Advanced Communications and Information Technology - House

And then when you're seated going to Senators yourself to the committee and then you're are recognized to here comes our vice chair now but go ahead you can present your bill yeah go ahead go ahead you're down there let's go out. Thank you Mr chair Rick McClure state representative district twenty nine. Mister would you like me per se yes please Sir. H. B. seventeen ninety nine addresses something that is not a everyday topic but is a growing industry in our state basically what this bill does is set some boundaries and guidelines for future growth of all data centers and which will include as digital my asset mining as well of the lot of the bill contains definitions which is a large part of it. Basically what we're saying in the bill is as long as the data center is operating within the zoning laws state laws of city the county and all the ordinances that they shouldn't be singled out if they're in compliance with the existing ordinances that are already there there are two statements there that talk about how all bills and taxes need to be paid are all taxes and government fees need to be paid and forms of acceptable currency which right now is the US dollar but there is some language in here from inter G. there is some language in here from the public service commission because we want to make sure we were good with all of them enter G. is neutral haven't spoken to the call ups but they haven't said anything to us the association counties is neutral Municipal League is neutral and I think I don't know if anybody hears from a U. D. C. but I think they're neutral also and some of our neighboring states such as Mississippi and Missouri up got bills or process in the past at least one part of their legislative lysis legislature and Montana's also got the billing process so with that I will take any questions. Okay I do have one one and this is a concern that comes from my constituents because there is a a crypto mining being built and in my area and noise is the the big concern and I noticed in here you've got that local governments cannot enact any limits on these for noise pollution can you go into that a little bit I will try to answer that and same time asco one of my constituents that's involved in this camera to come to the table and he'll introduce himself and just a second so as most of you know if you have a commercial zone with that zone one zone two and those industrials Sony's there are if you look there is a decibel level on noise and each one of those the same thing with a commercial piece of property within the city those have decibel levels of what's acceptable so basically all this says is that they're already operating within that you can't go back and refunds on and resolve something that's already operating according to the current saw. House at a pile in the county. at this moment I think what's going to happen is that's going to be up to the quorum court and the judges to make sure that whatever these goes that there's not interference because I guess the counties can do whatever they want to actually we have a two projects that my constituent are working on one is in an industrial park right outside a Mountain Pine the other one is a maybe a location down the road between Malvern in hot springs those are very very good questions and those will probably be answered to the core of course before they ever start operating so. And I don't of your gas has any comments you would introduce yourself to the committee and then you're you're welcome to. Awesome thank you my names Cameron Baker owner of critic farms veteran owned and operated crypto mining so knows put pollution is a pretty common issue we're we're used to addressing that what we're trying to saying the bill is don't create new rules to punish us you know use existing tool set that you have we're all familiar with the the rules and regulations as they are now so when work investing our dollars into these communities were doing so under the rules as they were already written or trying to prevent is a road pole in the future we're not trying to limit the ability of the local leadership to to guide their commercial industrial policy within within their area and the way they see fit we're just trying to be as up front and transparent with how all of this is done to encourage these investment dollars to continue but there's nothing else okay committee any questions. Okay saying none from the Committee I don't think we have anybody signed up to speak. for or against anybody in the audience who would like to speak for or against this bill. Okay saying none representative you are recognized to close for your bill thank you Mr chairman I mean just that this there are bad actors that are out there and I think what this the bill does it give some reassurance to city councils perform Clarke courts that if a business comes in and they are operating under the current rules. Let's don't go make new rules so there will be bad actors our current roles will address those they they won't be able to get around enter G. they won't get be able to get around public service commission and the this will bring I think will answer a lot of questions for communities run state with that I'm closer to and now since you are a member of this committee would you like to make a motion for your bill yes I would appreciate the emotion or do pass okay we've got a a motion of do pass representative to color any discussion on the motion. Okay saying none all in favor please say aye. Any opposed taking regulations representative bills passed thank you very much hi colleagues next we're gonna go to Senate bill three seventy six we do have an amendment so I'm gonna take the into the table staff will pass that The Amendment out and I will hand over the reins to our vice chair. Thank you. Representative to make sure recognized for your amendment. Thank you colleagues to this amendment is come from the bankers association they caught a of security concern that should have been addressed in the bill and so with that I would ask for the committee's the adoption happy to take any questions on. Representative very you're recognized for a question. Okay. No from anyone that signed up to speak for against the amendment. Seeing none with the will of the committee. We have a motion to pass. Yes Sir all those in favor say aye hi opposed. Graduations your minutes adopted your recognized to present the bill as amended all right thank you colleagues as we've discussed in the the the past back in twenty fifteen I passed a bill that set up the data and transparency panel with the idea of trying to get state agencies to better share data with the ultimate goal of being able to create a single citizen portal where the citizens of the state can come to one location and receive information services so they don't have to go to a bunch of different areas also to allow all state government to be more efficient about our use of data and essentially what this bill does is it just requires state agencies to share data with other state agencies and with the I. S. in order to bring this to a fruition the Amendment you just adopted insurers that any of that data sharing that's going on does not violate existing privacy or state federal laws and with that I'll let my guess introduce himself and make any further comments. Good morning Mr chairman vers of the committee this bill really clean please introduce yourself for the record I am Robert located that state's chief data officer with the Division of information so thank you Sir you're recognized. At this bill lately the clean up to align language with the the recommendations from the date and Transparency panel's finding recommendations study that was adopted by the detention center panel and the recommendations from the data sharing and data driven decision making LC task force and subcommittee it it moves from the state would it or house approach sep for the ninety nine twelve of twenty seventeen to a data which gives us but both the benefits of kind of rear looking for Analyzing and historical performance but also facilitating more operational decision making to better address the needs outlined in at twelve eighty two of twenty fifteen. So so the idea here is that the data warehouses we would take all the data and dump it into one central location we've decided that's not the best way to do that what we're doing here with this bill as each state agency will main control of its data will set up a data hub and then as that information is needed that help we'll just go out to the various sources and bring it all together so that's or doing then we'll be happy to take any questions. Members any questions for representative makes our our guest Speaker. Seeing none representative makes your clothes are recognized close for your motion OR I am close and board appreciate a good vote make a motion do pass as amended. We have a motion members any questions discussion. C. none all those in favor say aye. Opposed. Graduations representative makes your bill has passed all right thank you colleagues you're recognized president house bill seventeen eighty. All right seventeen eighty will be my last one of the session probably the most important one. got wanted to get some of bring to the table that's all right and I'll let them introduce themselves Mr chairman at your discretion and will jump into this yes Sir please introduce yourself for the record. Afternoon crisp lines executive director at the association of Arkansas counties. Good afternoon Jonathan Askins and the Director of the Division of information systems thank you gentlemen representative makes you're recognized hi thank you colleagues as I mentioned before this is the third and final bill of R. three cybersecurity bills that we are presenting this session so this bill does a couple of things the first one that it does is it sets up a cyber response panel that panel will consist of members from county government local government and state government and it will be their job to establish cybersecurity standards for the state they will use the existing to national and international protocols for establishing that cyber security policy the second part but this does is it sets up a of fidelity bond that fidelity bond will go to help Cities counties and school districts respond in the event that there is a cyber breach it allows for forensics and so forth so that's by a high level what this bill does the bill Has the okay of the association of counties the Municipal League the governor's office legislative audit was also involved in this and this is the result of many months worth of work to work and I want to give kudos to Mr lines he's done a yeoman's work trying to get this together and get it right for the state but again those are the two primary things this bill does And with that we'll be happy to answer any questions or Mr blinds if you've got anything further that I messages like that well I'm I'm here to answer questions too but I want to say I appreciate you representative makes and all the ones that we're just mentioned and if I could I'll backtrack and talk about why this is important for us in November of last year we had a cyber attack that hit seventy two of our counties in certain offices within those counties. The only place that we could turn and I cannot tell you enough about how helpful they've been Jonathan Askins and Gerry Vance over DIS were incredible assets and it exposed as we went through this process number one that we have not done a good job and some of the local governments not all of them but some of them I have not done a good job of putting in some standards implementing standards that would protect us from this type of cyber attack we had another one right on the heels of that that affected one county and in that case the same the same problems were exposed so in walking through the problems that we dealt with the idea came to mind why not build a program that's modeled after our fidelity bond program which Arkansas should be proud of that program it has been over successful fidelity bonds different in that that pays to counties that have losses due to internal theft this is modeled after that though in the way the board is structured and the way it's administered by the insurance department and the fact that that board is is largely controlled by those entities that would be covered in and problems such as this so the the bill is is really closely resembling the section that immediately precedes it which is the fidelity bond program and I think gives us the greatest opportunity to provide help to cities counties and K. twelve when they have individual cyber attacks and then I'll fall further add this is laying the foundation as well it allows higher education so it and that this captures public schools but it allows higher education should they choose to come on board with this if they do they'll get a seat at the table and then the hope is that eventually we can get to maybe where we can even get state agencies coming on to this as well so the ultimate goal is that we would handle the in. Sure it's quote unquote if you will for this issue in House instead of the current way we're doing it the insurance on this is you all know is getting more and more expensive and we'll just say the state is not getting their bang for the box so this is a way for us to be able to Get a handle on that expenses while. And so with that I don't know director asking if you have anything else you want to add okay we will take any questions from the committee if anybody has any thank you jim any questions from the committee representative garner you're recognized thank you Mr chair thank you so much for bringing the bill I do have a couple questions and we've talked a little bit about them I just if you would Explained a little bit more about the cyber insurance and the mandate and why that's important with the bond issues are not the things you were talking about before if you would just. I'm a little bit more yes that's a very good question representative and let me let me say that if there's not a mandate for everyone to be included we're afraid that many will this will choose not to take part of this program I have talked with all county judges in the state or unanimously for it the cities of talked with mayors and they're there for it but there would still be some that would opt out the only way for this program to truly work would be to build be built like the fidelity bond program which is it doesn't have a provision for an opt out you you are in it the collection of the premiums is a big part of that as well it becomes a mentally more difficult if you are picking and choosing which entities are participating and bottom line I'll tell you from experience if if you're not participating in this you're still reaching out to the same people that would be involved in this program so why not go ahead and contribute a little bit of money be a part of this and and and have the same resources available to you like the I. S. if you're not participating the first person we're gonna call is V. I. S. it's only fair that we should be collecting some sort of a premium amount to utilize that. It I also and I'll just follow up the other concern would be is unfortunately the the city's or those who would opt out or probably the ones who need it the most and are doing the least of this brings accountability to make sure that they are doing what they should be doing to protect our citizens and I can I can tell you that my city is is already working on it and was concerned that their insurance might be better. So you there shall not pity for secondary insurance or. This is this is the bottom line right yes it does not preclude anybody from having a secondary insurance policy in fact the municipally offers a policy we do not with the counties but the municipally does but after having meetings with them and their staff this is a good supplement to that policy this affects those layers of coverage before you get into the the layer of insurance coverage on at a higher amount so this would be a secondary insurance for those folks who have insurance through a mail it would be but I hesitate to call it insurance is more of a coverage agreements coverage yes ma'am okay so for example you can correct me if I'm wrong like on the state school current policy we're spending what two million dollars a year that gets a three million dollar deductible. And so this would help cover that deductible before those major expenses would be covered by traditional insurance right thank you very much. Representative in it you're recognized for a question thank you Mr chair if you already addressed this to get me with the adoption of this bill will you use the current best practices are are you re creating new best practices for this I'm I'm I don't know if you want to handle that okay. So so yeah so we've got to be real careful about defining and that was a question that we got you know why don't you put that we follow new standards in this we actually can't do that and state law because if we say that we're going to develop the the we're gonna make everybody in this state conform to the new standards then what ends up happening is this body that's not associated with Arkansas can change the standards and now by our law we're forcing ourselves to go to adopt that whether that's good for our state or not and also the other on the other caviar is we would have to say that we're going to adopt those standards the way they to to prevent that from happening we would have to say we're going to adopt those standards the way they were on January first of twenty twenty three and what we would be doing is we would be locking ourselves into the standards and not able to update on as conditions change as we all know this is a highly fast paced world so what this does is Hey we really can't do it and be we want to allow our experts to be able to choose those standards to meet what our needs are obviously our experts are aware what those standards are and will make sure that They're put in place to me what what our needs are yeah. Committee any other questions. Representative bill you're recognized. Thank you Mr. Did I hear you correctly the seventy two of our counties have been. Violated that's that's right Act I I would hate to get into details of that here I think that would be best to not go into but yes now that was not every county and every county in every office in every county in some counties it may have been one office in another county it may have been too but if if you don't want to U. S. you're recognized if you don't wanna answer this for security reasons to be fun but L. the course all the situations are negotiable. About him a dollars of we. Spent in that attack no dollars were spent for ransom in fact the bill in front of you prohibits the use of that fund to pay ransoms. Okay so so we have a pay the rental at all on that attack we didn't I'm aware of or any other of those seventy two no they they did not and that instance we did not but there have been other incidences where it what were there was stuff paid on a warm I can warm up I'm sorry one of my counties. Was he it pretty hard and the. But we ended up we lucked out we ended up not paid I don't like to pay eighty nine because with. Found a way to get it summary information but okay thank you our hope is with the passage of this bill on the other bills that we passed we can get everybody into the situation where we won't need to pay any of these bad actors any money. That's that's what we're trying to get committee any additional questions. Scene does there anyone in the audience under speak for against the bill. CNN what's the will representative makes you're recognized close for your bill our work clothes now make a motion to pass we have a motion do pass Committee all those in favor say aye. Opposed graduations representative makes you pastor bill. Thank you for your work today this is probably a possibly going to be our last meeting since we also have oversight of the department of emergency management I may see if they might have someone available later this week to maybe come and give us an update on the cleanup efforts are underway in the state now we may be able to better partner with them on that but depending on what happens with that then this may be our law our last committee meeting so just wanna put that on your radar but she at your work and with that we are turned.