House Insurance & Commerce Committee
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- October 4, 2026
Representative Allen Kerr
Unverified
0:01
Good morning, committee. I'm going to ask Kim Norton to come to the table with me as well for some expert
Representative Jonathan Barnett
Unverified
0:13
testimony. If you will, Representative Kerr, have Ms. Norton identify herself, please,
Speaker 5
0:19
for the committee. Good morning. I'm Kim Norton. I'm the Vice President of Health Policy for
Representative Allen Kerr
Unverified
0:29
Depew Cynthese, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Okay. Thank you. Members of the committee, House Bill 1267 is a consumer protection bill, non-controversial.
All this does is it sets up an appeals process by which a physician and their patient can come to an insurance company and take a second look at a procedure that that physician is suggesting that they have, assuming the insurance company has denied the coverage for that procedure or that piece of equipment, this gives them an appeals process. It does not require the insurance company to actually pay it.
It does not compel them to accept the procedure. All this is is the consumer can come in and appeal that decision. Forty-nine other states already have this in place. Most insurance companies in the state have an appeals process set up on their own. And with that, I'm going to let Ms. Norton give you a little more detail. Ms. Norton, you are recognized.
Speaker 11
1:40
Ms. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. I want to thank the chairman for having me here and all of you for having me here. Just to give you a quick background on depucinthes, we are a Johnson & Johnson company. We manufacture orthopedic and neurologic devices, trauma devices as well. And the specific device that we started this conversation with Leo Hauser and Marvin Parks about a year and a half ago was really around specifically an artificial disc, which is
an alternative to a spinal fusion. It was a new technology approved by the FDA in 2007 and 2008, a lumbar version and a cervical version. And when new technologies are approved by the FDA, especially those that require a great deal of evidence and clinical study and clinical trials, typically insurance companies don't cover them right out of the gate, and that's understandable. They want evidence. They want long-term data. They want effectiveness information about how it works on their populations.
And we know that, and my job is to work with the insurance companies to make sure they get that evidence and ultimately, hopefully, develop a positive coverage policy or medical policy around the technology. In the meantime, typically patients can access that technology, even if it's not covered, on a case-by-case basis with their insurance companies through what's called an external review. That external review is something that all of us as insurance beneficiaries have access to. It's a right. It's codified into the PAPACA, and it's something that we all can ask for if the technology is denied, if it's not covered.
So we work with insurance companies to have patients appeal a preauthorization denial on any new non-covered technologies with every insurance company. The trigger for an external review requires a pre-authorization denial. In other words, you can't get an external review if you don't get denied on prior authorization. Every other insurance company in this country allows a prior authorization of non-covered services.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arkansas has not historically, and that is where we believe that patients have been denied access to this technology on a case-by-case basis, on a case-by-case review, and really all this bill is requiring and asking for is the patients to have that right to get a written denial of their prior authorization on a non-covered service and then to be able to then access that external review right so that they can get their case reviewed. It doesn't require that the insurance company cover it, ultimately.
That is still their decision. It just requires that they look at the case, and so that's really all that we're asking for at this point. It's not a mandate. It's just a gate that the patient can walk through to have their case evaluated.
Chair
Unverified
4:43
So let me just stop there and ask if there's any
questions or thoughts. Committee, is there any questions to the committee? Representative Wilkins, you're recognized for a
question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned on that particular disc, I think you said the cervical and the lumbar,
There's no thoracic. Okay. Are there plans for that? Is that in development?
Speaker 19
5:10
Not at this point. Not at this point. Okay. And how long
Speaker 11
5:16
has it been since those were approved? 2006 and 2007. Lumbar was approved in 2007, cervical
and 2007. Sorry, in 2006, cervical and 2007. Okay. And do you know yet, do you know how many people have taken
Speaker 19
5:33
advantage of that new technology across the United States so far?
Speaker 11
5:39
In the case where it's been covered, so some insurance companies did cover this out of the gate, we've probably had a total of about 10,000 procedures done in this country. Wow. Probably about 90 percent of those were from covered insurance companies, workers' compensation, auto insurance, and other commercial insurers, and some Medicaid. But for those that have been non-covered, it's a very small number, frankly, that go through this
process. Well, Mr. Chairman, at the right appropriate time, I'll have a motion.
And I'll also just say that I'm looking forward to utilizing the one for my neck because it's hurting right now. Thank you. I'm
know. I understand that. You know, Representative Wilkins, if the motion's right, you may get an exploratory discount on that first one. Well, can I make that
Speaker 3
6:40
at this time? At this time, I'd like to recognize Representative Viviano for a question.
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
6:45
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Currier, I believe you said 49 other states currently have this legislation in place. Yes, sir,
Representative Allen Kerr
Unverified
6:52
they do. We're trying to catch up with the rest
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
6:56
of the country here. Okay. Okay. What's been the experience of those 49 other states in the denial process? We'll
Speaker 11
7:05
leave that to you. Okay. Yeah, I mean, frankly, you know, this is something that every insurance company does simply, in some cases, as a courtesy, even when they don't cover it, so that the patient knows that they've been denied and they can then walk through this process.
Some of those patients get covered on external review. Some of them don't. And that's really up to the external reviewer. We have, you know, obviously nothing to do with that, nor does the insurance company. So it really, truly is independent. I'd say, you know, it's probably about 40 percent of the patients who go through the process
ultimately get the case covered. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, Representative Rice, you are recognized for a question. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. Someone has had two cervical fusions and nothing will make you 18 years old again.
I know that. And I realize we're just asking about the option for review, but if this is not being covered by insurance in Arkansas right now, have there been surgeries done in Arkansas, maybe non-insurance covered? Yes, there have. Okay. So that's... Primarily the workers' compensation population. It's available here. We're just lacking the insurance. We're the only state out of 50 states that don't have it.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your
Chair
Unverified
8:27
answer, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Rice. Are there any other questions in the committee?
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
8:33
Representative Perry, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As far as cost comparison between the two procedures, how would that range with
Speaker 11
8:42
this new? Typically, the artificial disc is actually paid to both the surgeon and the hospital less than a fusion, despite the fact that it's a more complicated surgery, and I won't go into why that happened,
but it actually ends up being cheaper initially. And ultimately, the goal of this technology is to prevent reoperations with further degeneration of the discs surrounding the diseased disc. So we just completed an analysis that looks at long-term cost, and ultimately it ends up being a cheaper alternative over a two- to four-year period. I do just want to reiterate, though, that this is an example of a new technology. It is not, it's truly not the only reason for this bill.
This bill is really about patient access, but I'm just highlighting the experience we've had with this technology as one example of this process. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you,
Chair
Unverified
9:35
Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Are there any other questions of the committee? Okay. Seeing none, I'm going to go to the audience. We don't have anybody signed up to speak for or against this bill, But at this time, is there anyone here that would like to speak for or against the bill? Representative Kerr, you are recognized to close for
Representative Allen Kerr
Unverified
9:54
your bill. Mr. Chairman, I am closed and ready for Mr. Wilkins' motion.
Okay. Representative Wilkins, you're recognized for your motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move do pass on House Bill 1267. That is a proper motion.
Speaker 3
10:08
We have a committee. We have a motion do pass. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed? Okay. Representative Kerr, you have passed your bill, House Bill 1267. And, Ms. Norton, I'd like to say that the committee appreciates you being here and your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, committee, very much. Yes, sir. Okay. Committee, at this time, I know this was a special order of business, but we have plenty of time before we go into session. And so, with your indulgence, I'm going to recognize Representative Marshall Wright to present Senate Bill 101.
Joe Molinaro
Unverified
11:03
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee. I've also got Joe Molinaro here, a friend of mine, with me, with one of the telecommunications providers here to answer any technical questions. This is Senator. If you would, Representative Wright, have Mr. Molinaro introduce himself to the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Joe Molinaro. I'm the Executive Director of the Arkansas Cable Telecommunications Association. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senate Bill 101, we have worked a long time on. Obviously, looking at the number, you know it's been filed a while.
It's been thoroughly vetted on the Senate end. We've worked with the Arkansas Municipal League, made changes at their request. They now support this bill regarding telecommunications and the agreements that the telecommunications providers have with the city. Basically, what this bill does is it provides a uniform agreement for telecommunications providers with the cities throughout the state. So we have a uniform agreement with the cities throughout the state and municipalities. So basically everybody will get the same deal, that the bigger cities don't get an advantage,
smaller cities don't get an advantage, and it still leaves the option of the cities to negotiate different types of transactions or contracts with the telecommunications providers. It's going to help get telecommunications speed to market, get the telecommunications providers easier access to cities throughout the state. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions. I'm sure Joe would, too. Committee members,
Chair
Unverified
12:34
are there any questions? Representative Viviano, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
12:40
Representative Wright, you said everybody gets the same deal. I'm sure that's based on a rate structure plan. Maybe, Mr. Merrill, you can explain just basically how does everybody get the same deal? Thank you,
Speaker 53
12:52
Representative. If you look in the bill in the revenue section, we pulled a gross revenue description from the Texas law, and that was actually what brought the Municipal League, one of the items that brought the Municipal League on board. What we were trying to do is find out a rate structure that we felt was fair and that they agreed upon that every municipality would be able to remain whole under this provision.
So this is as close as we got, and this was
Speaker 3
13:23
something that they approved of. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Bibiano. Are there any other questions of the committee? Okay, seeing none, I'm going to go to the audience. We do have two people wanting to speak against the bill, so at this time I'm going to recognize Mayor Stewart Nelson to speak against Senate Bill 101.
And if you all would let Mr. Nelson sit at the end of the table, I would appreciate it. Mayor Nelson, if you would recognize yourself for the committee.
Speaker 55
14:03
I'm Mayor Stuart Nelson. On? Oh, now I'm on. I'm Mayor Stuart Nelson from the city of Moralton, Arkansas. I'm
Speaker 57
14:11
here to speak against the bill. The gentleman made a statement that this came from Texas. The Texas bill is considered one of the worst bills as far as cities go for municipalities.
Don came up with this bill at the league. He brought it up. We did not have, I don't feel like we had enough time to really sit down and talk about it. So I personally question Don and the City of Little Rock has also objected to the bill. We have a couple of issues in there particularly. The statement was that it was for the cities. If you'll read the bill, you'll find that the bill says that basically if you don't like the contract that you've negotiated, you can go to the Secretary of State, and
he will issue a franchise for everybody, so that means all the companies can bail and go to the Secretary of State. We have a public service commission in the state of Arkansas that handles utilities. I cannot understand why something would go to the Secretary of State to administer. There is a 5% fee that goes on the bill, but the cities have lost their right. If the cable companies so chooses, they have their right. Cable companies can go to the Secretary of State, and we lose all right to our own access on our property.
We did add the original bill, said that they could come in and cut the street and not fix it, have access to it, and do anything they wanted. That was changed in the bill, so that helps. I think since it is no longer a bill for access to our right-of-way, I feel like what they're basically saying is the cities have a right to levy a 5% tax. I do not like the idea of tax being levied at this size on the citizens. We have no say.
The bill, if you read it carefully, says there is no say from the local municipality after the franchise is issued by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State is basically indemnified from doing anything. They can't do anything. Then I'm also concerned there is no build-out provision. The build-out provision in the bill says that the franchise companies, when they come in, can pick whatever area they want to go into your city. If they don't feel like they've got enough service in it, they don't go there.
Cities have traditionally required cable companies to come in and provide access to everyone. I see this as an excellent opportunity of franchise companies to cherry-pick in a community and cut off thousands of Arkansans from Internet access because they can't go in. Some of the providers also, this bill says that if you provide signals, programs over the Internet, you will not be taxed. So if you're going to download the program, it's a new technology.
It's not seen very far in Arkansas. But if you download programs onto your computer, that will not be taxed. It's kind of some fancy wording in there. You have to work on it. It's on page 4. That is I and B. If you read through that, you have to kind of watch that. It's kind of tricky. You have to go back and read it three or four times to understand it, which is something I noticed in this bill.
reading it three or four times before you can completely understand it. The last thing that bothers me is the public access. It basically eliminates any type of cost control that the local communities can put on the bill. A cable provider, as good as they are, we have Suddenlink and Moralton. We have worked out a deal with them. They provide access to a cable provider in our community, a PEG channel or community access channel. It's worked wonderful. They don't charge them a thing.
When my community access channel first came in and wanted to set up, they were going to charge them to bring in a location that they could send signals out. They were going to charge them $57,000. The community access channels can't charge fees on it, so that meant that the provider had to come out of his pocket to provide it. The bill says that they can provide an access point, but it doesn't say where the access point is. It also says that they have to pay to move the access point, and it doesn't have any
clauses in there about dropping how much it's going to cost them if they have to change the location. It says they have to pay for changing the location, but it doesn't say how much it's going to cost for the location and how much it's going to cost for the public access channel. I feel like the fact that it's dropping the public access or making it more difficult in the communities, taking away all control, potentially taking away all the control from cities on this bill. The fact that it is a tax bill, plain and simple, it really concerns me that the state
legislature would approve anything like this. Since we're trying so hard to extend the Internet access to people of Arkansas, this bill actually says that if a programmer goes to the state of Arkansas, he doesn't like the area that he said he wanted to do, he can come in immediately and reduce that area to whatever he wants to, to the high-paying areas, and deny so many of our people access to the Internet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mayor Nelson.
Chair
Unverified
19:41
At this time, committee, are there any questions of Mayor Nelson?
Speaker 3
19:46
Okay, seeing none, Mayor Nelson, thank you for being here and thank you for your testimony. We don't have anyone else in the audience to speak for the bill, so I'm going to go
Chair
Unverified
19:57
to Mr. Tom Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter, if you would, come to the table and recognize yourself, please, sir. Thank you,
Tom Carpenter
Unverified
20:06
Mr. Chairman. My name is Tom Carpenter. I work
Speaker 63
20:09
as the city attorney for the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. When this bill first was presented, and that's in the Senate side, one of the comments that was made by Senator Fowles is that there had been a great deal of difficulty
in a franchise renewal process in Fort Smith that had to do with the location of the religious access channel. Now, I can understand why that would seem to be the type of thing that holds up a franchise negotiation that doesn't seem to be anything to deal with that. But let me put this in perspective for you. First off, Fort Smith, ironically, has probably the first cable television case in the country from back in the 40s when they basically would beam in a signal and show certain things at the local movie theater.
But what happened is in the 1970s, the various companies had the technology advanced to a certain extent, and so they wanted to get franchises within local communities. None of these franchises are exclusive. Anybody can come in. That's the law. The problem is all of these methodologies are expensive, And so the business has to figure out what's the best way we can get in there at the least expense. And what happened in Little Rock on this with our Black Access channel, which was a PEG channel,
we had been given that channel and others as part of our initial franchise. And when it came up for franchise renewal, the company did not want us to tell them where certain things needed to go. Well, I'm not sure that if you're from Humnoak, you would know what the concerns of the populace of Little Rock is about the Black Access Channel, but I can tell you that it was very important to the people of Little Rock, and it was a very difficult negotiation to finally get into our franchise agreement that they would not change where it was on the channels.
And if you remember looking at your television at night, I'm sure none of you all ever flip through channels, but I do. Some of the channels do not get as clear a signal as other channels do. That is improved drastically with digital technology, but still there are problems as to where it's located. So those were the types of things that were going into franchise renewal processes. The city of Little Rock under this bill may be entitled to three peg channels, public, education, government access. They have four now, a right to five, and there is an argument that they really have six.
The black access is still an access channel under our franchise. That gets into where it is in the contract and how it's talked about, and I'm going to say it's not, that we've got five. This bill cuts us to three. That means that the Little Rock School District or the University of Arkansas at Little Rock or the public access channel, which is what Comcast used to broadcast the local governments throughout the county during the week into other areas, one of those will have to be
given up, or the city will have to give up its local access channel. This is a major problem. Local access channels have taken on a life of their own since this became a part of the cable community several years ago. I used this example the other day in the Senate. Two years ago in Iowa, there was a tornado. No, the only channel, the only channel that was able to broadcast emergency information was the local government access channel. All of the other carriers were out.
People depend upon these. We don't have two and three newspapers per locality anymore, and we don't have reporters going to every meeting. People watch the meetings that go on by governing bodies. They watch planning commissions, and they get involved. This bill makes it possible that that will be taken away. And if you're a community that doesn't have up to three at the time that this goes into place, you're guaranteed one government access channel. That's how it reads. I'm not sure that's how they intend it to read.
My friends in the communications industry have said that they really would like this to stay the same. And I don't doubt that's what they believe. But I also don't doubt that when I renegotiated a franchise with Comcast, I was not talking in specific terms, binding the company with Mike Wilson, the local director. I was talking with the vice president for franchises out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And her view as to what is good for Arkansas is not necessarily the same. And we learned that.
In the 1970s, we had our first franchise with Riverside. In the 1990s, we negotiated the franchise with Comcast. One of the major things that we wanted to talk about was the quality of the signal that would be available. We were offered 1980s technology, and it was only when we were able to show Alabama and other states had the higher degree of technology that we finally got Comcast to recognize we should not be treated differently. This bill has no one to argue for cities.
And I have to suggest to you, if you will look what the state of Arkansas has done in terms of being able to get information, in terms of being able to pay taxes, in terms of being able to file reports, in terms of being able to pay for parking tickets or speeding tickets or all other kinds of matters, in terms of being able to redo license applications for automobiles of all kinds, this bill says that somebody in Philadelphia can decide three to five to ten years from now that it's really not worthwhile upgrading the technology in a big part of the state of Arkansas
and it is gone. We're not going to be able to do it. Now, I like to put this in the more basic term. We insisted upon build-out within the city of Little Rock, and Comcast gave it to us and Riverside gave it to us. When AT&T came and wanted to do U-verse, we insisted upon that too. And I went back and looked at my notes yesterday. They resisted strongly. They basically weren't going to do it. We finally got them to agree to it because we agreed that for those areas where they did not put in the U-verse types of equipment, the most recent types of equipment,
they did have a satellite type of equipment, and they would make arrangements to learn to put the peg channels on those satellites. Well, what happened is they came back two years later and said, we really don't need that anymore, we're really not doing that technology. We agreed with them and took it out, and I was told when this bill comes up that they don't have an obligation to serve every citizen in the city of Little Rock. Now, in all honesty, when it gets down to something crucial for your constituents, what do you say when you say, I'm sorry, we just didn't want anybody to protect your interest?
The city of Little Rock made a suggestion that we thought was a good suggestion, that this legislation be changed, that if it's done on the state level, that a committee of the state be done, that the industry can come, all of the industry, Cox, Comcast, every individual that wishes to do so, except I guess the Conway Corporation in Paragould because they run their own system they can come to the state and they can negotiate with an intelligent body that knows
the interests of the local citizens and then that would be the phrase. We were told there was no way that was going to happen. Well why is that? Why is it? Now I can say, in all honesty, may I take just another minute Mr. Chairman? I can say that if I was Walmart and I wished to put in a new store, that I basically could tell the city to deal with their zoning things but not to impose any other requirements upon me. But the companies don't want to compete in the market. They want free access to public right-of-way.
Now, they pay a 5% franchise fee. That franchise fee they could pay themselves. They, in fact, pass it on to their customers, and federal law allows them to do that. But the point is, they will be able to come in, use our right-of-ways, tear up our right-of-ways. We can get some money for the damage, but we can make no claims on how it's to be dealt with. We cannot say, you need to cover these people. And I like the idea that there is a thing in there that says that the companies could come and negotiate with the cities to do their own franchise.
Well, if that is really a legitimate offer, make it a dual offer, that the cities and the companies will use the state franchise unless they both decide they want to have a local franchise. There are probably communities in the state of Arkansas that would really benefit from some of the aspects of this bill because they are not big enough and it is expensive to do the types of negotiations that the city of Little Rock has had to do in the past. North Little Rock benefited from it. But for many, many cities, that may well be the right thing to do.
And in the definition of gross revenue, which is substantially different from what they offered us, at least it would help them in those terms. But in terms of are you going to be able to get the access you need to be a competitor in the 21st century, and are we going to be able to tell these companies you have got to do it if you're going to be here, which we have the right to do under federal law. See, that's why they're coming to you. They've gone to the federal government. There's a docket up there right now, and every one of these companies has said, And please don't make this billed out for everybody.
That's what they've written to the federal government. They're coming to the states and they're asking, let us cut the federal government out of it. Let us cut the local government out of it. And so it's like that movie, A Few Good Men. I know you all have seen that and I love it, but there's a scene at the end of A Few Good Men after the conviction comes in when the young corporal says, what did we do wrong? We didn't do anything wrong. And the other man says, yes, we did. We were here to protect the rights of people like Willie, and we didn't do it.
I'm not speaking for the city of Little Rock. We're big enough, in all honesty, that we're probably going to get a pretty good package. We're an economic developed area. I'm speaking for the Willys that live in Humnoak, in St. Joe. I'm speaking for Fayetteville, which is opposed to this bill and is going to pass a resolution on Tuesday night opposed to it, Fayetteville, which has four access channels at the moment, and will lose one of them, and guess what the fourth one is for? University of Arkansas. And you can say, and they can say, we won't do that. Well, if they won't do it, why won't they put it in the bill? Because unless it's in the bill, they can do it, and
there's nothing we can do about it. This is not a bill that the companies came to the cities and said, we'd like to work in this direction, what can we do? This is a bill that was popped on us at the last minute with draconian revenue measures. They've given a great deal on the revenue measures, and I commend them for that. But the way that certain franchises are out there, like the city of Little Rock, we don't have a current franchise. The reason we don't have a current franchise is because there have been changes in the technology, and we want to get
a new franchise that takes care of those changes and addresses those issues and equalizes it between Comcast and AT&T. Well, this takes that away. So, you know, I mean, when we get the phone cause, I'm having troubles with Comcast, we'll tell them to call the Secretary of State. The State of Texas uses the Public Service Commission because they have people there that are aware of what's going on in the telecommunications field. You've got 10-year franchises. Let me put this in your minds for a second. What kind of phone were you using 10 years ago?
What kind of phone are you using today? Do you want to tell all the mayors of the State of Arkansas, we're not going to let you try to do what
Speaker 69
31:49
you can best for your local government?
Chair
Unverified
31:51
I will answer any questions. MR. Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Members of the committee, are there any questions for Mr. Carpenter? Representative Barnett,
Representative Jonathan Barnett
Unverified
32:00
you are recognized for a question. MR. Hey,
Representative Joe Farrer
Unverified
32:03
Tom. MR. Hi. MR. It's been several years since we've talked. MR. And I've gotten gray. MR. Yeah, me too. Have you sat down with the cable companies and visited?
Speaker 63
32:11
What interaction have you had with them? MR. Here's what happened on that. There was a meeting held on President's Day holiday between the League and Senator Fowles. Senator Fowles came and a number of issues were discussed. For one reason, I don't know why, I wasn't asked to be at that meeting, and that's where these types of issues were floated in terms of the committee that could help negotiate for the cities of the state so that it would be all the companies with one committee for the state. That makes some sense, and they just rejected it.
The utilities just rejected it. They rejected density. They rejected build-out.
Representative Joe Farrer
Unverified
32:48
If you had to prioritize here on one, two, and three on your issues, how would you prioritize? Access, public access? I would prioritize PEG first. And let
Speaker 63
32:57
me say that I would do that because I work for an entity that has told me to prioritize that. And then secondly, I would do density, which is, I mean, they've got a thing that they're not going to discriminate against any subscriber because of economic position.
Fine. Ask them to add the words ordensity in there and see if they'll say yes. And the answer is they won't. So I would go for that second. And then there's one minor change that will take care of a lot of PEG things. It's on page three, line six. It's got a definition of incumbent video service provider, and it says that it is a service provider that's there, and then it has the word and there is a franchise in place on the effective date of the statute. If they change that to or, they would take care of a lot of problems that the city of Little Rock has
because our franchise isn't technically in place. We're operating pursuant to it, but we're talking about major federal litigation if they decide they want to litigate that, and then we have even less rights. So that's a simple fix. Okay. Thank
Chair
Unverified
34:01
you. Thank you, Representative Barnett. Are there any other questions to the committee? Representative Rice, you are recognized for a question. Thank you. Mr. Carpenter, you said you
weren't at the meeting. Was somebody there to represent the city of Little Rock? We
Speaker 63
34:17
had our finance director there who talked about the financial issues.
We had nobody talking about the technical issues. But the
city of Little Rock had somebody that knew about the meeting and
Chair
Unverified
34:28
was there. And I don't know what happened. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Roush. Are there any other questions, Committee? Seeing none, Mr. Carpenter, thank you for being here and your testimony. Members of the committee, we do have one more from the audience who would like to speak for the bill. Mr. Lynn Pitcock. Mr. Pitcock, if you would recognize yourself for the committee and state who you're with. Thank
Lynn Pitcock
Unverified
34:47
you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Lynn Pitcock. I'm the Director of Government Affairs with Cox Communications.
I'm also the Vice Chairman of the Arkansas Cable Telecommunications Association. I promise I'll be brief. I think what you've just heard from Mr. Carpenter is one of the biggest issues we've had with this bill. but we disagree with many of the things that he said. And to be quite honest with you, I'm not going to address anything with the city of Little Rock because we don't serve the city of Little Rock. But when he brought up the city of Fayetteville, I do serve the city of Fayetteville. I negotiated the franchise agreement with the city of Fayetteville, and what he said Fayetteville has four peg channels and they're going to lose one is just completely incorrect.
That's my franchise. I know that. We've been dealing with this from day one. There's a lot of misinformation out there about this bill. The city of Little Rock was in that meeting on President's Day. We negotiated with the Municipal League. The Municipal League supports this bill. Everybody didn't get everything they wanted out of that meeting. We didn't get everything that we wanted, but it's a good bill. It's negotiation. It's part of the process. With respect to the way that this bill will now operate, it's the same way we operate the telephone industry in the state of Arkansas today.
You don't hear anybody complaining about that. So we take great exception. I really didn't plan on coming up and testifying until I heard something that was completely inconsistent with something I know to be the case. So with
that being said, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Mr. Pitcock, we do have one question at this
Chair
Unverified
36:14
point. Representative Wardlaw, you are recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Lee, can you tell
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
36:19
me why you chose to use Secretary of State instead of the Public Service Commission? That's a good question.
Lynn Pitcock
Unverified
36:28
You know, what we're doing here is we are codifying one franchise agreement that is made available. Nobody's mandated to enter into this franchise agreement, but we are entering into one. You see the bill in front of you. It's 18 pages. I've got documents in place today with the 70 franchises that I have that range from 8 pages to 45 pages. So we've taken the best practices, not only in the state of Arkansas, but across the country, and we're parking them at the state level so it's one agreement. It's very similar to the business license, but we have a codified franchise agreement over there.
It's very similar to the UCC corporate tax filing. Thank
Chair
Unverified
37:07
you. Representative Farrar, are you recognized for questions, sir? Thank you, Mr. Chair. The gentleman
Representative Joe Farrer
Unverified
37:16
before Mr. Carpenter said that the small rural communities may lose Internet access. Could you help me with that? Well, first of all, we're talking about a video bill
Speaker 87
37:25
here. All right. I would argue the actual opposite, Representative Farrar. I would argue that this is a speed-to-market for video.
Lynn Pitcock
Unverified
37:34
Video was the only regulatory authority that the state has in this deal. When we talk about Internet access, nobody has any authority over that. That's an unregulated product. But when you see, and I can't speak on behalf of other operators in the room, but when you see an opportunity for them to provide speed to the market, we use the same technology for the most part in video that we use in Internet. So to say that there would be a loss of Internet service, I think,
Speaker 87
37:59
is the complete opposite of what this bill will do. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Chair
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38:05
MR. Thank you, Representative Farrar. Representative Barnett, you are recognized for
Representative Joe Farrer
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38:13
a question. MR. Would you try to address or have somebody address the concerns that Little Rock has on the access to the amount of channels they're saying may be limited to three and they may need five? Could somebody
Speaker 84
38:25
address that? Let me tell you, Representative Barnett, this bill
Lynn Pitcock
Unverified
38:29
has been out here for a month and a half. We feel that in the negotiations that took place with the Municipal League, nobody loses any peg.
They might disagree with us on that. It was never the intent, but we don't think they lose anything in there today as a result of that. So we think those issues have been addressed. With respect to density and this issue of universal service, first of all, I think there are a number of current law cases as the businesses become competitive have found that a municipal authority can no longer mandate
Speaker 87
39:02
build out, which is what we're talking about. But secondly, I have communities where I've entered into agreements where I've been mandated to build out, but my competitor has not.
Lynn Pitcock
Unverified
39:15
And I think that's the case in the city of Little Rock today. I think that they are able to use the term with their competitor that we will build out. well, you've heard Mr. Carpenter say they're using satellite technology. So if we're going to use satellite technology, the whole state is built out today. So I think it's interesting that we were having an argument about a universal build-out provision in the state, but you have municipalities that have the authority to do that today that are not requiring it of the very entities that they're regulating. They're saying some have to build out and others can use satellite technology
You only have to do it when it's technologically or economically feasible. They've been addressed, Representative Barnett, to
Chair
Unverified
40:00
answer your question. Representative Barnett, are you finished? Okay. Are there any other questions? Representative Copenhaver, you are recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Motion at the proper time. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman. Excuse me. Speaker. Mr. Chairman. I will recognize you for a motion at the proper time.
Are there any other questions, Mr. Pitcock? Thank you, Mr. Pitcock. Seeing no one else in the audience speaking for or against, Representative Wright, are you ready to close for
Joe Molinaro
Unverified
40:27
your bill? Briefly, Mr. Chairman, if you'll allow me. Committee, I find it quite disingenuous that what you have are two people that have come up here to speak against the bill. That one started off by saying, I haven't had enough time. This bill's been filed for six weeks. And to say they've not had enough time is just disingenuous. And then another person that's come up here to basically say, we don't like the bill because this is what we've lost.
What they've done is they've thrown out some words like, the city's going to lose control of the right-of-way. That's just not true. It's just not true. You read the bill. We've worked with the Municipal League on this. The Municipal League as a whole supports it. We've got a couple people, like Mr. Pitcock said, that said, we're not happy with everything, so we're going to lose something, so the rest of the state should suffer for that. The peg channels are grandfathered in. Those issues have been addressed. I think this is a good bill. It's been worked on for the last six weeks with everybody's input.
We've changed it. We've amended it to make it the best bill we possibly can for the state, and I believe it's a good
Chair
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41:29
bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative Wright. Representative Copenhagen, you are recognized for a
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
41:34
motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Do pass. Okay,
Speaker 3
41:37
that's a proper motion. Committee, we have a motion to do pass on Senate Bill 101. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. Congratulations, Representative Wright. You have passed Senate Bill 101. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Committee. Thank you.
Committee, at this time, we've got 17 minutes left. Do we have anyone here to run House Bill 1419? Okay, seeing none, do we have anyone here to run Senate Bill 271? Okay. Representative Viviano, House Bill 1508. Do you have time? Okay, we'll pass over that. House Bill 1510. House Bill 1529.
Well, with no one here to run those bills, if I could get a motion to adjourn. So move.
Agenda
HB1267
SB101
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative Allen Kerr
Unverified
Representative Jonathan Barnett
Unverified
Speaker 5
Speaker 11
Chair
Unverified
Representative Butch Wilkins Chair
Unverified
Speaker 19
Speaker 15
Speaker 3
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
Representative Terry Rice Chair
Unverified
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
Joe Molinaro
Unverified
Speaker 53
Speaker 55
Speaker 57
Tom Carpenter
Unverified
Speaker 63
Speaker 69
Representative Joe Farrer
Unverified
Lynn Pitcock
Unverified
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
Speaker 87
Speaker 84
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified