from the mining industry this is because i'm like most all other digital currencies bid coins protocol requires an unbelievably large number of our hungry machines to perform where the handful of machines could do under other procalls these banks and machines send to be noisy as we discovered in plastic generate huge amounts of electronic waste results in a divert of billions of dollars of cap of mother useful technologies but perhaps worse of all consumers more energy collectively than many major countries to noise the generation of wasting the strain on our electric grid and plastberg and the needless consumption of power. The results in increased energy costs for the rest of us are well my city had to deal with back in twenty seventeen what we quickly understood the problem of group of work mining and took steps to a bad the noise recycled ways feet and protect our repairs from higher electricity costs many communities have not been so lucky let me give me an idea of the MOA bit coin mining when it comes to town because it's invariably the same and I suspect you experience in euro reasons well first of all minors explore where they can get the least expensive price for massive amounts of electricity the more and the cheaper the better because of the basic level all a big coin mind does this conversal electricity debit coin the lower the price of electricity and the higher the price a big point the greater the profits once electricity sources are identified in areas with relatively weak regulations are less than thirty county officials minors next end in waves of lobbyists and experts the kind of grease the rails promises are made to local officials that hundreds of jobs will be created in the tax base will be expanded the pay for local schools and government we heard all these promises on our community certainly they may still try to negotiate payment and lew of taxes agreements to economise on their tax burden and sometimes they make noticeable donations as the high school football fields of central the gardener public support the next appeal the city councils with pretty classy presentations and get local construction electricity unions to behind to support their uh them for the temporary jobs that create in the construction pays but once the facilities are constructed the truth sings in as we discovered here we had when the largest bit pointed mines in the world at that time be generated millions of dollars of revenue for his owners every single month essentially became the biggest proper center and entire city and it annoyed its neighbors twenty four seven because the huge fans that. It used to dispete all this heat generated and yet our taxpayer do not expand at all they usually rent their facilities or by modest facilities even if they purchase the land the assessment is now we're near what any other hundred million a billion dollar business would pay we found out the northern jobs materialize as promised are mines and plaster employee just a handful of people to keep the electricity on and removed from service the occasional defect of mining machine if you go to even the biggest bit coin minds you will see only a few cars parked outside a county does not clamore for mcdonalds to come to town even though mcdonald's employee far more workers and add far more to the tax base finally it's hard to assess how much these minds are making because of the secret of nature a bit coimining and the security measures but the tallies and variably and millions and billions of dollars a year very little of which is returned to the local area the properties are also commentary with the electricity of the use so the increase in demand for electricity means we all ultimately pay for their properties in the form higher electricity costs over time meanwhile countries such as china thrown out their bit coin minors but the reasons I cited above many of these minors of migrated united states to take advantage of elect's regulations and greater autonomy of local and county governments to make decisions that are bar greater repercussions these entrepreneurs from other countries are typically quite illusive in difficult attracts but they usually find a local front person to act as their face in the local community I wish I could say the great things happen when bit coin comes a town but beyond the hype the false promises in our and our natural appeal to what high tech in our towns these promises and variably fall flat in localities and states are left putting the bill in hunting for more electricity to make up the shortages there where instances in which big coim mining is operated sustainably. And but never by large operators despite their claims are closed by noting that this month bid coin will experience a having events that occurs once every four years the rewards to big coin mining fall by one half this the effect of weeding out some of the minors with higher electricity costs where we're having typically is accompanied by increase in a bit coin price as fewer mind of stain business and pure new coins of mind mind every ten minutes in that result is typically not a fall in minding but instead of rising industry consolidation and even bigger minds I also know the big point operators could convert a very efficient proof of stake protocol as did the next competing coin called the theory over that conversion would require a majority bolt amongst operators and two operators represent about half the industry they'll never vote to go along with a change that website all of their profits so bid coin is an anomaly it isn't represent the entire industry but it is the thing that we see coming to our communities across the country with a perilous result i'd be happy to answer and any questions are elaborate in any details as you would like. Okay thank you professor you know we kind of went through the same experience last year when it about a year ago our this bill got passed on right to mind that really none of us knew about uh most of us didn't know what crypto mining words was at the same experience up there that you your communities like a local community we're going to hear from a little bit was like we're welcoming economic development we want to see and and it seems like what you said we went through unfortunately here a few years later so one of the things in the bill previous bill was as you said was talking about was recognizing that data centers they they totaled these is data centers and in now we're finding out these are not data centers is as we think like a bank that processing data center I think they prayed upon that there's no question but one of the things I said was recognized that data centers create jobs pay taxes and provide general economic general economic value the local communities and state as you said that just didn't materialize up there did it no data centers typically will employ fifty two hundred times more people than any bid coin mine will they have people walking route in the lab coats if you've ever actually toured a bit coin mine is usually relatively dirty it has a a large number very loud machines the most technology you really need locally is a janitor who can swap of the occasional detective machine once in a while and i've taken a part and put back together these machines you can repair them in five minutes it requires no skill whatsoever these aren't high tech jobs which is very different than the data centers which they usually like to ride on the coat tails of so with these facilities up there where they almost all these down here there they're looking at land around substations that's the key to it same way up there absolutely they need a mass of mounts of power now a hundred megawatts five hundred megawatts has not unusual so they need to be very near a substation that can bring them that kind of power. And it in in your experience up there you did see electric rates go up after these came into correct definitely now what we did as we lobbied the state regulators of electricity to make sure that we could pass on these overages to the industry itself it otherwise we've saw the rate pairs at first we're receiving increases in their bills of twenty or thirty percent and the winner winner months who was forcing our community which has its own electric utility to start buying uhm non sustainable power from elsewhere and became very very expensive so once we had that state legislative change to allow us to pass over these pass on those extra costs rather the share amongst all rate payers are that helped at least insulate us from from that effect what about water use its we're seeing massive amounts of water usage down here was it was your water use it's up there the same way not so much on some of the new plans to use liquid cooling and so they'll dump that water into a laker ribber we do have a facility in our area that has its own natural gas plant so they can get the mass amounts of power they need and because of that plant being turned on it warms the water from one of the the lakes and like senate I believe by five ten fifteen degrees and that's got some concerns from people are concerned about the habitat we didn't have that problem here are some air cool yeah the air cold ones appear but now they're talking about going to water cooled minds the ones that you're meet mission water cool there are water cooled ones up there in your area right now or they're not in city plaster but within the area and they're no more efficient they're just quieter uhm they still this still use the same monitor electricity but they don't make as much noise do you have any idea what the water use it is on those water cooling facilities is it still a lot of water to. To use else you would think yes if they would like to have this call the water is possible because it saves them a little bit of money in cooling so it uses the fair amount of whole waters what they desire or like the gas plant that that uh wasn't was operated is operated in the lake senator they use quite a bit of water to as part of the gas cycle gas turbine cycle of water similar to the amount the eu's and any sort of natural gas electricity plan yeah and there's discharge issues with those facilities up there that need to be considered correct correct some significant issues I think the operators being sued both for excessive discharge and for discharge of two high temperature violate stec regulations so you have an operator up there that's been sued for discharge that is what you're saying up there in that area correct okay you know that's what we're not known about this it's like it's hard to legislate something or look ahead it's like you don't know what you don't know and until these are happening then it then are the problems come up or issues and that's what we're seeing down here that we're having to do with representing their cooper do you guys have any questions. You know okay I don't know I might add that that kind of below the radar screen that you're alluding to there's a really common this is a high technology most people don't understand bit coins certainly don't know some big coin mining and they the operators tend to take advantage of that and try to make you community sound like a lot of if you don't want to embrace and invite the men of course once the right is very hard to reverse your decisions in the past so they rely on that kind of high technology lack of knowledge something that minutes just familiar with this it's you know is very new stuff yeah and that's what I think they try to pray you know this last time they're trying to say we're regulators like other businesses there's really in that i've seen there's there's no other business out here rips in magna do you have a question for the professor I don't know that business and your expertise that i've been told when I would question the energy usage that by putting these online that it would actually be a benefit to the greens I mean does that make any sense to you it I mean I couldn't get it but that uh thank you just another because it is it appeared to us especially in our area that we were using if the facility had gone in and up to our max by outside I don't know how it could be beneficial and like he's a to your state as a whole is there anything that you can see beneficial to the beat corn manning to a stay i'd like to say that to just energy use it and the other time that goes worth it now like I said earlier i'm a big fan of innovation i'm a bit of a nerded in a ham radio and all that can stop I love technology but there really are no positive spinoffs that idea that they sometimes argued all stabilised the grid. Their argument goes something like this that if we use a massive manner power and you ever need that power back in in a black out era period will just turn our machines off but of course we wouldn't be having the blackouts of they weren't using so much power in the first place right so that claim is completely spurious that they helped stabilise the grid we'd be better off without needing to stabilize in the first place because they weren't drawing such a demand second thing that texas is experiencing because they made the same argument there was when these companies turned the power off temporarily the utilities pay them to turn it off they're actually making money by turning the power off so they save i'm not having used the power and they make a profit by not turning it by turning it off as well in these periods of high demands such a completely sparious argument but it sure sounds good. Represent cooper you have a question you reckon us festers are going to be concerned on the ownership of the crypto minds in your area what we're seeing here is ownership by entities that may be based in countries that are not friendly to the united states right the huge wave of a company of entrepreneurs came in from china when the chinese booted them out as they mostly came here but other places as well as in our first way but we experienced in twenty seventeen we actually had a company come in from porto rico you might say well why would porter record be a center of a bit coin minding or speakers court the porter weekend a state had passed a law saying that bid coin minors essentially would be exempt for a mistake income tax so these entities will tend to file their taxes in jurisdictions where the burden is very very low and of course is very difficult to know exactly how much these entities are making because they're being paid in bit coin and is very difficult to track down those payments because of the anonymity a bit coin as well so it's very common for operators to operate out of other jurisdictions and have all the profits for the porter record china some other place. Get a follow up represent cooper so in the last bill that got past one of the things you you've studied this digital asset it says did you know I said that there that they're producing her we think they're producing and we don't know what they're producing digital asset means crypto currency virtual currency electronic assets including without limitation stable coins non pungible tokens and other digital only assets that can per economic propriety property propriety or access to powers explain the coins out there that we understand it theory on block chain burses these other coins that are being out there can you get into that at all network easily most all the other coins including a theory that you just mentioned uhm their essentially compete with bit coin they serve the same function some and slightly different ways you mention stable coin that's a coin that's tied to the US dollar so it doesn't fluctuate value up and down like a bit coin does this not as volatile they all need to be mind but there's a number different ways to mind you can break it really down into two categories proof of work and proof of state attention used to be proof of work just like bid coin but they realize that it was irresponsible to be using the huge amounts of electricity to do that mining so they converted to proof of stake instead of proof of work in doing so they slash their electricity usage by factor between one hundred and one thousand bit coin is really the only proof of work of any major market share anymore everybody else is either started out as proof of stake are converted to it for the most part so we talk about problematic digital currencies were only really talking about bit coin it really only has all the various problems with huge electricity usage lack of job creation i'm harmful effects to neighbors. Water usage etc so I don't want to cast all di- digital coin under the same kind of rubber is really bit coin versus everything else so in the bill they talk about home crypto mining did you see any home crypto mining up there are you aware of anything that you could feel as in on that sure now her home crypto mining can actually be one of the few examples of it being relatively sustainable in our city we uh heat by electricity because we only pay retail rate for electricity about five cents per kilo one hour is ridiculously lowest below the industrial rate most everywhere else so everybody finds it far cheaper to heat with electricity than than having a gas furnace as a consequence uh since bid coin essentially converts electricity to hear and dead coin uh small scale operators might use it to heat up a garage they might probably not want to head up a home with it because these machines are quite noisy but it's a perfectly good alternative to resistance baseball heaters however using bid coin to actually provide heat the eu's rather than he you try to disappeared into the atmosphere I would guess represents one percent point one percent of all bit coin generated it's imperious sustainable to stand that way but none of the large operators will recycle there they're heating that way it could be done relars recyclers could use our large operators could use the recycled heat to try to head and adjacent building but jam a school a factory etc and data centers indeed do that because they're there in in for the long term they want to make that up front investment to be more sustainable but bid coin miners are usually just thinking about the next year or two not really putting that long term thought into it such when I mentioned earlier that mining could be done more sustainably. But in variably isn't okay so whenever you were the mayor there and this was coming down with her new york laws that applied to it did they do what they did in our console they came in and and and are you from you it's a social group in in what they're trying to do to it's earning new york laws that apply to this where you just got out in your own or what what did you feel yet we were out in our own like I said we were and can the front line of a bit coin mining expansion in twenty seventeen because of a really really cheap electricity where you know we're on the map we could have sold our electricity allotment a thousand times over pretty easily so we experienced that for earlier than everybody else had you know headed background in this you know I teach money in banking and like I said earlier as a nerd so I really started and we put some codes in place at the city level that I don't think have really been adopted anywhere else and really would stop bit coin in its tracks in our city with the grandfather in one or two operators that we couldn't apply this to but we had one simple probation in our code that they had to figure out what to do with their excess heap they generate on the cold as winter days said just wasting it we went cold winter days we as a lot more heat because of our electricity because a lot more people need the heating called winter days so we said if you are configured on a way to recycle all the heat you're just dissipating in the atmosphere uh then we can work something out with you that way since separates heating with electricity anyway you won't be taxing our system and causing us to have to uh raise our electricity rates so that one simple provision stop bid coin in this tracks none the big coin operators want to make that investment well that was the opposite down here they pass laws deceptively I feel like that uh tied the local hands to where they couldn't do anything now anything that they're doing is automatically thrown into federal court and now you know. Small communities are hosted chili suppers to try and pay law years to fight billion dollar companies that no one really knows who they are what they're doing so is new york the legislature any them what laws had they taken since all this and it was this crypto mining up their only in your area or was it in other parts of the state it's not the parts of the state new york really didn't come in and pass any laws that would curtail this industry to any great effect except that ability to pass any additional um ask for a local electricity on to the miners instead of the rape paris that only applies to substantive minors that's one of the reasons why they build their own yes hi gas plants or try to bite even hydro electric facilities etcetera to avoid being under that loss I we are the only jurisdiction that I think is ever passed a law that requires for heat recycling which really was what solved our problems for us I don't know why more communities don't adopt that lot seems to make an awful lot of sense especially in a community like us where we own the utility and we we have a only a certain quarter of electricity at a really favorable rate but no new york state did not adopt that law they only law they really adopted change of fact is that law that passes in some cases the excess electricity costs across from repairs on to the industry itself now with we've seen in this state uh that we're phasing out gas operated power plans so we have a lot of higher electricity but to media meet the excess demand we have to operate gas powered plans and we were reducing number gas power plans which can be more expensive over time once bid coin really start taking holding our state those gas power place ball been opening up again so rate payers have been ultimately paying for a study out of. The business school at the university of california berkeley uh demonstrated that you know the rate pairs in our state even with this lie described are paying hundreds of millions of dollars more in a for electricity each year because we're no longer able to close down gas plans we've had even opened many of them back up so can expand out you know block chain anything with block chain large match computers a somebody tell me a requires a lot of you know. These things are things that we need to think about going forward would you recommend that that we were somehow we got to think because it seems like right now these things could more find to something else is that possible yeah you definitely want to look at it closely now things like a I that's true they'll get they're going to need to use a lot of electricity and have a lot of machines to do their analysis and data centers do the same but they also general lots of jobs in the process directly because they're far higher tech and indirectly because a I is going to cause you know almost revolutions in our modern economy so you should look at them carefully to make sure you mitigate some of the l adverse local effects and make sure you have the capacity for electricity bid coin is different though in that unlike these other industries you describe bid coin doesn't have the parts of spinoffs not locally or not national your internationally everything bid coin does other digital currencies can do just as easily and far far cheaper in a far more beneway okay so your professor in banking I mean this crypto currency you know we're looking at it now we're seeing crypto currency down here fraud I mean congress is not done anything I mean the they can't even seem to define whether it's this is a security or commodity mean to me it seems like it's kind of a three car garage you know you open up one door maybe it's a security want to commodity and then you have encrypt of currency this broad nefarious aspect that is very scary I mean do you see it the same way and there's no federal where it regulations in that area do you think states need to step up and do something in that area. I think they do and actually new york said is stepping up on the financial side because new york has so many large banks you know sitting on a bank board while top twenty two hundred bank I see a rat shooting up of uh electronic every year it's almost growing exponentially not just linear but exponentially and obviously that's the thing we need to be very careful about as we by great more toward digital current seat it can only make that worse rather than better right and that's probably also on the compelling reasons why we probably need to further explore for federal reserve bank backed uh a digital currency so it can be kept much more closely under taps and much more easily a monitored bit coin and other similar cripped occurrences because their anonymity is really really difficult to stamp financial crimes and you can probably reading in the paper you know a lot of the war between russian and ukraine is being funded by movements of large sums uhm into russia and evading sanctions all through crypto currency so so something we definitely need to be aware of both at the state level of the national level represent magnaire cooper do you have any more questions or anything at rips and cooperation recognize first another concern that our constituents have down here is a possible negative impact on the noise pollution are not only on live stock but on wildlife habitat you mentioned I believe the discharge of water was raising the temperature of a lake in your area any other impacts you've seen on the natural environment on wildlife habitat and things with that nature well we were a city so we didn't really see that directly the noise was certainly a problem because we are a city with a number of complaints. From local neighbors so we attach the put in as part of the code we passed a a noise ordinance we then growing tests with the noise meter to make sure they can stay underneath the thresholds that's usually a bigger problem in the summer time because they have a much harder time dissipating their heat in the winter time they love it up here because they don't really need to operate on the fans as much mind you in the with your time when they do operate the fans the noise tends to carry an awful lot farther one time of a new kind of unusual positive benefit that experience that we experiences that but there's pumping out so much heat and the atmosphere in the middle of winter it eh with temperatures of minus ten outside that it even melted the snow in the adjacent driveways and parking lot so I guess that you could say well there's one participant of the fact. If I follow up or anything you get okay okay I don't think we have me more questions that it almost seems like the same thing happened down here in arkansas about the secret nature of it you didn't find out what really happened until it's happened and we've had a bill you know out here that's to- actually todd the local hands from action active but in the end as far as an economic value it's just like what you said a mcdonald's creates more jobs in economic benefit to your company in and what we think goes the data center employees far more people in his more and more beneficial to community than what the crypto monzo are is that what you those comments are absolutely correct yep and you can see for yourself to struggle dropped by a bit coin mind sometime see how few cars are parked in the lot outside it's not the handers of jobs that they claim there now it's not in an inherence and I think they it was only claiming maybe two or three jobs was all it was claiming so but uh okay well if there is no more questions professor we thank you for participating in their cis has been very informative to know we're going to have a budget session that we're going to have some bills and have to deal with this and the only thing I will say is somebody down here in arkansas we hope you keep your winners up there so we don't I don't like the cold but we had minus fifteen or twenty windshield down here and i'm like that's too cold so but anyway yeah you bet in one more thing we share is that you and I were the total eclipse is going to come right over us both our communities on monday so I hope you enjoy that okay and tell us where your town is located at where you look at it some plastered new york it's a closer to burlington vermont or montreal canada than just but anything else right up in the northeast corner of the state okay well thank you very much and if you come down there arkansas will try and be a good host to you and we appreciate you common in participate in bad soon we have a couple more presenters and we will follow up but thank you very much professor you bet you take care of a buyer you're next. Are next men members we're going to have justice glen reading he is from bone county and the reason I asked him is because after this the legislative session about a year ago they were meeting up there with a crypto mining company that came in and mister justice rating was doing a lot of work and trying to do it because say they thought it was in the county when it being a city and justice rating all turning over from your experience if you can kind of share what she went through up there because I know hereson made some changes it wound up not committee and so if you do that and then we'll go in your law enforcement background in some of those things so what you recognize justice ready well they were going to start a couple learning business in in boom county when I first heard about this is not working yeah you need to pull the mark a little bit closer to you in office agreement the middle button to be okay it's a better that's better ok. The we're going to put in a cripple mining business in harrison and boom county we didn't know if there's going to be in the county or in the city at the time and thought it was going to be in the in the county so I started looking at it from day one first thing I found out was that it was AAA company owned by the chinese of course and so I started looking at that and and who the members were of their board and and I started doing just internet checks that anybody could do within a few minutes and and found out that there were some directives to the chinese communist party which concerned me with my law unfortunate background and being a justice of the peace because i'm concerned about the or community the same as other justices and judges are in them instead of arkansas well they ended up having a lot of opposition to it in our area and the found out that it was in the city limits and not on the county and the city had a more torium put on on crypto mining so they left and they didn't put that one in so in a way that's kind of where we ended up with it it has not having one there but the facility is still able to put one in I guess the they did some dirt work and that's all they got done and they are right across from a power substation so as a police officer my background is thirty years a law enforcement I spent with about six or eight years on the drug task force in the fourteenth judicial district which has bone marion and can baxter counties must be twenty years with her some police department retired as a captain in charge of the criminal investigation division then what to work for the state and work for arkansas tobacco control in two thousand and two there were probably two tobacco agents in the state of arkansas and they mostly were paper shufflers you know they did inventorian auditing and but they were supposed to be looking at all the tobacco thanks two thousand and three they hired eight of us and most of us were the full time background alone unfortunately I got head will shortly after that they raised the taxes on tobacco so what happened we had an influx of tobacco smuggling. Or who is doing that we found that there were many many many stores that were purchased by people from yemen pakistan all different countries around career and those people got into it because it's cash business any time you've got a cash business and you get a place where you can hire money there's going to be a criminal element there and I found that from working in our countries for years on the drug task force so in in working the tobacco case is we found out this muggling had multiplied ten twenty times from what it was and what they would do as they would buy tobacco products your cigarette was in your copenhagen doesn't have a tax stamp on it so they buy ten to see where they had a at the most a six percent tax but they'd buy it from another criminal so they wouldn't pay any taxi back from a retailer wholesaler in tennessee bring it over and ark and saw where we had a sixty eight percent tax so if you had an american store across the street in a yemen or pakistan or another country store on this side of the street at every thousand dollars they were profiting six hundred and eighty dollars more than the gas paying in the taxes and doing it legal so what we found was more and more doors convenient stores in different parts of the state or being purchased by foreigners and they were there that were taken the money and where was it going there were sending it overseas so about probably forty percent or more of the criminal cases that I were turned out to be on the terrorist watch list so i'd start running these guys in the convenience door through the computer when I when they'd have a tobacco violation in the get a court from the FBI and that's what he doesn't as well just run in these guys at the convenience door well they're on a terrorist watch list and we don't know where they were without their new york we thought they were in california where they were here in arkansas and in what they were doing was they were tied to the relatives and other states and they were sending that money a proceeds to other states what else were they doing where they were they were involved in our cotton trafficking they were involved in gun trafficking. So the FBI at the time recruited me with a joint terrorism pass force and I work with them daily for several years and then I spent most of my time in memphis tennessee because that's where there was a direct wholesale or selling to the retailers here in arkansas so at all tied together not only here but it affected other countries and it wouldn't be unusual for federal proscure to call me and ask me to go somewhere to interview someone here in arkansas that head information on things in another country because it tied into a terrorist network from here to yemen to pakistan and and and abroad the reason I say that is because looking at these crypto companies the chinese are coming in in putting front comp companies in front of them that they go get a llc secretary states office take five minutes seeing probably due on the computer and get an LLC will they end up getting eight or ten different l c's and opening up ten different companies but it's a one company doing it but we don't know that because it shows ten different names if you check for secretary of states office different people on the signing up for that llc so my concern today is how are we going to know this i'm looking at some of these amendments there are being proposed for act eight fifty one and as a quarter court member ideally I would like to say it repealed but I don't believe that's going to happen so if it's not going to happen what can we do to protect our communities I think we need to set up some type of enforcement on the front end because even though they put in there that the office of agriculture intelligence if they find out that there is a foreign company that owns a crypto mind they can turn that over the ages office ages office can go ahead and confiscate the land and sell it isn't that kind of like close negate after the call got out I mean we're waiting until they're already involved in some type of criminal activity or are there already using our resources and draining them without having any regulation. Which brings me back to briefly back to act eight fifty one we're not allowed to to set up regulations the county can't the city can't were prohibited from that now I do see on one of these amendments that are going to be proposed that they're talking about eliminating that chinese or foreign own thing and that's why they could in there about the office of agricultural intelligence if they're not looking at it on the front and their mission the boat because at tobacco control what I finally did is submitted a request for criminal investigation division to be formed because we didn't have that we just had enforcement agents working thirteen counties here in twelve counties there will they granted me that and I was able to set up a criminal investigation division now we required permit to be filled out for a tobacco business which I don't know I don't think we have anybody doing that with the crypto mining business I don't think that's pillata permit to operate a crypto mini business and arkansas but they need they need to have that if you're not if you're going to continue to allow crypto money to come in and for other people to be putting this business as in we need to know who's operating them and the best way to do that is have some type of permit set up with whatever company and I don't care who who works that right now they have combined or console tobacco control the alcohol beverage control the marijuana and the gaming are all consolidated now david porter took my place with a criminal investigation division with tobacco control and he is the commander of those for agencies and their use and all their agents basically right now to regulate medical marijuana and see that came in and I sent a recommendation for twenty officers to be hard and they didn't do that so instead of having agents working alcohol and agents working tobacco and agents working these other thanks they're all concentrated on the marijuana same thing with crypto mining you're going to have people coming in saying how can I make money illegally because you have organized crime and criminal enterprises in any place that you can make a dollar. And I know that from thirty two years of of law enforcement and so they're going to be coming in if they're not here already and they're going to be turning those crypto minds into a money making thing but they're also going to be we're not fair how to crack that bit coin or how to keep up or that it's going to go overseas and it's a terrorism if it's not already that's my concern we need to legislate it in some way either allow the counties to do some kind of red legislation on them in our own counties to protect our people in our area or the state needs to be responsible and step up and put an agency in charge of two it taken these applications to find out who's really owning that company and where is that money going to be coming from and going to senator thank you represent cooperate representative you have any questions repsive cooperation recognize just as I was a a jp and white county for seven terms so appreciate what you do so your your recommendation on changes on this would be first to repeal active fifty one so that cities and counties can put in order says regulating and also create a permitting process whereby these is crypto companies have to receive a permit through the state that is correct yes but it needs to be regulated by somebody one agency needs to be in charge of reviewing those applications and they need to have like tobacco control we were police officer we were regulatory officers in that we had a tobacco board that we would send them through for for regulatory violations the store a retailer but we were a criminal investigation division to a law enforcement agency we would arrest them and we set up our laws to follow the tobacco laws we would seize the vehicle used to transport illegal tobacco and we were able to go ahead and and criminally prosecute them and you you need to have both you need to have it to where you have a regulator agency making sure they're conforming how much water are they using in how much electricity are they using. When will we know when the power goes out somebody needs to be checking on that on a regular basis to find out how much power is being used in where it's going if we're not doing that we're not protecting our communities until it's too late it represent cooperators that's why we're working on several different bills because there's different avenues his professor talk we they saying more open to block chain be the same entities but yet do something else I mean we just really don't know what we don't know and that's why you are thanks and feels like justice rating talked about about like trying to get out ahead of this and you know are you who you say you are in or you do and what you say you're going to do I mean we have issues with the the water you sits as we mention while that may be goes to energy environment you know you have the power issues maybe go the pse you have the crypto currency part because what is being used for that you know maybe that securities and banking I mean there's you know the checking up is justice rating so that's what i'm working on several different bills to try to do something and would actually allow some changes to legislative council and bring changes because we really don't know what they're going to do six months from now what's coming up so if we put things in the law like this bill it's a year or two before it's actually changed that's what's the beginner this bill was about that we were not I don't think in the house we were not told anything about anything and we just as the professor said up there he walked through it I felt the same way we just did not sell representative do you have a question not an answer that questions general time but the uh act fifty one I believe the smart thought the majority of the folks that bought it for there are the way it came about was under the understanding that it would give cities in counties the ability to regulate which like I said with the misunderstanding in the rushing through they did exactly the opposite and this is probably just a question of and just your opinion. And because i've heard because because I think the best thing to do is to repeat all the law that never show the past but and I hear the same time you are well we would there's not enough supporters not enough the in your in your opinion why do you think people would not support repealing their I know that just your opinion but that seemed like that seemed like the first starting place is is the under what what was done that allowed a lot of this to start I don't know who's longing for but i'd say the lobbyist have a lot to do with it also say follow the money and perhaps perhaps some of these people that don't want to repeal it have got money invested in crypto mining and they don't want to come out so have against that when you can find out that they are in fact in involved in it you know so I mean I was follow the money as a criminal investigator in our cardics in working with the food drug administration as a federal agent in working with the joint terrorism task force the best way that we could find who's bad is by following the money just just reading one last question so based on your experience with tobacco control deal with the FBI d and what for an entities all this and you know you know i've talked about it this crypto currency on the crypto currency part you can see that being used very easily as we we've heard on that that actually needs to be monitored too as well because obviously hamas and memory and articles in the crypto currency world where that's being rained somewhere all these things are being in the crypto currency world you can see that a harder tool to track down with that that's the what out your read would that's the money in the mexican court tales are very much in support of it because they can hide the money other foreign countries are the same way that's what we ran into with tobacco it was a cash business that wanted to get into because they can hire that money they would go to somebody here. And give them a hundred thousand dollars that person would make a phone call to yemen or another country and say i've got a hundred thousand dollars and give my cousin a hundred thousand dollars worth of money there to build bombs and that's what was happening yeah it it seems like with you know we don't have background checks on these people we do not know anything we know the connection so uh once you get that you can't follow the money if if they're hotnet so one last question on down you been a chest as a piece like in our area carable and water district gets our water from beaver lake we know be relief in the growth over there the water usage so the more that the the state ties your hands does not allow you to flexibility make decisions because if you have a plant that's using five hundred thousand gallons of mind and a crypto mining facility that employees two or three thousand people in a cripped of mine that's using two hundred fifty or five hundred thousand gallons a month in early employee two or three people if the state leds they appear we taught your hands that's a detriment to you represent your people in it yes I found up on two records one showed six hundred thousand gallons being used one month the other one showed two hundred fifty thousand gallons in arkansas two different locations and I don't know if that's a consistent record or not I would like to know more about it and I plan on following that the biggest concern I have is as a justice of the pace we led your slight where the legislators of the county and we cannot legislate crypto mining the way that act eight fifty one is written we can't do anything the city councils cannot make an ordinance against it and so i'm i'm very concerned about a water being depleted and our natural resources were supposed to be the natural state or less protector natural resources are thank you justice reading and appreciate you and we got one more person a couple more people that's going to center clarks got a question for this justice reading a centre king in our boat for former corn court members now my brother's company you are not. Okay so your brother and I have been on the corn court and so I know the court courts power is somewhat limited correct so if if the current bill was just repealed what power would the core courthouse to deal with these crypto money facilities will anything that was a detriment to the community in the corn court say and so we can go ahead and in a legislative how it's operated in our own county if there if the noise is a problem we are at an ordinance the arkansas association and counties helped us because that on the seventy counties are a multitude amount of counties it said hey we need some tap a legislation on this before they put in one in my community because they found out that this act eight fifty one tied her hands where they couldn't legislate anything after it was already in so what they did as they want to hear and and they gave us an ordinance to follow which many counties adopted that boom county being won we went hit and passed that ordinance. And what the ordinance did as it put a regulation on the sound now on active fifty one and and the supplements i've seen to that they do not have a a certain amount of noise that's prohibited it's what a reasonable man thinks would be a certain amount of noise that would be disperbing and I think that's ridiculous or or information from the work and so social counties had a a decimal that if they had a certain height of noise than we could shut them down and that's not that's not anywhere in active fifty one it's just talks about being a disturbance in case what cause i'm interested in you actually being able to do something if you can and I know from experiencing gore and counting out where hot springs is located that noise ornaments has been which nothing to do with critical money with the noise orders had to do with other things was very hard to enforce so I don't want us to do something and then do you find out that you actually can't do anything with what you have so noise or it's as one way to to deal with it but does that help any if we're doing not with people but with dear honey breast well and not just the noise orders but the using of the water there's thanks to the are coming up now that we never thought of at the beginning and and now we're looking at the usage of the water and the electricity and what's going to happen if we have several of those operating at the same time during a time when we have the peak power coming in so we're looking at all aspects of it but as a justice of the peace i'm just looking for answers and i'm looking to try to find some matters i'm i'm good with the state if they want to regulate it and regulate it properly that's fine repeal at eight fifty one redo it and put in there some type of enforcement powers. Where you can regulate it properly in you can stop a criminal enterprise from happening before it happens so i'm wondering about that because I usually want to hear more regulation i'll run screaming but I know aduse in the room I have where the association counties is in the room but i'm wondering if it's bigger than a core court the because block said II know the difficulty of enforcing a noise ordinance I know that we get into noise around people that we then people product issues about honing and that would get me alarmed but also come back to the private property rights of somebody wanting to do whatever they want to do that doesn't infringe on the rights of their neighbors so uh the young zone does the county's own in boom county no that's why we don't have zoning in boom county is because I like you I don't believe in bigger government and the people of the community wouldn't accept it as far as if we had his own committee for boom counting if I brought that that be the end of me it is not surprised gore and county doesn't so the the same reasons and very populated and but there is one way of dealing with it but if counties aren't zoning then you can't zone this for one business and not zone for everybody so i'm just thank you for answering those questions that cause i'm just curious if we just turn it back over the counties if that actually will be the answer or not and thank for those answers thank you thank you mister chair thank you justice reading and we appreciate you near insight in like a said hopefully we repeal eight fifty one and we can get back to not time your local hands i'm mark president reagan said the best government is the government closest to the people and that's what you we should let locally cons we don't know all the situations out there purchase certainly down here in little rock they're going to not know our water situation up there. They're not going to know these things for the more we talk your local hands allow you to represent your people you're going to know the consequences and be able to make quicker reactions to what in appreciate your law enforcement experience and talking about how to regulate this and found out who these people are before we even know they even come in here so thank you just as ready next members we're gonna have a couple people from arkansas county I believe is that right and you guys come the into the table just introduce yourself jerry do you want to go down there too. Our and our other son is also connected to agriculture they also hurt and fashion and offer that guiding in and so we take advantage of all the resources in our area but we're also held to I mean we realize the value of those resources and that's when we learned about this coming to our community those and then the more we researched we realized that those resources were the provide we provide our income from we gain income from minute provide enjoyment to our property that these are going to be jeopardized and so we started trying to do this much research as we could but at all of that research led to ourselves let us to all negative outcomes we couldn't find anything positive with this facility that was locating it's it's about a mile outside of do it and it's in the middle of farmland in the middle of a field soybean production was there last summer and so that it now the crypto mine is located there and we are also in a critical groundwater area and our farmers are being urged to take you know practices and implement practices to conserve that ground water and we feel like the water resources they will have to recently the facility if they're drilling a well now to access water for their facility but we have not been able to receive any clarification about you know any discharge you know how that will be handled we know they will be using a lot of water which concerns us because our aging infrastructure in our rule community. Is it's hard to manage the capacity that it already has so we're very residents are very concerned and they breached out to our committee to try to find out more information than to help to address these issues were also concerned about the electric electrical use because our farmers use irrigation wells you know for their rice where the number one rice producer in the state of arkansas and and were known for that so they're very concerned about you know there once they turn their irrigation wells is this going to with the addition of the crypto mine you know is this going to burn up their wales you know and then who's to be responsible for their when they can't access electricity to generate water for their crops and and we realize that uh have found out that the facility will be using you know quite a lot of electricity and could potentially you know jeopardize our grid for our community and our residence so those are to the main concerns of it you know urgent concerns that our citizens were concerned about as well as the noise those that live close to it and they hunt and fish next to their you know discharge to the water what is that going to do to our water resources water ways the hunting and the fishing and we have someone that experience when they were testing the fans and because they're not fully online yet they're running it minimum capacity right now because they're just getting online but someone was handing hunting on their land and when the fans cranked up the deer left and so we're we're just concerned about you know nearby residents in their enjoyment of their land. As well as pants and horses cattle chickens amenable where an agricultural community so we're just concerned about those resources and incomes being jeopardized and so and then the security issues that you know have been brought up and ownership because it they have been very forthcoming with you know talking about their business or actually coming to visit with us and so it's concerning when you can't sit down and talk to another landowner or another business to talk to them about potential you know compromise assure property based on with their business being in place so those are all issues that we are very concerned about and we were the reason where urging you to in a look at eight fifty one again and hopefully I mean our optimum result would want to be to repeal it as yeah i'll have talked about that how do we bring more control back to the local communities in being able to make these businesses more accountable because within my own coffee shop I couldn't even open up my shop until I got a you know a permit and it was inspected by the health department and I pay cells tax to support my local infrastructure in my community and this business design so it also doesn't employ anyone from our community so the benefits vs the cost just don't seem to balance out an are hoping that we you know can get some address to the to the these issues with really good afternoon and senator and committee members and gerially bogan I live in start arkansas and a restaurant of arkansas charity for. My entire life my background is an agriculture i've been a farmer of grown rice on three continents around the world i've international consulting consulting business and have dealt with a number of different cultures including southeast asian when I first got involved in his conversation it was by invitation of one of your colleagues uh representative german more who asked me to attend a corn court meeting in our console county because he was concerned about the impact of act eight fifty one in fault large he had in hasted supported that bill and and wanted to monitor my opinion and so I agree to come to the meeting and I was disturbed by what I heard my remarks from here for we'll probably be more in support of the justice from north from harrison assumer uhm I think this is a multifacility issue on a on a new way for a new generational business in a digital age that has just come upon us and so there are so many things and have to be considered in order to protect not only the natural resources of arkansas but the average citizen of arkansas in in when I worked in washington DC back in the early nineties with with ross proso coming eds number four on the list of things that we had a memorize was a saying that said bad news does not get better with age in the bad news is is that the legislature of our console passed a bill a fifty one without knowing nearly enough about the potential impacts of this this albeit relatively new industry that has chosen arkansas as a place to domason much of its business. I like to gentlemen from harrison have spent a lot of time in places where where we witnessed things that happened uh sort of in a condo it from one business to the next I have dealt with the chinese at one particular time in my life uh in and i'll have to say that the we already have a place in system here in arkansas legislature legislatively statute wires that deals with every aspect of business even so far as to say that we have laws and regulations that would certainly accommodate uh digital business and arkansas if only it were enforceable but what we have and eight fifty one is a bill that essentially grants a sobering to at the local and state level where where we have zero ability to voice an opinion under a threat of being sued up and personally even though i'm not a party to a lawsuit and I have attended a number of meetings and I also sit on the committee of arkansas county citizens against crypto mounting in general i've been supported twice from a personal record from our phone records but jones digital battle by the attorney's representing journalist digital even going so far is to supreme phone carrier for my records they want to know who I talk to they want to know how much money i've spent in support of of my first amendment rights of free speech where where i've simply raised common sense issues about a business that the came in. And under the pretence of wanting to be a good citizen in the county they came in without without going through the proper procedures with the a cube it's my understanding that eighty q has got five different violations against him today I don't know how they've been resolved I know of no other business in our console county I don't know of another business in the state of arkansas that requires an attorney general investigation to try to figure out who owns them we have one of that's under way right now trying to determine who the ownership of this business is because we all know that there are sanctions international sanctions us sanctions changes that we support that protect us against the bad actors of the world who use these sorts of digital uhm assets to avoid sanctions primarily all sanctions and armed sanctions to found activities of terrorism who take not only international but take american lives and the notion that we as are cansands which support that sort of behaviour in what is surely an oversight I don't believe there's a member of the arkansas legislature that would knowingly welcome an international actor onto this scene that that would man for digital tokens that can then be put into a block chain and from there it can't be traced or it's very difficult to trace and then it would ultimately finance weapons that would support hamas. Coming across the border raping and killing israeli lives in putting us fortune and possibly ultimately our men and women at risk how can they have how can that happen here in arkansas a fifty one needs to be repealed and there needs to be a mortarium on crypto mining and arkansas until certain things are determined number one the software that is utilized in what the call and aunt pod or an aunt box is encrypted the algorithms are proprietary as chairman in his experience and i'll tell you man is having been in that business once and on support in my life. That software can do more than one thing in while it crunches math problems allegedly the software crushes math problems for the purpose of just like a slot machine comes upon three sevens in spites of the coin those coins have value inside the casino they have no value outside the over what you can purchase there's no different and between becoming has a value because somebody trades and dollars it's it's interesting to note senator when when we encrypt or mounting first came to arkansas the total value of the digital assets globally was determined at one less than one trillion dollars it's over two train dollars today and so if you're a bad actor in the in international bad actor and you want to try to displace the US dollar as the reserve currency were all major commodities or tried in world ward including arkansas soybeans and rice then she hear advantage to support crypto currency because ultimately that day will be tested and if we wake up in that day has been successful for the people who are not our friends then this country will go into a financial collaboration like nineteen twenty nine look like child supply believe me believe every agency that is charged with protecting this company I mean this country around globally whether it's the f b r or the treasury department homeland security look at the reports look at d o day's reports are console i'm sure would have never chosen to be on the front line of this argument and this debate but we are they came here because we have an abundance of natural resources we have a relatively low population density and they came here and they've been establishing i'm not here to say that all of these people are b. Absolutely not but what I am here to say is there if there is one bad actor in the bunch you have to stop and retrace what you've done and figure out how you go forward if they are allowed to be here i'll close my remarks on thank you guys for your testimony because this this issue i've been around a while down here it's kind of like a a thunderstorm or more tornado issue it may only hear a certain part of her certain few counties in everybody else so unless you're close to you really don't know so appreciate you with your testimony in the fact that these companies now because of this bill how we were misled to in lied I think it's time to start holding those people accountable and found it out to satoshi group for example that was one of the financiers or that we're been told we need to know who what money and who's back in him is justice reading said we need to sort figure out how to follow the money before we believe what you want to go forward so I know what you guys are dealing with down there in hairson in harrison uh try to do it but we just cannot simply I mean we don't have duck hunting up there in our area that's an issue and that's why I keep telling legislators you know the more we try to how the hands appear that more we don't know what's going on in our in our area we you know as a mention before we're having a water use its area and I think down there when there is something about twenty years ago you're operator was going to drive a correct we we've been under a critical groundwater news designation about the state and federal level under the spar to acquire for in the lubia local first now for twenty five years that's a state there's very uh ten the water planned meeting last week here in law under the governor's direction trying to determine the future of the water of arkansas and just just to give you a very brief description of how serious this issue is there is a lawsuit that was heard by the supreme court two years ago and justice robertson pound their that the spot across for is is on such a overused position at this point that there'll have to be somewhere in the neighborhood of what we're found me and acre free to water they'll have to be discontinued from use. All of each and arkansas utilizes the sport for as a string and water source and we we hear in the grand prayer depend upon at eighty four percent all of the occupiers to to to period or crops were in the process in fact down part of the company and I managed for a company whose mission it is is to convert uncle for water wells to surface water which we've shut off thirty five worlds in our process we have thirty eight hundred wells and relieves in the grandparent that that are in the affected area of this jones digital cryptomat now you just we've just introduced a brand new user into the electrical grid that will use approximately the same amount electricity is what what everybody else does it sorry so when we already have problems with with brown outs in july august september one we're running wide open a hundred percent here again is cram for the food security of this country and for the economic wellbeing of the state now we've got an unregulated new party that's going to use as much electricity as all of us do what happens when you single phase my thirty five we lives and wells that are run into here get this crop what happens when you single phase my marine lives in wales and they go down in arkansas water that i'm contractually obligated to supply and for which these farmers depend on further living that is going to be responsible for that is this government going to go on a set up a special find to be able out those that go bankrupt because they lose their cropper lose a portion of their crop in a critical time because this is two thousand and twenty four it's not two thousand and fourteen where you could pick up a found and if you had insurance and you were born up you could get somebody to come out and replace the motor in the pop and you'd be back up and r. And in three days you may not get replacement parts for this stuff this season and somebody's going to go broke as the result of it then the answer is that you are charged consider in resolve because it's going to happen to someone thank you all right thank you to have any questions for the presenter's senator clark your recognized and they have enough to get back in the queue centre king but let me start where is the data mining facility in arkansas county it's actually just a it's just actually a stone throw from from the city limits of doing it right in the center of arkansas county okay but in what direction just uh my roots are in our console county i'm sorry my roots are an art console calculator for the with specifically so so it's right west of the way arkansas or how way sixty five highway one sixty five going toward what if you left the way it going towards that guard he would be on your right okay so between the word and stuff got yes okay so as i'm coming into the with then yes from stock guard it's out there somewhere yes which is right alongside our it's right on the highway so i've probably seen it then and didn't realize what it was you would probably know it now because the fance that was poorly constructed got blown down this sort of an assored now okay so now I know the location you've raised some not that we don't have significant issues elsewhere which you've raised some significant issues of it was now i've been told competing things i've been told that they don't use any more water than a household and i've been told that they use lots of water do you know it is well they do those is true let's take the broad look at this and snapshot it right on down. They have a they have a facility that has I think it's fifteen or so these aren't pods that have three thousand it's been reported as much as three thousand computers in these containers they have a plumbing in a closed loop system that will require ex gallons of water it's not a lot of water to me as a rich farmer it's not what the problem is not that the problem is they just sak a submergeable world it looks like a six cents well to me and in that general area that's probably a three to five hundred dollars a minute and so if it's now it's it's approaching summer and if they're running one open and i've got all of their boxes producing crypto currency the temperature is very how they'll have to be they'll have to be cooling it with water how do you do that if you ever try to fill a bathtub with a water with a fire address it's a lot different than if you try to fill it with the water rooms and because it didn't have the capacity to hook them up where they would have owned demand water like a water false it neither did the grandparent regional water district have that capacity they have drilted some marshall well okay let's a certain that water is going to be fifty eight degrees so it's cool water bill cooled or plant their physical plan with that no doubt but where does that water go because it was told us that in a closed loop system there would be no discharge I operate a close loop system with as much as a hundred thousand gallons of minute flow and through that close loop system I understand about that I got over twenty miles of pipelines and canals in a close loop system that we operate it's not so simple when you have five hundred gallons of minute going through a tony foot container in a two to three or four inch pipeline designed to cool it like a radiator in a car you cannot help but have discharged there is no discharge. Permit for this side so is the water so much the consumption I would suggest to you that if our and eighty year old single mom our grandmother and i'm paying our in our water bills have already tripled since the last two thousand fourteen water plan and arkansas and i'm now paying two hundred dollars a month where I was paying fifty and if you're taking potable water away from me then you call us me to spend two three four five dollars because i'm competing with you in this same system that's probably a big deal of that person but what's my much greater deal to me as a business man and is an outdoorsness or is the fact. River national refuge which arkansas county depends upon for about a million dollars a day of economic benefit during the waterfall season there is a there is a pollution factor there are environmental concerns that have to be considered here it's another reason you raise that good question to me it's another reason why fifty one needs to be repealed and start over to our mister borger the the water discharges is a good issue i'm not sure that the local comports equipped to deal with that issue to equips yes but that's why i'm i'm looking as we look at answers whether we throw it back to the county which we can do that sort of problem but then does that fix it uh by next question would be if we were to approach it if the arkansas county corn court was to proach it through a noise ordinary. Is this thing any louder than the ross mills and stuck gardened combines in the field I don't know because I have not heard it operated full scale they but they've only been operating at a and a lot you understand what i'm absolutely asking and i'm not in order to shut stem down you may shut down other industry and I am certainly not here and the cating to you that I even believe that and that another bill is necessary because it's a business man in someone who deals in a multiple of businesses and I understand the regulations in the rules of the state of arkansas i'm in a loss for words it was eight fifty one was even was even conceived because you've got laws in place to deal with this situation you don't need eight fifty one what you need does repeal like fifty one so there's no longer a sovereign status for a designated business that originated out of channel let me say something about what you're talking about you know the city ahead and basically try to do that before the law went in effect and they're not in the lawsuit right now because what they did and that's what we talked about earlier with professor and we did know and were not told by the sponsors was there's no other business like this business absolutely not and so this idea that we need to compare and other businesses you know you you look at this bill that is deal it has data centers in it these things aren't data centers I mean they they sit there and try to just basically lie to misletter so will that another question or too and then we'll try to wrap this up and what they're would like to say two years it's important for the record that we have invited jones digital people that representatives we have invited them to come to every meeting that we have hailed public and otherwise to try to answer some of these questions they they preemptively showed the carry and then they began to you know issue subpoenas to private citizens forgotten of what this because we expressed our opinion i'm sure i'll hear about this after this hearing today yeah that's okay. Let me add something to address the means of people yet one one thing on what do you want to say is I did at this meeting originally I thought that that we were going to have a subcommittee public health which meaning was on it didn't happen so that's why the justice is why it's under your we're looking at this from a crypto currency as a you know put out the other hand out I did in both mister vicary and and the people he represents to come but short notice they could make it so that's on me so i'm giving him the opportunity tuesday at three o'clock next week if they want to have a rebutter or whatever they want to do so we'll have give them the opportunity to appreciate you doing what's actually but we've got to repeal a fifty one there's a bill come and I know that we'll repeal that in going to different directions with a lot of different uh avenues to be able to look at this or sinner clark i'll recognize you for a question and I think we'll be done I was going to ask if your group was involved in a lawsuit against them but evidently you're not they have sued arkansas county arguments with suit preemptibly by jones digital after the county attempted to a manned the noise ordinance decibel level to a arkansas canny level then it was found to be in violation of act eight fifty one I attended the hearing the with the judge rodosky and federal court and in fact I was the subject of some of that conversation not because I am a party to the lawsuit but the cause in my friend jamie warm back in others spoke out against crypto currency in general our crypto mining in general in arkansas county that's the only reason why we were we were singled out and we have been subpoenaed for our personal records it's also it needs to be noted that it's my understanding that the lawsuit has been. Uh proposed to settle and how that intacts us we we have a lawyer that we've hired and we have we have asked for a quash order to be implemented against these opinions because we feel like it's an infringement upon our person and it writes and what business do you know of in this state soon's people preemptively and tries to subpoena private citizens right but that would be my question would be that they indicate I don't know that they had to did they indicate when they subpoenaed your personal information for what reason. They believed that because we oppose them that we might have undo sway over the corn court members I am not an elected official I am a tax payer of this state and of that county I pay property tax in that county and i'm entitled to express my opinion i've stood up in public i'm not said anything that hadn't already been said by some federal or state government official or what i've said here today but they found they felt that I was a threat because I was having some in under influence over our elected officials I wish I had that you may have heard of influence today but please don't be will we all seek for under influence the I have not heard both sides of the bobble says here both sides before you give an answer I will only heard one side but I will say until I hear the other side that these opinion of personal information of those who oppose them are who are perfectly within their rights to not only oppose them but to lobby government seems hard handed in and seems harassment which causes me to lean as a state senator in a way not favorable to those that are doing it i'm sure that that they will be tuned in and the that kind of thing bothers me than it more than any of the rest of what follows there if we don't do something about it what follows there that's what scares me to have worked in places in the world where where if you express your opinion you ended up the hand bars are in a grave somewhere and we can't let that happen here i'll be here next to the good lower will not three o'clock so that the other side wants to ask me any questions I can't. Thank you for your testimony thank you mister chair now I think that's what you want this term of representing near your recognize we we've kind of discussed it's back and forth a lot but no member of twenty two one opera turned about this and harrison uh very ideal what they were talking about uh so I like I came and i'll talk to the department of commerce not alternative people in to try to get something in in my in my opinion at that point if why do we want them and are console for one day might be nation now this is in november twenty two in the hell and i'm not rather you have to accept your mistake to make and anyway in over the few months I would some discussed our talk to the turning general's office and you know these different things in in our person say I said I would be for banning on from operation in the state okay were you fast forward mine said well I would so i'm already here we got to do this they're here we've got to be able to regulate okay so at the last power the bill comes through my my ignorance I accept it I thought we were giving cities and counted the ability to regulate if you want down I don't know why you were but if you do it should be our local decision. So repealing I active thirty one I could say it I mean that's probably not going to cure the problem but but I think that is a place to start because I don't I just don't believe most of the votes understood what it was doing and like I said if I says well you there's not enough support out there to repeal it I don't know if there is or not I don't know why we couldn't we didn't have it before and I don't know if repealing it will help the corn courts or the cities but at least it wouldn't be kind their hands that they can't do hardly anything in your right now these folks act as if they're softer the only people that are sovereign in the united states of america our foreign governments in an embassy on which are considered reform soul a crypto man on a farm land in a soy being field in arkansas county is not foreign soul nor should it be considered and so in my view the only answer in it and and I am to say this to you the only answer is to repeal eight fifty one put a moratorium on any new minds and put restrictions on those that are there today while you study the issue because I continue that once you do and you and you examine all the answers it's a very strong likelihood that they will no longer be welcome here just like they were expected they were expelled from channel in two thousand and twenty one for some of the very same reasons that we're talking about here and we need to make sure that about repealing eight fifty one we're going to find out if the votes are there most of the colleagues I talked to you know what to repeal it and we also need to make sure that there's measures presented to because the longer we go in this the deeper we're getting into this and we also have to be recognized in these things come more friend of something else we've talked about a lot of different things that we've already already learned about and act. Get tired of this thing from the sponsors for bad actors and I keep telling them that is part of the problem appear of minimizing what's really happening in your testimony brought that out justice in the in the mayor dear because bad actors to me or p we hermen or maybe my performance in a in the junior play at green force you know minimize and these people is bad actors what you're talking about and what is happening that's not bad actors and if you're used in that term detroit and describe the actions that you've went through and what we've seen out here and what's going on you're actually caused more problems because you minimize and what is really going on the impact so we appreciate your testimony here today and we have the opportunity out there for that i've gave to mister uh tuesday at three o'clock if they want to have a fair chance in harrison when we had a meaning we gave the unfair change up there to do it in that's what we're about so uh with that were journed and thank you for coming thank you very much.