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House Insurance & Commerce Committee

March 11, 2011
Video Transcript

Bills discussed (9)

Bill Title Sponsor Status
HB1992 · 4 mentions in transcript
Matched: “…g that's not out of the ordinary. So do we expect to get to House Bill 1992 today? We do. Okay. I hope so, because we've got a lot of p…”
Pre-2017 bill
HB1981 · 3 mentions in transcript
Matched: “…epresentative Burnett, what's the number you'll be in? It's House Bill 1981.”
Pre-2017 bill
HB2016 · 3 mentions in transcript
Matched: “…officially coming to order. The first order of business is House Bill 2016 by Representative Ingram. What's your motion? to take”
Pre-2017 bill
HB1572 · 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…se Bill 1927, 1934, 1981? 1881. We just did that one. 1986. House Bill 1572. House Bill 17. Pass on it. Okay. House House Bill 1711, Ho…”
Pre-2017 bill
HB17 · 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…4, 1981? 1881. We just did that one. 1986. House Bill 1572. House Bill 17. Pass on it. Okay. House House Bill 1711, House Bill 1793,”
Pre-2017 bill
HB1711 · 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…86. House Bill 1572. House Bill 17. Pass on it. Okay. House House Bill 1711, House Bill 1793,”
Pre-2017 bill
HB1793 · 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…72. House Bill 17. Pass on it. Okay. House House Bill 1711, House Bill 1793,”
Pre-2017 bill
HB1920 · 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “item on the agenda is House Bill 1920. Thank you Mr. Chairman, I move to”
Pre-2017 bill
HB1927 · 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “present House Bill 1927, 1934, 1981? 1881. We just did that one. 1986. House Bill 1…”
Pre-2017 bill

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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 0:00
Come to order. The chair seats a quorum, members and guests, the meeting is officially coming to order. The first order of business is House Bill 2016 by Representative Ingram. What's your motion? to take
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Representative Mark Biviano Unverified 0:24
a bill out of proper order. The chair is not going to recognize that motion.
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Speaker 6 0:34
Representative Ingram, you recognize the present
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 0:37
your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. House Bill 2016 is a simple clarification on a materialman or mechanics lien. Currently, there is a difference in how a lien is treated if it's a piece of commercial property versus a residential property. On a residential property, before you can file a lien, you must give a 10 days notice. On a commercial job, you give a 75-day notice that is given from the last date of the invoice. We have had some judges that have misconstrued or confused the law in the sense of confusing between the commercial and the residential. We've had some people that have had liens that have been disallowed because they didn't file a 10-day lien, but it was on a commercial job that had already been liened 75 days previous. So this is strictly a simplification of the law, and it reads, the notice under this section is not required if the lien claimant has complied with the notice of requirements. So I will be more than happy to take any questions regarding this. Members, I have a Representative Wright, do you reckon I ask a question? Motion at the
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 2:25
proper time. Okay. Any further questions? Representative B. Viano, did you have a question? I was going to make the same motion. Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone in the audience that want to speak for or against the bill? The motion before us is passed by House Bill 2016. Representative Wright, you recognized. Thank
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Representative Marshall Wright Unverified 2:50
you, Mr. Chairman. Motion do pass.
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 2:53
Okay. All in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, though? So congratulations, Representative Ingram, you passed your bill. Mr. Chairman, I have committee. I really appreciate you all letting me give this bill. And I hadn't seen this many people together
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 3:18
since last Jonathan Barnett's surprise birthday party. So glad to be
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Speaker 18 3:25
here. Is Representative Dan Williams in here?
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 3:34
You're about to ask a question, Ms. Viviana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can we get an explanation why we're skipping over the bills all the way down to . . . You sure can. This is not uncommon for us to do it. We did it at the last meeting, and the last meeting that I was at, when I was presenting the bill, they did it. So this is something that's not out of the ordinary. So do we expect to get to House Bill 1992 today? We do. Okay. I hope so, because we've got a lot of people here that are interested in that. Okay. Representative Barnett, do you recognize the presidential deal?
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Representative Jonathan Barnett Unverified 4:07
Representative Burnett, what's the number you'll be in? It's House Bill 1981. I'm actually Representative Edwards could not be here and he asked me just to read a statement and then we're going to try to explain the bill Okay, you recommend I have to present your bill Okay, thank you all, appreciate you all showing up to hear this today and sorry that Representative Edwards couldn't be here, but House Bill 1981 it amends various sections of the Fair Mortgage Lending Act, many of the provisions make technical or clarifying changes in an effort to provide clear guidance to the mortgage lending industry. Some of the other changes are more technical, but believed to be non-controversial, as neither I nor the Arkansas Securities Department has received comments against this bill. The Arkansas Securities Commissioner, Heath Absher, is here and will be happy to answer any questions that the committee may have on this House bill. I understand that Mr. Edwards, or Representative Edwards, is in the House. If he wants to come down here, I'd be glad to.
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Representative John Charles Edwards Unverified 5:42
There you go. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my able colleague for getting me started on this, but I've had this bill looked at by many individuals, including the Banking Association, and I've received no objections to it, so we're happy to take any questions.
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 6:17
Representative Viviano, you recognize the question? Motion, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Motion to pass.
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 6:23
Okay. Are there any questions from the committee members? Is there anyone in the audience who wants to speak for or against the bill? You recognize for your motion. You can make your motion. The motion in front of us today is passed by the following bill. All in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Opposed? Congratulations, Representative Edwards. You passed House Bill 1981. Thank you. The next
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 6:58
item on the agenda is House Bill 1920. Thank you Mr. Chairman, I move to
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Representative Bruce Westerman Unverified 7:11
take out a proper order, House Bill 1992. Let me go down the agenda first,
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 7:21
I'm not going to recognize that motion right now. Is there anyone here to present House Bill 1927, 1934, 1981? 1881. We just did that one. 1986. House Bill 1572. House Bill 17. Pass on it. Okay. House House Bill 1711, House Bill 1793,
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Speaker 47 7:59
1795, 1841, what about
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 8:06
you, 1879, what about House Bill 1738? Okay. The next item on the agenda is House Bill 1992. Representative Baker, you're recognized to have a seat at the end of the table and present your
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Representative Tommy Lee Baker Chair Unverified 8:31
bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I'd like to Thank you. Mr. Chairman, House Bill 1992 is an attempt to stop some of the hemorrhaging that's happening and then the north central Arkansas to our highway systems at the beginning when we start to looking at an overall program to fix the problem with the highway department, we found that we had some issues with this and with the severance tax. Mr. Becker, excuse me, is
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 9:50
there an amendment to this bill? There is an amendment. Okay. Let's work on the amendment first. Okay, someone is going to make
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Representative Tommy Lee Baker Chair Unverified 10:03
a motion to adopt the amendment. Well, she's distributing it.
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Representative Allen Kerr Unverified 10:10
In the meantime, Representative Baker, do
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Representative Tommy Lee Baker Chair Unverified 10:15
you want to explain your amendment? The amendment clarifies what is in the bill and makes a clarification as to what's in the bill. Hold on.
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Speaker 60 10:42
Pare, pare el lago. Pare el lago. Pare. Ayúdame, como se me da. Okay. After
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 11:02
revering the amendment, what is the pleasure of the committee? I move to adoption
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 11:08
of the amendment. Okay. All in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye's have it. Proceed, Representative Baker. Mr.
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Representative Tommy Lee Baker Chair Unverified 11:23
Chairman, members of the committee, we want to talk about the reason for this amendment to the severance tax. And we have here Mr. Dan Flowers, the Highway Commission, to explain what is happening when we first started looking at the state of Arkansas, what is happening to the roads and how to get our roads up to condition. We found that there was a different problem. And I'm going to ask, with your permission, Mr. Dan Flowers, to present what's happening in the shale area and then we'll have a better idea of why we need to do this. Okay. Mr. Flowers,
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 12:03
state your name and who you represent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
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Speaker 66 12:08
members of the committee. I'm Dan Flowers. I'm Director of the State Highway and Transportation Department. I have with me today our Chief Engineer and Deputy Director, Frank Bozell, Assistant Chief engineer for planning, Scott Bennett. We have a little presentation that we can hand out for you to take with you, whatever you like. But this is information that we have presented to several legislative committees over the last couple of years dealing with damage to the state highway system within the Fayetteville Shale play area of north central Arkansas. Scott, would you give them this presentation to hand out? Back in basically 2004, we started taking a close look at what was going on in the Fayetteville Shale area. And I'll have to tell you that we were able to work with Some of the production companies, SECO, Chesapeake, were two of the major players, and their staff has been very helpful in helping us understand their activities, what it takes to drill wells and complete wells, and take care of the production activities on the wells. You'll see in the presentation on page two the number of active wells in the Fayetteville Shale region. The ones that we have been concerned with most recently are those in the area generally between Russellville and Searcy, Conway, and Marshall area. There is a great deal of heavy hauling associated with the gas drilling and production activities, and all of you who are familiar with the area know that. You can see it when you go up there. Our highway districts with headquarters in Russellville and Batesville are the two districts that handle most of the maintenance activities within the counties where the Fayetteville Shale activities are going on. And right now, our best estimate getting this information from the Oil and Gas Commission is there's approximately 4,300 active wells in the Shale Play area. There are a number of routes on the state highway system that have in years past been posted for reduced weight limits. The maximum weight limit in Arkansas is 80,000 pounds on all non-restricted routes, but we have posted a number of highways not only in the shale area but around the state, particularly in East Arkansas where the agricultural and timber activities in the south have caused damage to roads. But in order to be able to control the damage best we can, we reduced the weight limit. And we have had to do some of that in the Fayetteville Shale area. We have taken the information that we have received from the production companies. Again, I want to say they've been very forthcoming in providing us with the information regarding their activities. The number of vehicles of various types and sizes that it takes to drill and complete wells, they've shared that with us. And we have worked to try to arrive at a reasonable way of evaluating the roads and a reasonable way of trying to get an accommodation as far as financial assistance on those roads and providing them access wherever they need to. These weight-restricted roads in years past, we would not issue heavy overweight permits for large vehicles. We realize that up in that area, wells are everywhere. got to get everywhere. And so we have done a lot of work. And you'll see on page five of your handout some of the equipment that we have used to evaluate roads. It's not just something we go out and just guess at. I think we have a question coming up. Yes. Motion. Mr. Bibiano, I'm not going to recognize that. And again, I'm not going
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 17:12
to allow you to run this meeting. Okay. I'd just like him to speak on the bill. Okay. Proceed. Proceed.
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Speaker 70 17:22
I'm getting confused here. Now, you want me to speak on the
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Speaker 66 17:28
bill? I was asked to come and speak to the road damage in the Fayetteville Shale area. What's the pleasure of the committee?
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Representative Tommy Lee Baker Chair Unverified 17:40
I'd like to have him speak on the road damage because the road damage is what caused this bill to be here today. And we are here to, as representative of the state of Arkansas, to get Arkansas in balance with its finances. And that is not happening today, so I'd like him to speak on the damage that occurred once we start to get a
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Speaker 70 18:06
road program into place. Proceed, Mr. Flattles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'll
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Speaker 66 18:12
try to be very brief. We have done a lot of science work as far as evaluating our roads. This equipment that you see on page five is for that purpose. It logs the rutting, the cracking, the resistance, weight resistance on the roads. Some examples, and those of you who aren't familiar with the area, this might be of interest to you. of you who are up in that area see it and know what we're talking about. On page 6, Highway 124 in Faulkner County, we have photo logs from 2006. We have photo log in 2008 and 2010, and you can see the progression of the damage to the road. These are all the same sites, so you can see the progression of the road damage. Conway 31 in White County on page 7, same situation, showing just the progression of the road damage. 124 in Conway County, same thing. So it's something that our maintenance forces have to deal with. State Highway Commission has to deal with that also. In order to provide access to the overweight vehicles, we have worked out an arrangement where we assess the production company's maintenance assessment per well on weight-restricted roads. That gives them the opportunity to get a permit to access these sites on weight-restricted roads. And you can see in 2008, it was $18,000 a well, 2009, $16,500, 2010, $41,000 a well. working to try to determine what the appropriate maintenance assessment is for the coming year. This is all based on calculating the load damage based on the various types of vehicles. Some of the vehicles that get these permits are upwards of 140,000 pounds, but there's a tremendous amount of non-divisible loads such as water trucks, pipe stem trucks, you name it, gravel trucks, dirt trucks that have to get to these sites to build the well pad. Now the industry is changing their operations. Since we started there are more multiple wells per pad, which is good. There's piping of water rather than hauling of water, which is good, and we've tried to make accommodation for the water delivery across our highways through pipes. So we think we're working well with the industry in getting some of these things in place to where it will reduce the amount of vehicles on the state highways. I'm going to be – get straight to the point here. We have made analysis on all the roads in the Fayetteville Shale area. They're affected by the activities. And the bottom line on about 812 miles of highway, the estimate is $455 million to bring these roads back into acceptable condition since the activities started. So with that, Mr. Chairman, that is basically what we do to look at road damage. All the severance tax that is collected goes to either the State Highway Department, the cities, or the counties under the normal highway distribution law. The original projections are on page 11. You can see in 2009 it was predicted that the severance tax would bring in almost $13 million. It actually brought in . . . Excuse me, Mr.
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 22:23
Fowles. Some of us don't have a page 11.
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Speaker 70 22:27
Okay, there's two slides per page. I've got one. So you go back, there's a chart back there that says projected severance tax revenue. It would be toward the back, page 6. MR. Okay. Since projections were made, there has obviously been
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Speaker 66 22:50
changes in price which of the gas, which has resulted in the actual receipts somewhat less than projected. That could change in the future. Forty-seven million was projected for ten. We received twenty-nine million. Projection for 2011, the current year, is about fifty-five million. We anticipate, based on our projections, approximately 30 million. Seventy percent or five percent comes off the top, and that's reserved for the counties. Seventy percent of the 95 percent goes to the highway department. Fifteen percent goes to the cities and to the counties. The five percent that comes off the top is intended to be used in the Fayetteville Shale area for problems to have to deal with. And we have worked with the County Judges Association, Judge Hart is here, and we have arrived at a distribution formula of that five percent based on the proportional amount of producing wells in the counties in the Fayetteville Shale. And we distributed approximately $2 million this last year to the counties under that formula. And it was agreed to by the Department, the Commission, and the County Judges Association. Another significant thing that has been
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 24:26
accomplished just this last year
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Speaker 66 24:29
has been the The Highway Commission elected
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Speaker 70 24:35
to distribute the severance tax that we received totally
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Speaker 66 24:43
to the Fayetteville Shale area because of the problems that we have experienced up there in taking care of the roads. And if you're up in that area, you're familiar with the area, you'll know that we've done a number of widening and overlay projects just this last fall. We have some more planned for this spring and summer. So the Highway Commission has directed all the severance tax from natural gas that we have received to handling problems in the Fayetteville Shale area. Now these are funds that could be used anywhere in the state. They were directed to the Highway Department under the Highway Distribution Act, and the Highway Commission saw the necessity of directing it to the Fayetteville Shale area, however, because of the significant problem that we have up there. So, Mr. Chairman, that's basically our report on highway damage, and we'd be happy to take any questions. Mr. Chairman, do you
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Representative Bobby J. Pierce Unverified 25:47
recommend I ask the question? Thank you, Mr. Flyer. How much damage does the total, you said in there, and I couldn't understand. How much damage total have we got up
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Speaker 66 25:59
there right now you need? And
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Representative Bobby J. Pierce Unverified 26:01
how much money? My estimate is $455 million. How much money we've got coming in?
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Speaker 70 26:11
Is this on page six here? We've got $55 million
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Speaker 66 26:16
coming in? Or $211? Yeah, we have, let me get back over here. In 2010, we had $29 million, 2009, $6.5 million. So that is all the money that we received so far in severance tax, other than what we received this half of a fiscal year in 2010, which would be around $15 million more. So we've got, you received, and we've got $450 million
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Representative Bobby J. Pierce Unverified 26:38
worth of damages, is that what you are saying? MR. Yes, sir. Okay. What was your projected estimate
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Speaker 79 26:47
of damage on roads when we signed this lease agreement? MR. Well, we did not
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Speaker 66 26:53
have a projection when they first started. We just started seeing damage occur on these routes due to the heavy hauling and started engaging conversation with the production companies, which resulted in some reasonably good ways of assessing some maintenance fees, and it just, as time goes on, damage continues to be incurred.
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Representative Bobby J. Pierce Unverified 27:26
Are you saying our damage is outweighing what we've got coming in? Well, sure, yes. That's what I want to hear. you wasn't level
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Representative Buddy Lovell Unverified 27:39
thank you mr. chairman mr. flowers you and I have we've discussed the per well cost for some time and and I appreciate you putting in on page it's probably your page 8 highway 124 in Conway County which is was the subject to man in your last conversation about that like I made the made the comment that I'm sure it was gravel some years ago and it was almost going back to gravel at the time but now you've completely overlaid that road and it's in great shape but I'd like for you to comment on page, it'd probably be your page 9, it's on top of our page 5 you and I have also had discussions about the per well cost I'm kind of curious as to why. We started out with $18,000 a well with what the sun set at the end of each year and then were able to renegotiate and reevaluate at the end of each year. But I'm kind of interested in 2008 we knew that it was doing a whole lot more damage than we thought it would. But then in 2009 we went down to $16,500 per well. Could you explain that?
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Speaker 66 29:00
Well, in developing these calculations, we had to rely basically on the number of wells that would be drilled on these particular routes, and a number of routes with different links causes a lot of problems in trying to evaluate each road, so we picked an average road, an average length of road, and then we got the information from the drilling companies on how many wells that they had projected, and in all the calculations the number of wells have a significant amount of impact on it. So there were less wells drilled on some of these routes than they had projected, but you'll notice that we made that correction in 2010 and it raised the maintenance assessment fee significantly. In this period of time, they've also changed some of the methods that they're using. They're using multiple wells or drilling multiple wells on the same pad and they're transporting water to these well sites differently. They're piping a lot more water than they're hauling to some of these areas where water is available. So that's helped also. But we're in the process right now of trying to recalculate that maintenance assessment, and we hope to have that done in the next couple of months.
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Representative Buddy Lovell Unverified 30:38
Okay. A follow-up, Mr. Chair, if I might. Sure. You're talking about multiple wells on a pad. each
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Speaker 70 30:50
of those wells pay? Yes. The first well is the
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Speaker 66 30:55
most expensive, and then because you don't have to haul the dirt and the gravel and the water and all that stuff to the subsequent wells, then the cost goes down. There's more or less a matrix of schedule depending on whether you You have multiple wells on the pad, how you get
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Representative Buddy Lovell Unverified 31:18
the water to it, that sort of thing. I understand the economics to the drilling company. I'm talking about the highway department. Does the highway department receive the
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Speaker 70 31:31
same amount per each well that's on the same pad? No. So the well, the primary cost of the
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Speaker 66 31:39
first well involves hauling the dirt, building the pad, hauling the equipment out there, hauling the gravel to it. And so that's the most intensive as far as the use of the highway is concerned. The subsequent wells, obviously, you're not building another pad, so you have less trips with heavy vehicles. Okay, so I
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Representative Buddy Lovell Unverified 32:01
guess a short answer would be, or a short question would be, if it's $41,200 per well in 2010, how much was it for the second well on the same pad? I don't
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Speaker 66 32:17
have the schedule here with me. Yes, I do. Excuse me, if I
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Speaker 87 32:43
can find it right quick. Well, I'll have to look it up. I'll give it to you
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Representative Buddy Lovell Unverified 32:49
before this is over with. Okay. And then I guess the last bullet point on your chart was analysis in progress for 2011 assessment. I kind of wonder why we're three months into 2011. We don't know what the assessment is going to be, but
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Speaker 70 33:06
is that retroactive once you get it computed? No, sir. We started these assessments with March 31st as the
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Representative Buddy Lovell Unverified 33:19
target date for each year. Okay, and then the $6,463,111 that's collected to date, and that's the per well fees, is that included in your projection on page 11, your page 11, our
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Speaker 88 33:35
page 6? No, that's on 11, it's just the severance tax. Okay. Thank you,
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 33:44
Mr. Chair. Okay. Representative Westman, you're
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Representative Bruce Westerman Unverified 33:47
recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Flowers, you stated that the gas industry has worked to provide vehicle and traffic data. I was wondering, could you share with us how many trucks are used each year in gas production, how many loaded road miles, and how
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Speaker 70 34:06
much freight is moved each year? Well, the information that we got had to do with the typical well, how you, what type of equipment you, find that schedule, what type of equipment it takes to drill a well. And it was in the neighborhood of 1,500 loads, 1,500 trips. And of all types of equipment,
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Speaker 66 34:37
obviously, and these people in the room know more about this than I do, but there are some very heavy units, maybe up to 140,000 pounds that would require
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Speaker 68 34:48
permits. There are less of them, obviously. The big trip generators are the dirt trucks and the gravel trucks and particularly the water trucks that service the wells. Okay, and a follow-up to that.
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Representative Bruce Westerman Unverified 35:06
What was the natural gas severance tax total
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Speaker 88 35:11
last year? Last year was $29.1 million. In 2009, it was $6.5 million. Okay, I got a
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Representative Bruce Westerman Unverified 35:19
number from the revenue book that said $42.9 million, but maybe I copied that wrong. But I don't live in the Fayetteville-Shell area, but I do live. The part
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Speaker 66 35:31
we're giving you is just the highway department's
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Representative Bruce Westerman Unverified 35:35
share. Okay. But the total severance tax was in the $42.9 million? Probably correct, yeah. I don't live in the Fayetteville Shell area, but I do live in timber production area. And I did a little research, and we sever about 20 million tons per year of timber in the state. And if we just look at 25 tons per load, that's about 800,000 truckloads of timber that we move. Yet the severance tax on timber is only about $2.9 million. And I'm not advocating we raise the severance tax on timber because I know that with the economy like it is, they're in a tough situation right now as well. Then I looked at ag crops, and it looks like we produce a little over 11 million tons per year of ag crops. And that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 450,000 truckloads. And these are just one way. It doesn't count after you get it to the facility and process it and move it back out. So you could probably come close to doubling these numbers. And as far as I can tell, there's no severance tax on agriculture. Then we could look at poultry and we could look at retail like Walmart. I know there's a lot of people or a lot of freight that moves. But yet my question is, how come we're targeting gas production for this tax? You
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Representative Mark Biviano Unverified 37:01
might ask yourself that. I've asked myself
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Representative Bruce Westerman Unverified 37:07
that, and I haven't come up with a good answer
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Speaker 96 37:11
yet. On order, on order, please, Mr. Chairman.
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Representative Jonathan Barnett Unverified 37:21
Mr. Chairman, could we get Representative Robert
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Representative Tommy Lee Baker Chair Unverified 37:24
Moore to come down here and talk to the specifics for the state of Arkansas and the effects that this is putting us in? He's part of the presentation. He's part of my presentation.
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 37:39
Okay, we have about 10 minutes. We have more questions. We have... Mr. Chair, I have a
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Speaker 98 37:46
motion to limit debate. We're against a hard time I'm going to say five minutes to each side.
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 37:54
No. I don't think that's going to be enough time. No. I guess it's 10 o'clock. Adjournment of
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Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified 38:04
this committee. We may have to meet again on it. This is too important. Okay. I've got a question. Okay, hold on one second. Representative Rean, you recognize for
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Representative Rean Unverified 38:20
a question. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Flowers, I'm trying to get my hands around this, so I'm sure these questions are going to be a little bit repetitive, but it's something I'd like to know. These figures I've got sitting in front of me are from the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. Are these engineers that are looking at this damage and determining how much it is? Yes, sir. Okay. And currently we've got 812 miles of damaged road. Is that correct? Yes, sir. That's our estimate. Okay, your estimate. And the cost of that damage is $455 million, correct? Yes, sir. And so far, because of the severance tax, we've collected $35 million. Is that correct? Yes, sir. So we've got $420 million left that we're going to have to try to get to recoup those roads. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And according to these figures here, we're going to collect another $96 million projected over, okay. So that's still going to leave us with $316 million, or I'm sorry, $324 million that we're going to have to come up with. Whether we come up with it now or we come up with it later, we've got $324 million in damage that we're going to have to come up with. That's correct. Okay. I've got my arms around that, around the fiscal impact of that. Now, if we do nothing, we've got 812 miles of damaged road. If we continue doing what we're doing, will we have more than 812 miles of damaged road? I suspect we will. Okay. Because we are drilling every day. The natural gas companies are drilling new wells. Is that correct? Yes. Across this geographic area. Yes. Okay. So whether we deal with this now or we deal with it later, Arkansas is going to have to deal with the damage to these roads. And right now, we're staring at $324 million. Correct. Okay. I have no further questions, Mr. Chair. President Rice, you recognize.
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Representative Terry Rice Unverified 40:37
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I don't mind going and using all the time we have, but I'm going to make a motion at the proper time that we extend this to special order next week. I want everybody to have the opportunity to voice what they need to do. We don't need to run out of
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Representative Jonathan Barnett Unverified 40:57
time today. That is a problem. I second. Okay. We have a motion. Any
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 41:02
discussion on the motion? Okay. All in favor of setting this a special order of business for Wednesday of next week, 10 a.m. Let's make it at 11 a.m. so
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Speaker 97 41:21
we can run some other bills,
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Speaker 24 41:24
if that's okay. No. Let's do it first. Okay. Okay. Okay. 10 a.m. Okay. All in
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Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified 41:32
favor, let it be done by
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Speaker 84 41:37
saying aye. Aye. Okay. Motion carries. We'll
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Speaker 37 41:43
set it for 10 a.m. on next Wednesday.
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Agenda

No agenda available.

Documents

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Speakers

Representative Fred Allen Chair Unverified
25 segments
Representative Mark Biviano Unverified
2 segments
Speaker 6
1 segment
Representative Keith M. Ingram Chair Unverified
12 segments
Representative Marshall Wright Unverified
1 segment
Speaker 18
1 segment
Representative Jonathan Barnett Unverified
6 segments
Representative John Charles Edwards Unverified
1 segment
Representative Bruce Westerman Unverified
10 segments
Speaker 47
1 segment
Representative Tommy Lee Baker Chair Unverified
16 segments
Representative Allen Kerr Unverified
1 segment
Speaker 60
1 segment
Speaker 66
42 segments
Speaker 70
10 segments
Representative Bobby J. Pierce Unverified
6 segments
Speaker 79
1 segment
Representative Buddy Lovell Unverified
10 segments
Speaker 87
1 segment
Speaker 88
2 segments
Speaker 68
1 segment
Speaker 96
1 segment
Speaker 98
1 segment
Representative Rean Unverified
5 segments
Representative Terry Rice Unverified
1 segment
Speaker 97
1 segment
Speaker 24
1 segment
Speaker 84
1 segment
Speaker 37
1 segment