Agriculture, Forestry & Economic Development- House
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Bills discussed (14)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1045
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1045 Cavenaugh TO PLACE CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS ON AN INDIVIDUAL PL…”
|
TO PLACE CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS ON AN INDIVIDUAL PLANNING A CROP RESIDUE BURN; AND TO ADDRESS … | Cavenaugh | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1675
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…r Rep. Harlan Breaux REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1675 Womack TO AMEND THE INSPECTION FEES UNDER THE ARKANSAS GRAD…”
|
TO AMEND THE INSPECTION FEES UNDER THE ARKANSAS GRADE "A" MILK PROGRAM ACT OF 1981. | Womack | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1680
Act 811
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…FEES UNDER THE ARKANSAS GRADE "A" MILK PROGRAM ACT OF 1981. HB1680 Vaught TO PREVENT A FOREIGN-PARTY-CONTROLLED BUSINESS FROM…”
|
TO PREVENT A FOREIGN-PARTY-CONTROLLED BUSINESS FROM LEASING LAND; AND TO PROHIBIT A PROHIBITED FOREIGN PARTY … | Vaught | Notification that HB1680 is now Act 811 |
|
HB1827
Act 817
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…THE ARKANSAS CATFISH PROCESSOR FAIR PRACTICES ACT OF 1987. HB1827 Wardlaw TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS HUNTING HERITAGE PROTECTION A…”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS HUNTING HERITAGE PROTECTION ACT. | Wardlaw | Notification that HB1827 is now Act 817 |
|
HB1855
Act 818
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1855 Ennett TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING THE POWERS AND DUTIES O…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND … | Ennett | Notification that HB1855 is now Act 818 |
|
HB1900
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1900 Beck TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING INFORMATION PROVIDED TO ROY…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING INFORMATION PROVIDED TO ROYALTY OWNERS RELATED TO DEDUCTIONS; AND TO … | Beck | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1923
Act 838
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1923 Maddox TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ACT; AND T…”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ACT; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING NATURAL STATE … | Maddox | Notification that HB1923 is now Act 838 |
|
HB1928
Act 820
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1928 M. Brown TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS SOIL NUTRIENT APPLICATION AN…”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS SOIL NUTRIENT APPLICATION AND POULTRY LITTER UTILIZATION ACT. | M. Brown | Notification that HB1928 is now Act 820 |
|
HB1937
Act 821
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB1937 Jean TO AMEND THE METHOD OF VALUATION FOR MINERAL RIGHTS UN…”
|
TO AMEND THE METHOD OF VALUATION FOR MINERAL RIGHTS UNDER ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 16, § … | Jean | Notification that HB1937 is now Act 821 |
|
SB361
Act 576
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…EAL PROPERTY OR AGRICULTURAL LAND IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. SB361 Dees TO CREATE THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES EXPAN…”
|
TO CREATE THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES EXPANSION ACT; AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE CREATION OF … | Dees | Notification that SB361 is now Act 576 |
|
SB407
Act 577
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ECURE AND DEVELOP INDUSTRY AND FOSTER ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. SB407 Gilmore TO REPEAL THE ARKANSAS CATFISH PROCESSOR FAIR PRACT…”
|
TO REPEAL THE ARKANSAS CATFISH PROCESSOR FAIR PRACTICES ACT OF 1987. | Gilmore | Notification that SB407 is now Act 577 |
|
SB421
Act 578
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB421 Hester TO AUTHORIZE THE ARKANSAS NATURAL RESOURCES COMMISSI…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE THE ARKANSAS NATURAL RESOURCES COMMISSION TO ISSUE GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT … | Hester | Notification that SB421 is now Act 578 |
|
SB464
Act 698
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “AGENDA (Revised 4/02/25 @ 7:11 AM) Added SB464 House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry, and Economic Deve…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING SALES OF RAW MILK; TO ALLOW SALES OF RAW MILK … | A. Clark | Notification that SB464 is now Act 698 |
|
HB1852
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1852 J. Moore TO ESTABLISH A RIGHT TO REPAIR FOR CERTAIN AGRICUL…”
|
TO ESTABLISH A RIGHT TO REPAIR FOR CERTAIN AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENT. | J. Moore | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
Machine transcript
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Welcome, everyone. Glad to see you this morning. We plan on having a meeting that will last as long as we can make it go this morning. So, y'all are going to get tired of listening to me. All right. Those wishing to
speak for or against the bill, please make sure that you sign in. All right.
Are we done? All right. Representative Beck, you're recognized to present your bill. Would you introduce
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
0:52
yourself to the committee, please? Rick Beck, District 43. That's supposed to be an easy question.
All right. Thank you, committee. I'm going to give just a little bit of a background on what we're doing here today and what we're doing. There's really not a lot of changes here, but when we took the bill that you guys passed over to the Senate side, there's a couple things that came up and that probably needed some clearing up. The first thing was this. We had worked on the reporting aspects, which we called them transparency, but we'd worked
on the reporting aspects of the bill, and we identified it in two sections. One was in 305, and then also in the 325 section that we added. Well, one of the things that happened, the lawyers noticed this and said, if you're working on a definition in two different sections of code, that the judge will usually just throw both sections out because it's conflicting. So what we did, the first thing that we did is we took the exact language that we had in 325
and we just married it up with the 305. So now it's all in one section, so we eliminated that problem. The other thing that we did was we had had a $500 maximum in there, and we changed it to $100,000. And a lot of you guys have heard that's a big raise that we did a lot of that. Well, actually, the reason we did that was that aligns with a section of code
that already exists in the oil and gas that has to do with delinquencies and royalty payments. The actual statute is the default or delinquency by leasers or others responsible for the payment of royalties. And that's the maximum that has been in that code forever. So we just pulled that into here. And we didn't pull the actual 100,000. We actually pulled it out of the code so that if the code ever gets changes, they will always be in alignment with each other.
So, the other changes that you will see is where we've just basically took the language, as I mentioned earlier, exactly that we had in 325, and we just pulled it into 305. So, now all that is nicely tucked together. This bill only covers the reporting. Some people call it reporting. We call it the transparency part of this. This is exactly the same thing that you guys voted on and voted out of this committee with the only difference being the $100,000, and that was done to align it with existing codes.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
3:43
And with that, I'll take any questions. All right, committee, any questions? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple, I think. I think if you said the penalty is the same, but it does say 500 on
here, that you marked out the 500 and you're adding it to be 100,000.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
4:15
That's correct. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't make myself clear. What we did is we pulled, we actually listed that code,
that 709. If you go to the, I have a copy of that right here. But the number that's listed in that existing code is $100,000. So what we said is you'll do the maximum penalty. It can be less than $100,000. It's whatever the Oil and Gas Commission determines. But it could be up
to the maximum that is listed, already listed in the statute, and that maximum is $100,000.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
4:49
Is somebody here from the Commission that can answer that
for me? I have another question for whoever's, if there's somebody here that represents this commission.
Is there anyone here from the Oil and Gas Commission? Lane Jean's there.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
5:07
Okay, then I have another question for you, I guess, and I don't know that you'll be able to actually answer it, but how many have been out of compliance?
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
5:19
I wouldn't know. Over the last, this has been, this has been, this is not just Fayetteville Shale. No, I know. That's what I'm saying. All the oil and gas. No, I understand. I do not know how
many that the Oil and Gas Commission has entertained. I have no idea. Okay, and then
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
5:36
I have one more, and I'll be finished, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your leniency. If you go to line 30 on the first page through that line 33, it seems like we're adding a lot of things to be added to what they have to disclose.
So it's no longer just the few things that it used to be that they have to disclose on a payment. Now then we're asking them to include several more things. Do we know if they're set up where they can easily
add those things, Or is this going to mess up what they already have
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
6:16
in their computers where they print these off? So I'll address kind of your first concern first. We're not adding anything. It already says all the deductions.
That's what we're doing is listing those areas. So we're not necessarily adding anything. We're just listing those deductions. And the only change should be maybe the purpose and amount. But if you think about this, you're a royalty owner, right?
You're having deductions taken from your check. Don't you think that... I'm a chicken farmer.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
6:56
I totally understand what it looks like to have deductions taken out of your check. That's not my question. My question is, are we not making them list out more of what they're taking the money from? I'm sorry, I didn't
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
7:08
understand what you're saying. Yes, sir. So
we are making them list, those deductions, but those deductions are already being taken out. Correct. Okay, I might
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
7:17
come back in a second, sir. Thank you. Representative
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
7:21
Shepard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Beck, and I think you touched on this earlier,
but I just want to make sure, I know that when your previous bill went to the Senate end, you look to try to maybe have it only apply to the fable shale. This bill applies to all oil
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
7:43
and gas production. Is that correct? No, I think it only applies to the gas, but it doesn't eliminate the oil. The oil is eliminated in this section by the rule that says that it's at the end of 305,
the rule that was already there that says it doesn't apply to liquid
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
8:04
hydrocarbons. Okay, but it does apply, your belief is this does apply, though, to all gas production then, both in the Arcoma Basin and the Fayetteville Shale. Yes,
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
8:15
sir. All right, thank you. And it's worth noting that the drafter of this actually was one of the producers in that play, so they were fine with it. All right.
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
8:30
Representative Richmond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Beck, you used basically your justification for increasing from $500,000 to $100,000 is to use the same penalty in different code, in code that already exists. My question is, is the severity of the violations for that code and what you're trying to cover here, are they similar?
I mean, or is one more severe than the other? And the reason I ask that is that if one's more severe than the other, because I apologize for not being familiar with the code, but if one's more severe than the other, then I can see $100,000. But if what you're trying to deal with here is not as severe, then maybe that is
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
9:23
extreme. I understand the confusion there, and I didn't make myself clear there. But what this is is a maximum.
Actually, the Oil and Gas Commission would determine, they would review, and they would get the complaints, for lack of a better term, and then they would review and they would charge the appropriate amount. but the maximum that they could charge is $100,000. So before, we had a maximum of $500,000, and then in the actual code where the Oil and Gas Commission interprets it is $100,000. So we just aligned those two up. We didn't actually list the $100,000 in this section,
but we listed the section that deals with delinquency as far as royalty payments, the maximum out of there, so that these two will stay aligned now. If that maximum got deducted, got reduced, or got increased, then it would
just automatically increase. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry about that. Committee, any other
questions? Seeing none, is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak against the bill?
Speaker 66
10:36
Come to the table and introduce yourself. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Rodney Baker. I'm executive director of the Arkansas Independent Producers Organization, APRO. And with me, I have Alan Perkins, attorney, oil and gas attorney, notable here in the state. We come here to pose the bill. Two reasons. First of all,
It's going to cause a lot of additional paperwork, and a lot of paperwork. We're all used to having bills where you have something that categorizes a cost. It may be applied by the energy provider or whatever two or three times in that month, but it's categorized as one category. To break that out, like Mr. Beck explained, would take not only a lot of work, but also a lot of paper to the individual receiving that.
We don't think that's really necessary. We also are concerned about why we want to go from $500 penalty at the most to at most $100,000. I had a conversation yesterday with Lawrence Bingle, who is director of the Oil and Gas Commission, and asked him how many times this has come up, and he said, I don't recall it ever coming up. Later in the day, we had a chance to talk to Secretary Corey.
He used to be the attorney for the oil and gas commission before he became secretary. He did not recall that ever having come up. We don't see why now we need to go from up to $500,000 to up to $100,000 if there hasn't been a problem with compliance. Everyone's complying. This, very honestly, seems to be a punitive measure as I look at it, and I'll stop there. I'd like to ask Mr. Perkins to talk about specifics.
Alan Perkins
Unverified
12:46
All right. Mr. Perkins, introduce yourself, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Alan Perkins. I'm an
Speaker 70
12:55
oil and gas attorney here in Little Rock at PPGMR. I represent APRO. First, I want to try to give you a little bit more context of the statute, where this is pulled from so that you really get a better picture of how this works. So the current statute has this process, and after it describes the blending
and the first one-eighth royalty payment and all that you've heard a lot of discussion about before, we won't go into today, then it has a section that indicates what the operator is supposed, what information they're supposed to provide to a royalty owner. And there is a laundry list. It says with respect to each such distribution by of the 1/8 royalty, the operator shall provide the following to the royalty owner in paper form or make accessible in electronic form, and then it's followed by a laundry list of information.
Right now, the language that that he wants to change says any and all deductions from the payment which shall be itemized as to the nature of the deduction. That would seem to cover pretty much the same thing in different words that he's putting in there now each deduction and associated amount deducted from the payment which shall be itemized as to the nature purpose and amount of each deduction from the payment to the royalty on uses more words to essentially say the same
thing but you've already heard that in Mr. Beck's opinion. this would require a lot more information. That's not really clear from what they have written here, but that just brings up the specter of sort of a lot of litigation over what does this mean. But what happens today in the statute, what is the procedure if a royalty owner feels they've been wronged, if they haven't received that information, the statute has a process for them to obtain it.
It contains a section that outlines a procedure for the royalty owner to formally request the information. And quoting from 305A5C, it says, If a royalty interest owner requests information or answers to questions concerning a payment made pursuant to this subdivision, and the request is made by certified mail with return receipt requested, the party making payment must respond to the request by certified mail return receipt requested not later than 45 days after the request is received.
So then the, I won't quote all the rest of the process, I'll just summarize it for you. If after that time period runs, the royalty owner either doesn't receive an answer or is not satisfied with the answer, then it states that the royalty owner can file a complaint with the Oil and Gas Commission on a form that the commission provides and then the commission will again contact the operator and say you need to give this information to them or explain to us
why you can't and if they still fail to do it the commission can summon them to a hearing at that hearing the commission would determine whether or not they have complied can order them to comply with providing the information and can assess a fine up to $500, a civil penalty. That's the way it is today. So what the second piece of this, the penalty piece, Representative Beck's bill crosses out the $500 and then references a different code section.
That code section has to do with deficient or delinquent payments to the royalty owner. And what it says, if you have not paid everything to the royalty owner that you're required to pay, you can be summoned to a hearing and the commission can order you to make that payment and they can assess a civil penalty in the same amount as the dollar value that you have underpaid or failed to pay, not to exceed $100,000.
So there is a connection there now between what the harm is to the royalty owner, the deficient or unpaid payment, and the ultimate civil penalty. Here there's no connection whatsoever. You're talking about the potential for an administrative agency to assess a $100,000 penalty because someone failed to answer a question. It has nothing to do with money. there wouldn't be any financial harm to the royalty owner.
I understand that they could be upset about that and so forth and so on. This creates a couple of problems, and I know you get tired of hearing about constitutional issues, but both the U.S. and the Arkansas constitutions have what we call the excessive fines clause. And in order for a fine, a civil penalty, to not be excessive, It can't be grossly disproportionate to the harm to the victim.
That's one part. And the legislature must provide sufficient standards or guidelines for assessing such a penalty. Here there are none. It's simply completely up to the commission's discretion if someone doesn't answer a question properly to assess up to a $100,000 penalty. Even though this is a process that, to the knowledge of the director and the Secretary of Energy and Environment, has never been used once in their tenure there.
Alan Perkins
Unverified
18:39
That's all I have. I'll be glad to answer any questions, Mr. Chairman. Committee, any
questions? Thank you, sirs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Rick Pullman, speaking, Thor. Mr. Pullman, introduce yourself
to the committee, and I hope you're not going to read every sheet that's in that folder.
Speaker 77
19:15
Rick Paloma, I'm representing the royalty owners of the Fayetteville Shale. Let me start by saying we tried to split these bills up because we're getting a lot of feedback. and a lot of unconstitutionality language from different folks. So we tried to make this as simple as possible. We didn't take out all the requirements in 305 that Mr. Perkins just talked about. You still have to send in the certified letter.
We still have to go through all the steps before we ever get to the process with the Oil and Gas Commission. And when you get to the oil and gas commission, the code that was referenced, I don't know if y'all got a copy of it, but paragraph one says the oil and gas commission is hereby authorized to receive and investigate complaints of oil and gas royalty owners that their leases or other responsible for the payment of royalty are in default of their lease agreements, orders of the commission, or the requirements of law with respects thereto,
and to conduct hearings there on pursuit to Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act 25-15-201. After such hearing, the commission may order the parties found responsible for the default that has resulted in nonpayment or untimely insufficient payment of royalty, herein called delinquency, to pay such owner within such time as the commission deems just and equitable the amount of the delinquency together with the amount of interest to which such owner is found by the commission to be entitled under 1574-601.
Plus, as a penalty, an additional amount equal to the sum of those amount, but which penalty shall not exceed $100,000. So they're going to have to do a whole lot of wrong things, including nonpayment of royalties, before we ever get to a $100,000 fine. We just put that in there to align it up. So if they're not showing us our deducts, and it's not going to create any more paper because they don't send out paper statements. They send out electronic statements. So I think that was a little bit misleading.
You get a check stub. You have to go online and look at your payment. If after we send certified letters and we do all this and we find out that those deductions were incorrect and the amounts are excessive and say they've taken $50,000 or $75,000 that they shouldn't have, then the commission may fine them up to $100,000. Nobody in here thinks that they're going to get fined $100,000 for not showing a deed up. I mean, there's never been one case that's went to the commission that Mr. Bingle knows of
because you've got to jump through so many hoops to get to the commission. We just put that language in there to align it up with the royalty payments, and
Speaker 76
22:01
that's all it is. I appreciate your time. Any questions by
the committee? Thank you, sir. Thank you. It was very brief. Thank you. Anyone else in the audience wish to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, Representative Beck, you ready to close for your bill?
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
22:32
All right. That actually went a little quicker than I thought it would go. But I wrote down a couple notes. You're being charged. The payment that's made to you, there's being charges put against it. You should know what they are. So the question is, it's like, why do you want this additional insurance? Why can't we just categorize it, and that would be okay? Well, the reason this actually came up was because the royalty owners, as you heard in the previous meeting that we had with all this language was in there,
the royalty owners were telling you, our leases are not being followed, but we don't really know why our leases are not being followed because we don't have the detail that we want. That's what brought this transparency aspect of it. That's the reason for this question. The other question was about the Oil and Gas Commission. Who better than the Oil and Gas Commission, who has handled this for years now, years. It's been a statute. We just aligned it with them, with that existing code that's in there.
We just aligned that stuff up to make sure that these people, you know, Now, you've heard that they're doing a great job, that everybody is doing what they should be. If everybody's doing what they should be, no one's going to get fined a penny. If you're afraid that you might not be doing that, well, then maybe you could. But all this is, there's a complete procedure. Rick read it to us. You know, it's exactly how this goes, step by step by step by step,
as far as what happened before the Oil and Gas Commission at that point, they would decide, hey, you know, you shorted this or you need to pay this and all that. So the Oil and Gas Commission, I have complete faith that they could do that because they've done it in the past for many years successfully. And with that, I'm closed, and I would appreciate a motion due passed and a favorable vote. Thank you. All right. Members, do I see a motion? Motion due passed.
All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. That's pretty close.
Speaker 84
24:56
All right, let's do a roll call. Representative Gene? No. Representative Gene, no. Representative Shepard? No. Representative Shepard, no. Representative Cozart? No. Representative Cozart, no. Representative McGee?
Representative McGee, no. Representative Whitaker? Representative Whitaker? Representative McNair? Representative McNair, no. Representative Vaught? Representative Vaught, no. Representative Richmond? Representative Richmond, no. Representative Wing? Representative Wing? Representative Garner? Representative Garner, yes. Representative Cooper? Representative Cooper, yes. Representative Rowe? Yes. Representative Rowe? Yes. Representative Walker? Representative Walker?
Representative Brown? No. Representative Brown? No. Representative Kendra Moore? Yes. Representative Kendra Moore? Yes. Representative Puryear? No. Representative Puryear? No. Representative Unger? No. Representative Unger? No. Representative Steele? Yes. Representative Steele? Yes. Representative Moore? Yes. Representative Moore? Yes.
Sorry, Mr. Beck, the bill did not pass. Thank you, committee. I appreciate it. Representative Jane, are you ready to present your bill? This bill has an amendment.
We'll be passing that out quickly. Do you have
Speaker 97
27:02
something else he had to run? Who, Representative
Junior? I don't know. He just asked me. I need to get out of
Speaker 101
27:14
here. I hope he doesn't want to form a speech. You want to wait and run your bill and come back? We'll probably still be here. My bill.
Speaker 95
27:27
Can we reconvene this afternoon? If we don't
Speaker 102
27:41
don't think you'll be able to get through in
Speaker 89
27:44
30 minutes. Of course, this one was pretty contentional. Nobody. Don't think. Let's see.
Speaker 106
27:57
I signed up to speak on 1852. Yeah, there's one person
Chair
Unverified
28:06
signed up. Two people signed up to
speak again. Representative Jean, you're recognized. Introduce
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
28:17
yourself. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Lane Jean from District 99. And I have an amendment today on House Bill 1937.
And when we filed this bill, the error is all on me. We had a retroactive date of January 1 of 22. All this amendment does is make the effective date January 1 of 2025, which there'll be no clawback, there'll be no, uh, uh, taxes due back to companies. This, this makes it clear, as you know, property tax is always a year in it and, uh, delayed.
So the property that you're paying today is, uh, this year in 2025 was 2024. So this, this property tax will not be, uh, calculated for this year and be payable on in 2026. So that cleared it up. My understanding with the Association of Arkansas Counties after this amendment, they've dropped their objection to this bill. So that's what the amendment does, and I'd appreciate a good vote on the amendment. All right. Committee, any questions? Do I see a
pass? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Your
Speaker 108
29:45
amendment's adopted. You're ready to present your bill as amended. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Members what
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
29:51
this does is mirror a bill that I passed four years ago that sets evaluation for oil wells. This just all this bill does is ask gas wells into evaluation for ad valorem taxes that are paid by gas
companies. The Association of Arkansas County said after this amendment on there, there was no substantial decrease. And if you don't have gas wells in your county, it doesn't affect you one bit. It does not affect royalty owners one bit. This is an industry-driven to help them to simplify the assessment of these gas wells. The same thing, and all we did was take the oil bill from 2022 and adopted gas language, and that's all we did.
And like I said, it got a 92 to nothing vote out of the House four years ago and a 34 to nothing vote out of the Senate. I'll entertain any questions on it right now.
Pretty simple bill. Committee, any questions? Seeing none, is anyone in the audience signed up to speak against the
bill? You would come to the end of the
Speaker 115
31:05
table and introduce yourself. I'm Sherry Hicks. I'm the assessor for Yale County.
I did not know about the amendment, and that is a great thing because I'm from a large landmass county, but a very poor one. Most of the oil and gas or the gas that I have is in my smallest school district, and they rely on this money. And I did not know how we were going to claw back that money to repay for the change in the recourse back. It's, you know, that's one thing. We have no business.
I mean, two small towns, if you blink, you miss them. Small, 138 square feet, a lot of our, I mean, square miles in our school district, it depends on the gas royalty. So that's what I just want to say. I signed up, but I did not know about the amendment, and I thank you for that. Well, thank you. Any questions? No? Representative Gene, you ready
to close for your bill? Yes, sir. Oh, was there anyone else in the audience wishing to speak for or against?
Representative Lane Jean
Unverified
32:11
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I just appreciate a good vote, and I'll make a motion to do pass as amended.
All right. Committee, you've heard the motion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
members of the committee. All right. Representative Jeremiah Moore. We
have an amendment that we're going to pass out.
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
33:28
Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee.
This is a simple amendment. It essentially takes construction equipment out of the bill. All right, committee, any questions? I'll make a motion to do
Speaker 129
33:43
pass the amendment. Committee heard the amendment. Have it do
pass. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? All right. Representative, you're ready to present your bill.
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
33:58
as amended. Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee. Right to repair is a very unique issue. It's a very American issue. Some of you may not be familiar with the nuts and bolts or the idea of what the right to repair is, but let me put it to you in layman's terms. We've all had a check engine light come on in our vehicle. When that check engine light comes on, you as the owner of that vehicle can take it to the dealer and they can read the code that was thrown. You can take it to O'Reilly
Auto Parts. You can take it to AutoZone. You can even buy a code reader and check it at your own home to see what codes were thrown. You have the right to repair your vehicle and to understand exactly what's wrong with it. All this does, it gives farmers and independent mechanics the right to access that software and those specialty tools at a fair and reasonable rate from the manufacturers. That's all this bill does. This has been a pretty big issue over the past decade
or two, not just here in Arkansas, but nationwide. In fact, it's so big that in 2023, American Farm Bureau got the six largest manufacturers, John Deere, Case IH, Kloss, New Holland, etc., to sign a memorandum of understanding, saying they will provide this software and these specialty tools at a fair and reasonable rate to these independent mechanics and these farmers. So what I did, the problem with that MOU is that it's essentially non-binding.
These companies can exit that MOU at any time. What I did is I plucked that language from the MOU, inserted it into this bill, and that's what I have before you today. I have made amendments regarding ATVs and UTVs, and now the amendment we just passed regarding construction equipment to make sure it doesn't apply to them. This is a very narrow, tailored bill. I ask for your vote on this bill because it's an American ideal that you have the right to repair your own property.
And we're talking about not just the little farmers, but the big farmers, the little utility tractors, to the million-dollar cotton pickers. Some of these pieces of equipment cost more than the average American's home ever will. With that, I'll be open for questions. All right. Committee questions? Representative Cozart? It's probably going to
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
36:34
be one of those, wouldn't you agree? But, you know, being a farmer, I'm not a farmer, but I'm a rancher,
but having equipment sitting there waiting to be used and you can't use it and then you would have to haul it to a dealer, time factors kind of come in play. So I wouldn't agree it's a whole lot easier to be able to fix that on site with your own people than having to take that all the way to Stuttgart, which we did about six months ago, to have
Speaker 137
37:02
something done to it. I would agree entirely. Thank you. All right, Representative Vaughn. I want
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
37:10
to know, do you know if they're going to charge us the same thing
that they charge the dealer as a
farmer, Or is my price going to be higher than what it would be at
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
37:21
the dealership? Thank you, Representative Vaught. This does not mention specific prices. If I were to get into mentioning specific prices or specific percentage points above the actual cost, we might get into a little trouble. This just says they must provide it at fair and reasonable rates.
All right, committee, any other questions? Yes?
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
37:45
Representative Garner? I've got a quick question, and I like what you're doing, but I just
have a quick question about the software, and I don't know enough about the machinery to know. Is the software patented, or do you have any
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
38:00
issues with patents, or not? Thank you, Representative Garner. Yes, all of this software is patented. It's proprietary information. This is not making them give it away for free. This is not making them just put it on the Internet for anyone to access. All this simply does, it says you have the right to repair your vehicle
and you will not be held hostage by a dealership to have to take it there. All
Speaker 132
38:24
right. Any other questions? You're recognized. Representative
Speaker 149
38:32
Moore, I'm sorry, I didn't get to read the whole bill. Is there anywhere in stipulation of in or out of warranty? This is not mentioned warranty at all. So a piece of equipment that's still under factory warranty, the farmer can repair it
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
38:51
itself? Yes, if I'm understanding you correctly. So with that
Speaker 149
38:58
and the warranty, in the automotive field, you make any alterations or you do do anything different you can void I mean I don't know but so
Speaker 155
39:12
and and I'll have some of those equipment farmer come well
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
39:18
yes and and that is an individual policy that those manufacturers may
have that if you decide to work on it yourself you may void your warranty this bill does not specifically touch that this bill does not mention warranty this bill just says you have the right to repair your equipment which I
Speaker 149
39:33
completely agree with but like I said I think they should know that you know up front if it's not and i might be something in here i'll say this if there's
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
39:42
warranty work to be done on your equipment you have the right to take that to the dealership and have them uh do it and pay for it under warranty and if you want to do it and pay for
it yourself that's that's your prerogative all
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
39:58
right representative ball i'm trying to make sure that I understand, so if I decide to take my tractor and I fix it and it still has warranty, does that not void out the rest of
the warranty that I have? So you'd have to deal
Speaker 160
40:17
on a, I believe in some cases yes. Okay, thank you.
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
40:30
All right, any other questions? Would you agree these warranty questions are going to be specific to each individual dealer and basically a contract between the individual person
Speaker 165
40:43
and the dealer and it's not going to, this says no bearing on your bill, is
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
40:48
that correct? That is correct. In fact, the word warranty isn't even mentioned in my bill. All right, any other questions, committee?
Yeah. Seeing none other, is anyone in the audience signed up to speak against the bill? Scott Waller,
are you here? Yes, you're recognized. All right, go down and introduce yourself. Is he the only
Scott Waller
Unverified
41:29
one signed up to speak against? Yes. My name is Scott Waller. I'm with United Ag and Turf. We have 48 locations. Three of those
are located in Arkansas, Duqueen, Hope, and Magnolia. John Deere Dealer. My title is regional service manager of field operations, so do a lot of work. Been in the service field for a long time. Just wanted to come here and state our concerns about the bill, oppose the bill for just some safety concerns that we have. Those concerns go down the list here is we are concerned about tampering of our embedded software and or removal or alteration
of manufacturer install components. We're also concerned about modifications can lead to compromised safety concerns of our tractors, units, and also our emission regulations, knowing that we are starting to see quite a few units or tractors, machines, equipment coming in deleted now because of modifications that are embedded through some of our software, maybe not our software, but people are finding
ways to change John Deere software to be able to get rid of those. We've also concerned about the customers that would buy something that has been modified later on by possibly not done through a dealership, and it's maybe a concern later down the road and this tractor may have more horsepower than it's supposed to, and then this new customer that buys it as a huge piece of equipment then has an engine that blows up later on because of these altercations.
Furthermore, the language in the bill gives customers and independent repair shops the ability to purchase parts at dealer costs, and that is very concerning to us as dealers. Along with the fact that we have 1,200 employees, We are trying to make sure that we take care of our employees and make a partnership with our customers as well. We support our customers by investing in them. And on recent customer visits, the most common feedback we receive was that we want our dealers to have the parts there for us.
And in doing that, we need to be able to, we are a profit center company. And we will need, you know, to have roughly, with 48 locations, we have over $67 million in parts inventory on hand. So we are concerned about, you know, pricing and other things that can come from this bill. So, again, when our customers break down, we'd like to make sure that we have parts there and ready for them.
and we need to be able to hold that amount of inventory on hand. Our customers are our passion, and we want to provide them with what they need. We are there for them, and we don't sustain ourselves, or we're not there if they're not there. So we both rely on each other. One of our customers recently told us we need the John Deere store to succeed, and we know that, and we need them to succeed too. We want to be partners with our customers. We support right to repair, but we do not support the right to modify or tamper with software.
We also, at United Ag and Turf, you can visit unitedagt.com, and you can scroll down to our website on there, do-it-yourself repair, and we have all the links and all the ability for someone to obtain a customer service advisor through us or through DEER, and we are there to support that. But we do oppose the right to modify. All right. Are you ready for questions?
Speaker 182
45:38
Not really. Committee, do you have any questions? Yes, Representative Steele. Thank you, Mr.
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
45:45
Chairman. Just a little further information about the modification issue
Speaker 185
45:50
in the bill that you have a problem with. We're
Scott Waller
Unverified
45:55
concerned that if the software, at this current time, software is not the only thing that John Deere Customer Service Advisor does not release is software, and we don't want it to be able to be released and then at that time take, say, DEF emissions and turn those things off
and then delete machines. Or at the other side of it, actually turn horsepower up. And if, say, you had a tractor that can only run 15 miles an hour and the brakes are only good to slow it, to stop it at 15 miles an hour, well, say it runs 25 miles an hour. If it starts running 25 miles an hour, can the brakes then hold up? So we were worried about that, too. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative McNair.
Speaker 149
46:46
Uh, we're, we're in a bit, did you say something in the bill that it says that they, that you have to sell parts at your cost? What did, what did you say about parts? I didn't say that, sir. Where's that at in the bill? I'm going to have to go back and review it again. I don't know that anybody would request being in business.
You can't really sell stuff at the same price you get for it, I guess. Maybe I missed something. Yeah. Committee,
Speaker 192
47:28
any other questions? Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right, who's speaking for? All right, Nathan
Reed, speaking for the bill. introduce yourself for the committee my name is nathan reed i'm a farmer in uh lee st francis
Speaker 197
47:55
and crittenden counties i'm here today just representing myself you'll hear from me later on behalf of organizations uh i'm former chairman of arkansas ag council and still very involved on the executive committee uh overall we we have favored right to repair laws but but i'm not speaking on their behalf. I guess I would start off by saying major equipment manufacturers generally 3x to 6x more of their profit comes from parts and service versus selling actual equipment. Overall that's 20 to 30 percent of
the revenue but up to 60 percent of their operating profit. We've come to a place in the American equipment industry where it feels like they're selling tractors and equipment just to be able to do the parts and service, sell that to you. And obviously you would want to protect that if that's what your business model is based on. Over the years I've seen it where they've turned it into a major profit center. Where that puts me and how that affects me, so I am, I like to say my farm is vertically integrated. We have a machine shop, we actually build equipment, we are very hands-on, try to do
everything ourselves. Many of you are familiar right now in the room of how difficult agriculture is, especially row crop agriculture. We are in a bind. I mean, people are going out of business every day. I've made the decision on my farm to do all of our own mechanic work, and we've been successful at it. I do run some, I guess we just had a John Deere salesman here, John Deere dealer here. I do run some John Deere equipment. I would say just because they're probably the
local dealer we've had some difficulty in getting being able to work on that ourselves I'll throw out an example a couple years ago I guess it would have been 23 I needed to put some injectors in a cotton picker you know we're more than capable of doing that I have very very good mechanics was able to find injectors I guess outside of the John Deere parts chain but I go to put them in you need a specialty tool well I take the the part number for the specialty to my local dealer and say, "Hey, I want to buy this tool."
Nope, we don't sell those to the public. And so I had to get on the internet and order a tool from a shady internet site. These are the hard tools, not the software, just the tools that are needed to install these injectors. Well, once I get them installed, what do I do? Well, you have to go into the computer and enter in, they call them an injector trim code. It's basically a calibration number for each injector. Well, how do you do that? Oh, you call the dealer. That's the only way that you can do it. I was able to hire an independent mechanic. I don't know where that software came from, but he was able to put the injector codes in for me for a couple hundred dollars.
I mean, my experience has been before, and this is any dealer, not picking on any, but before any work is actually done, just to show up at your farm is well over $1,000 up to $2,000 before any work is performed. That's just the fees for the service truck and the call-out fee. And so it's becoming almost cost prohibitive at times, especially on odor equipment. And I run all odor and out of warranty equipment. And, you know, if you have a tractor that's worth $50,000 that needs what I would consider some minor work that I could maybe fix for 5 to 10,
it's generally going to be 10 to 20 or plus. And so you get into where the economic value to repair it is not worth even fixing it. So I just, it would, on the software side, generally my experience with dealer software is you can't delete emissions equipment with the dealer software. I mean, they can't do it. And generally, most of this software is tailored towards a mechanic fixing it. There may be examples of where you can change some stuff that doesn't need to be changed.
but I would say my experience with it is it's very similar to a code reader on a car and being able to read the codes and maybe put in calibration for sensors, but you're not able to go in and, at least my experience, change the horsepower ratings and do stuff that would, just like you can't do that in your own vehicle for your truck you're driving. That has been my experience, but I guess that is my testimony. If there's any questions, I'd love to attempt to answer. Any questions?
Seeing none, thank you, sir. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience wishing to speak for
or against the bill? Seeing none. Representative Moore, are you ready to close
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
52:41
for your bill? Members, colleagues, I'll just end with this. it is a fundamental to the ethos of the american farmer to be able to repair your own equipment
Speaker 168
52:49
and with that i would appreciate a good vote and i make a motion do pass all right we have a
motion do pass all those in favor say aye aye opposed
Speaker 140
53:13
the ayes have it congratulations Representative Falk. Introduce yourself and present your
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
53:18
bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dan Vought, District 87.
This is the bill that we ran the other day. I did make the modifications. It's on page 5 and it's on line 10. You'll see the modification that was made. for the constituent who come down and had an issue with that line. So with that, I would appreciate a good vote. All right.
All right, we have someone that always signed up to speak
Russell Thomas
Unverified
54:06
for the bill, Russell Thomas. introduce yourself thank you mr chairman russell thomas from hot springs i just want to real quickly 30 seconds give you a thanks for all the leeway you gave me and explaining my family situation i appreciate all the representatives that asked me questions and um you know you're
working in getting this thing where it protects americans just like it does foreigners who are here on the visa. So, you know, I hope you do vote for the amendment and especially Representative Shepard. I mean, he really, I think, turned the tide of understanding that it really was an issue. So thank you very much. Committee, any questions? Well, thank you, sir. Anyone
else in the audience that wishes to speak for or against the bill? None? Do I have a motion? We have a motion.
Motion do pass. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
Speaker 215
55:00
Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Kavanaugh. introduce yourself representative friend Cavanaugh district 30
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
55:23
all right you're recognized to present your bill thank you members I'm sure everybody's familiar with this bill it's one that's probably been talked out quite a bit if you live in northeast Arkansas and in particular in my
district we're the epicenter of an issue that's been going on for some time um we have crop residue burning which anybody that's in the agri business understands it needs to be done there's a reason for it and farmers need to be able to continue to do so but we have some unfortunate farmers who are giving all the good farmers bad eyes they're they're black in their eyes because they're not following good procedures by far most farmers are good citizens and they do
the crop burning the proper way. But in an area where you've got large farms and you can have one or two bad farmers that are doing the burning not properly and not under the proper guidelines, it creates a real issue for quality of life and even safety. We've had issues with crop burning from businesses having to close because of it to soccer games having to be canceled because they couldn't perform because of the smoke we're not talking about out in the rural areas we're talking
about out into the middle of Jonesboro Arkansas we've even as everyone's familiar with we've had a tragedy on 67 from a crop residue burn where there was a multi-car park up pile up and multiple deaths that occurred from that prior to that I was working with farmers on a way that we could try to do some self-regulation on crop residue burning and I believe five six years ago they came up with
a self-regulation where they would work with the Department of Agriculture and they would call in report these burns and try to get some guidance. This was a self-regulation And unfortunately, not many farmers took the ability to do that. On the day of the issue on 67, I believe when I talked to Secretary Ward, I called that day and said, how many people reported burning that day?
My response was, I think it was two or three. None of them in that area. They were around Poinsett County or something. so no one up in any of the area had reported they were going to be deborah burning and that is really what the catalyst of this problem is this bill originally started out that there would be a i've made several amendments on it for the farmers because i want the farmers that are doing it properly to still to be able to continue to do it because it is important to them and it's it's a practice that they need to be able to do but we have to weigh both sides of the situation because
if you're a legislator in northeast Arkansas, this is the biggest call we get. When we had all the big wins last week, we had farmers burning. What happened? We had lots of phone calls because we had farmers that are actually burning during burn ban, high wins, and so were they following guidelines? No, but they're, unfortunately, as legislators, we know they're the ones we always have to legislate for, those that don't follow common sense or the guidelines. I will say I've worked with Farm Bureau, Rice Federation on amendments.
They're still not comfortable with my bill. And I'll tell you the one thing they're not comfortable with my bill on is because I say they shall report to the Department of Agriculture when they have a burn. They would like it to say may report. Well, here's the reason I'm not saying may. It's because we already have that. So I'm not changing anything. So all I'm asking is that they report their burn, follow the guidelines that they're going to be a part of to set so that we have proper smoke management. And then when they do that, they get liability protection, just like we did for the
forestry industry. And still, that's really what this is based upon. Now, are they comfortable with the bill? No. But at some point in this conversation, we have to realize, and particularly in northeast Arkansas, we're at a catalyst moment for these farmers up there. That if we don't find a way to regulate it so that the general population who don't understand why farmers do it and why they need to do it, they're going to outweigh the voice of the farmers. And I'm very much afraid that
this tool that they need to be able to use, if we don't properly regulate it, is going to be taken away from them and that's really what my goal is is because I'm from a road crop farm family I understand why we do it and I understand the need to do it but I also understand and have a great fear that if we don't address it now because my district is the epicenter that it's going to get out of control and there won't be any burning and that's not what we need for farmers as we all understand it is so hard to be a farmer and we've all said this before how many people buy retail
and sell wholesale. It's a business model. It's hard to make profitable to begin with, and it just gets harder. So we don't need to take opportunities away from those that do it properly. I've had suggestions from Ag Council, let's do it as an incentive to incentivize them to do crop burning. I am all wonderful with that. I asked them to bring me a bill, and I would run that bill along with this. They did not bring me a bill. All they did was say, we want this to say May.
We want this, we want that, but there was nothing that said that we're going to work to address these issues beyond saying, we want this to say May. And I guess I'm a little frustrated because I did make multiple amendments, took out the fines, gave them the FOIA exemption that they wanted, all in a way to try to get this so that we can balance both sides of the problem. It has not happened, but I do feel my district, if I don't run this bill and we don't address it,
I have failed two parts of my district, the ag, because I'm afraid this tool that they need is going away, and the general population that is suffering from the bad players and all the smoke that we get. And with that, I'd take any
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:01:57
questions. All right. Committee, any questions? Representative Steele? One quick question. Representative Kavanaugh, how close does burning come to
Speaker 217
1:02:04
the ASU campus? Miles, probably. So significant. It's close. Yes, sir.
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
1:02:11
Representative Poyer. And Representative Kavanaugh, what is the penalty if they don't follow this? I didn't see it in there. We
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
1:02:20
took the penalty out because they felt that getting the liability protection was going to be enough opportunity for them to want to be able
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
1:02:28
to follow the guidelines. Okay, so there is no penalty at all. Okay, thank you. Representative
Speaker 225
1:02:34
Younger. Representative Kavanaugh, I'm on the other side of the state.
Speaker 226
1:02:43
If they are burning during a burn ban, they've broken the law, they haven't. Farmers are exempt
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
1:02:50
from burn bans. Crop residue burns are exempt from burn bans. You learn something
Speaker 228
1:02:56
every day. Thank you. All right. Representative Ball? I would say
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:03:00
not all farmers are banned during that time because we can't burn if just your cattle farmers
and stuff can't burn if there's a burn ban. But crop is correct. Wouldn't you agree?
Representative Perrier said, was asking about the
fine. But the fine is they don't have the liability. So that farmer is responsible for the burn getting out. Correct. That would be his, that's the fine, is he would
have to pay or she would have to pay because they no longer have the liability. Correct. I'll
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
1:03:36
give some context to that. So I'm thinking I'm not from, you know, your side of the world. My way, these farmers utilize this sometimes two to five years.
You know, how do we, you know, let these guys know? I wanted to make sure we didn't put them in a situation to get a fine where they, so that's the context of that. It's a different world where
Speaker 234
1:03:58
I'm from to Eastern Arkansas. And this is crop residue burning only.
Speaker 237
1:04:02
Well, we got a few flat places up there,
D. Not many. Not many. All right. Any other questions, committee? Representative
Speaker 238
1:04:12
Mike. So thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm not, I don't do any
Speaker 228
1:04:16
crop residue burning, but we do control burning.
What kind of, what rule and regulation will these people have to follow? Is this, they just call and report it? that we're going to have a burn today, or do they have to follow all the other stuff like certified
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
1:04:31
burners? No, I didn't go down the route to make them be certified burners. I didn't want to create another level of licensure that they were going to have to do. So what it says is they'll basically follow the smoke guidelines, voluntary guidelines, and you'll notice in the bill it gives us about a year or more to come up with those guidelines and will be administered through the Department of Ag.
And then all that gives us time for all the stakeholders to come in and look at those guidelines and make sure, number one, they work for the farmers, that we're not putting guidelines in that they just cannot meet. That's one thing. Currently, the guidelines that we have don't work, and so we know that. So that's why I wanted to give us ample time to work with the Department of Ag and the farmers to make sure that the guidelines that we have are going to work. And that's
Speaker 238
1:05:14
what that's for. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right.
Representative Carlton Wing
Unverified
1:05:17
Representative Wayne? Yeah, just a quick question. So with regards to those guidelines, would those include,
so if they call in and say, hey, I'm going to do a burn today, and then let's say five neighboring farmers are all going to do the same, would the Department of Ag be able to say, well, hey, we need to stagger you? Is that going to be part of
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
1:05:35
the rules? What they currently have is an app that you can actually go on. And be honest with you, it's not a real friendly app. So the department is willing to make changes to that app as we go through so that it can be seamlessly, so they don't have to call, so they can pull up an app to do it. In that discussions with the Department of Ag, we've asked if they can take in to how many farmers around.
They have to look at, I think it's carbon in the air and different things, but also we've asked can they start looking at meteorology and can they look at the winds and stuff that will be more apt so they can know. Currently, the guidelines are so restrictive that they don't work for crop residue burning. So with this and with new guidelines coming from the feds, we're hoping that we'll actually free them up more so they can actually burn more. So that's why the current guidelines don't work. They work wonderful for the forestry item, but they don't work for crop residue.
And that's why we've got to work on that. So we'll look at many
different things. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right, committee, any other questions? Marcus?
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
1:06:40
I'm sorry, but just help me out here. How is this going to help prevent, like, the accidents that were on the highway and the canceling of soccer games and things? Just clarify that just a
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
1:06:50
little bit for me. With the smoke guidelines that we'll be developing, they'll help us. You know, they can burn. If it goes up, there's no problem.
But if it's not going up and it's going out into whether it's a populated area or over a highway, that's a problem. And so if we can get the guidelines that they'll follow, so instead of burning when it's going to go across a highway or it's going to go into a city where there's a field and it can just go up. So there's different guidelines they can do. And to be honest with you, most farmers already look at those things. But I'll say again, unfortunately, we have some that have not that have created this problem for all farmers. Thank you.
All right. Committee, any other questions? Seeing none, we have two signed
up to speak against the bill. Dow Brantley, are you here? Introduce yourself for the committee.
Speaker 250
1:07:53
Hi, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Thanks for having me today. My name is Dal Brantley.
Speaker 251
1:07:58
I farm with my father and our partner, Matthew Marsh, in England, just 25, 30 miles from here. In addition, I'm here today representing the rice industry. I chair the Arkansas Rice Federation. So glad to be here and thank you for everything that you guys do for us. But today I'm here, as I said, as chair of the Arkansas Rice, and we do not support, cannot support this bill as it is presented here today. I have just a few concerns, be very quick, and would love to answer any questions that you all have.
Burning is a valuable tool for us. It helps sets us up for the next year's crop. It's very cheap for us to do, prepares us for the next season. Yes, it is very dangerous. We work very hard to do it and do it the right way. As Representative Kavanaugh said, we always have a few bad apples that have caused lots of problems. Let's not let those bad apples hurt the rest of our industry. The cost of burning that we could talk about today, again, is just my opinion,
but it would vary from $30 to $100 an acre depending upon the season. I'll give you some real-world examples of what not being able to burn means. In 2019 and 2021, extremely wet falls, we were unable to burn our crop. That spring, it continued to stay wet. On our farm and many other farms in our communities, we didn't plant half of our crop that year, simply over the straw on the ground and not being able to get into the fields timely.
If we are not able to burn, we will have those real-world examples year after year, and that will affect not only the state but our local communities by not being able to have a crop. When I just give you those two examples, my father, who's been in the business over 50 years, has only ever missed two crops, 19 and 21, as I mentioned earlier. The other reason we're opposed to this is our current situation that we live in today. Twenty-four, this past year, we had record-yielding crops.
We should have been putting money in our back pockets to prepare for the next storm. Today, we have record losses. We have a record number of farm sales in this state going on today, highest it's been since the 80s. We cannot control our cost. We cannot control the weather. We do not need any more mandates or regulations that increase the cost of our production. We will work, and I will promise you we will work, to promote these voluntary guidelines that we have just been using for a few years.
I want to make them better. I think everyone in the industry wants to make them better, and I will vow to improve that. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today and give you
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:11:00
my thought and opinion. I'm glad to hear your questions. Representative Bond, you have a question? Yes, sir. Thank
you, sir. I don't see anywhere in this bill where she's getting rid of burning residue. Can you show me
Speaker 254
1:11:12
where you think that's at in this current bill right here? Where it's stopping? It doesn't.
Speaker 251
1:11:17
As she mentioned earlier, it says that we shall.
Right. We don't want another mandatory regulation that requires us to do something that will have a higher expense at the end of the day. Okay. This, in my opinion, and you didn't ask me, This is a problem in a very small area. No, I know. Let's don't let this carry out for the rest of the state and the rest of this industry. Right. And I agree
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:11:44
that it's a small part of the state. It's a big part of the state. Yeah,
but when we have people die due to the fact that we have farmers that are not in compliance with a voluntary,
they're obviously not following the voluntary rules right now, And they won't even if we leave it voluntary. And we
actually should be, and I'm a big farmer. Okay. We've got right at 2,000 acres. We farm lots of different things. We did this for trees last time and had no trouble with setting the guidelines for the trees. I think that this bill not only protects the consumers who are driving on the road,
but it also protects farmers who are next to, maybe next to a bad actor, who could actually catch their crop on fire because they didn't take any type of protocols or look at anything to decide. So this not only protects a consumer, it's also protecting a farmer who might actually live close to, say, your place, and say you started the fire and that fire jumped over into, which is what happened. And it jumps, and it gets into your land, then that farmer that caught your land on fire and destroyed your crop is now responsible for what he did to you also.
So I don't see how that's a bad thing. I really don't. I mean, we're livestock farmers. We have to follow lots of guidelines.
We have lots and lots of red tape that we have to do for our hog farm to make sure that we keep people safe. We did for the dairy, too. There's lots of guidelines that you have to follow to have a dairy up and running, and it's for the safety of the consumer. And I see this as something that is for safety
and not being mean or malicious to anybody, but trying to protect not only the people who are around it, but also the farmers around that. And
I'd like to know, wouldn't you agree? How about I do it that
Speaker 250
1:14:03
way? Sure, I'll agree, if you'll allow me to elaborate. In my community, we work very hard every year as we're burning.
Speaker 251
1:14:13
We have a text chain from a local buyer that works with us to make sure we all remember the Thursday night, Friday night football games.
We have a prevailing south wind. Don't burn if you're south of town. We work very hard to do that. But what happens when we make this mandatory is in the app, and Representative Kavanaugh mentioned the carbon and some of this stuff that gets over my head, we're all going to learn that we can't burn all this straw the same time, the same day. If we can't burn it, what does that mean two, three, four years from now? And my biggest fear in all this that I didn't say earlier,
and I think it was Representative Unger that asked the question, We grow a million and a half acres, plus or minus, of rice every year. You leave that straw land out there, ma'am, and we have a lightning strike, we have a damn big problem, pardon my language. No, I agree. That concerns me more than my ability and people in my community to burn and do it safely. It is very sad and unfortunate that someone was killed, but that should be the responsibility of that individual farmer that started that.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:15:24
but it's not because it's a voluntary program. So with mandatory... It makes
Speaker 250
1:15:33
him wobble. But it wouldn't allow that accident to stop that accident. And I'm not here to talk about an accident. That is a sad situation and one of our biggest fears. So can I ask a question of
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:15:46
Secretary Ward if he's here? Secretary Ward, did you come to the table?
do you introduce yourself for the committee yes sir westward department of agriculture thank you mr. chair so i know we did this with trees and has it stopped anybody from being able to burn when they needed to burn for the trees
no ma'am not to my knowledge I think they're so so his uh remark was if there's several in his area that want to burn is there something in the bill that would keep them from being able to for you to for you because it's you right y'all's department is there something that keeps y'all from okaying if if everything is right for the burn to
happen so we don't have a lightning strike I can, because I don't want, I mean, obviously I don't want that,
and I believe in burning. That's why I talked her off the ledge to not do a complete ban of burning because I know how important it
Speaker 262
1:17:07
is. Yes, ma'am, and if you'll give me a little bit of leeway. So I think this kind of goes back to Representative Kavanaugh's point about updating the app and the guidelines. So I think there's some work that has to be done there, and as the bill reads, it says in compliance. So if there were multiple producers who were trying to burn in a specific area at the same
time, you would overload that air shed, and the dispatch or the app currently would have to say, they would have to tell a producer, you cannot burn right now. And a producer would have to make that decision, do I burn because I've got a limited window, limited availability, and be out of compliance with those current guidelines. So that would be the catch. is that there's got to be some work done to update the guidelines in the app to make sure that it is accurate for producers to be able to use to help make that decision.
All right. Committee, any other questions? Representative Wayne?
Representative Carlton Wing
Unverified
1:18:06
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I wanted to reiterate just a little bit. I don't think anybody is asking to not have burning, at least here within this bill. oftentimes the legislature has to get involved whenever groups or individuals don't police themselves. And so that's, I think, why we've got the bill here before us today, because we've got a problem that needs a solution. And it's great when people can handle this themselves, but when
it doesn't, then they reach out to the representatives. That's what we do. This is the process. So do you have any kind of self-policing that you can offer that would strengthen things from where they are right now so that we don't have those situations like what we've had, both the tragedies and, at the low
Speaker 251
1:18:51
end, the severe inconveniences? The only self-policing we had was the idea of the app, working with the State Department, making this voluntary. Our biggest issue is money and funding. Education would be the best thing I think we could do from Arkansas Rice
is making sure farmers know that, hey, we have a voluntary system. you need to use it, but we have been very limited in our funds and what we've been able to do to date.
Representative Carlton Wing
Unverified
1:19:16
But there's no teeth for anybody who breaks that and then ends up with a very tragic situation that we've brought up here. No, sir. Okay. Not from our
Speaker 253
1:19:23
side, not from our industry. Okay. All right. Thank you. All
right. Committee, any other questions? Thank you. Thank you, Dale.
We have one other person signed up to speak against
Speaker 197
1:19:51
the bill. Nathan. Hello again. Thank you for the opportunity. Again, I'm Nathan Reed from Mariana, Arkansas, a farming league in Crittenden and St. Francis Counties. I am here now representing Arkansas Ag Council. It is a row crop agriculture organization. I'm sure most of you are familiar with.
We represent all commodities in the Delta. First off, I'd like to state by, try not to repeat what Dal said too much, but crop residue burning is a much-needed ag practice. In addition to what he stated, a lot of farmers are signed up with NRCS and with different conservation programs, and when you have this crop residue, you've got to get rid of it somehow. usually that's either through tillage or burning well the problem is is we're
contractually obliged in a lot of cases to not do tillage and so really the only option we have to get rid of this residue to clear off for the next crop would be to burn it so it is a very important and it has become a more important agricultural practice with this push towards minimum tillage no things such as that. While we appreciate the bill was was amended to eliminate the penalties for enforcement, it still is another regulation that we're subject to
and the the myriad amount of regulations and in different regulatory actions we are subject to as farmers, I mean it's almost like like you feel at times kind of like when the game warden stops you hunting, he can find some law you're breaking. And we feel like we're kind of to that point in ag now, between state and federal regulations. I guess another duty of mine is I volunteer, and I'm on the Arkansas plant board. You know, the no funding for this concerns me. Where do we get the money to implement this?
You know, we've had issues in the past, passing restrictive laws on farmers that the plant board was supposed to enforce. And it's not that they didn't try, but they just don't have the manpower. you know certain chemicals were banned from being sprayed at certain times and and what the plant board found out is is If a farmer doesn't really want to be regulated It's very hard to regulate them and and I don't know if that speaks well in our industry or not But this just does place a I would say an undue burden on a part of ag that so
In three we do recognize that there is an issue but but Where I farm, I've got farms that are 10 miles from a paved road. No house within five miles. And I feel like this is a Band-Aid patch for the whole state that makes me subject to regulations that generally don't apply to me. And so I feel like we're trying to take a regional issue and make that across the whole state. So that is a major concern.
We would prefer for this to be a voluntary program. I don't feel like the app has gotten a fair shake. It's very new. There still is a massive education effort. We do appreciate the liability protection. And to me and our organization, we feel that we kept this voluntary but provided that liability protection, you would see massive adaptation of the app and could accomplish what we're trying to accomplish without additional regulations would be my take on it.
So thank you very much. I'm willing to take any questions. Committee, any questions?
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
1:23:29
Yes, sir. Marcus? Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you said, you referred to this as a Band-Aid application. And right now, I understand, you know, that you have a few bad actors, and it's kind of like gun laws. You're trying to fix bad actors, and you're bringing in all the good actors, too, while you're trying to take care of a specific individual that may not be able to be taken care of. The concern is that this is a soft-glob approach, in my opinion, of trying to correct the problem,
and that if this doesn't get corrected and it doesn't seem like you're able to self-police successfully, then there's going to be another accident. There's going to be another situation that's going to happen, and instead of a scratch, you're going to have a sucking chest wound, and we're going to come in here, and we're going to load you down with some really serious regulations. So, again, I just think that you're going to have to look at this very carefully and decide how you're going to approach it because something else bad will happen in the future,
and you guys are going to be the ones, the good actors, will be the ones that pay the heaviest price
Speaker 197
1:24:45
for it. Do you agree? I would say that I guess burning has become probably more prevalent in the northeast part of the state with the massive adaptation of rice. It's never been an issue in my area, and I wouldn't say band-aid, but I'm saying I feel like we're trying to regulate a problem in a specific area and make the whole state subject to it, where there may be, I guess my concern is that I don't feel like this app and some other things have gotten some fair shake.
I feel that an incentive-based approach, which is essentially what this bill offers with the protection from liability, if that could just be made an incentive instead of a requirement, I think you would see massive adaptation of the app. People are still subject. If I go out and burn next to a highway and have issues, I mean, I think that I would still be subject to the liability of any problems, correct? Am I correct on that? If there's a wreck because I'm obscuring
the highway, I still think as a farmer, I would still be liable right now. I mean, so there is that aspect of it that I don't think that they're just all of a sudden off the hook under current laws. But I do agree something needs to be done. We would much prefer an incentives-based approach rather than more regulations because once regulations happen it's very hard to dial those back. And there's not a lot of teeth to this anyway to to the regulations there but the the there's no
funding and there's no uh there's really not a lot other than you're liable for it uh if we don't if we don't comply. But I would I would encourage more education and more try to do more voluntary adaptation of the app and reporting.
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
1:26:39
Follow up. And what has your organization, what have you and some of the other organizations done to identify the bad players and maybe have conversations
with those bad players? Well, we're not an enforcement organization. I'm not asking to enforce. I'm asking you, you know, you're saying voluntary. We want to be voluntary. But what have you've done, I would think that because you don't want more regulations, that you would be proactive in trying to identify the people who just don't want to do it and say, hey, listen, you're putting us all at risk. I mean, that's just
Speaker 197
1:27:20
common sense. That's not asking for enforcement. Which we've had, Andrew Grubmeyer is here, our executive director, and we have had lots of
educational outreach as much as we can, which we're a small organization. We have one staff member. I mean, we're totally voluntary. It feels like it's a job at times. So we have done what we can do on the educational front, try to push this out. But again, like in my area, I've never had an issue. I mean, it's not anything that came up. So if I'm not a proactive farmer that's going to meetings and active in organizations, I really wouldn't know about this, you know, that there was even a problem, because we're so rural.
And so that's where I think, and I agree with this liability protection, I think if the app was optional, but if you signed up and did everything right, you had this liability protection, I think you would see massive adaptation of this without a regulation on the backside requiring it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah.
Speaker 192
1:28:19
Committee, any other questions? Representative Cooper? Thank you for
Representative Cameron Cooper
Unverified
1:28:25
being here. Thank you for your testimony. If we were to identify zones of
the state where we wanted to focus on maybe tightening some regulation on this, instead of it being a statewide blanket approach, do you think that would be more acceptable? I might have
Speaker 197
1:28:43
far as our organizations, but I can speak personally that I think that would be a good idea to take care of where the problem areas are, maybe, versus just applying something to the whole state. All right. Committee, any
other questions? Seeing none, thank you, sir.
Thank you. You did real well. All right. Is there anyone else in the audience that wishes to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, Representative Kavanaugh, are you
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
1:29:20
ready to close for your bill? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, members. Just to clarify, this is not a bill to ban burning. Yeah, it's been a long session, as we all know.
And this isn't a requirement that they get approval from the Department of Ag to burn. All it says is that you will report to the Department of Agriculture when you burn, And if you follow these guidelines that the farming industry and the ag industry is going to be a part of developing, if you follow those, you'll get liability protection. And, oh, by the way, the information is not foliable so that you've got protection.
That's all this bill does. As Representative Richmond said, it is the soft-hand approach. I'm not finding the bad players. When that bill was first approached, the fines freaked everybody out, which I understand. I'm not big on regulation, but I'm also not big on self-regulating when you've had six to seven years and it's not been successful. And it has caused death.
It has caused health issues. And instead of getting better, it's getting worse. And so I think as someone who understands the importance of why they have to burn, I'll say again, if we don't do something, this practice that they need desperately to farm is going to go away because the outcry from the citizens are going to be so great.
And we have to find a way to balance both of those. And that's what this bill is trying to do. And with that, I would appreciate a good vote. All right. Committee, you've
heard testimony. Do I see a motion? I see a motion due pass. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Ayes have it. Thank you, members.
Representative John Maddox
Unverified
1:31:37
All right. Representative Maddox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could I have some people come to
Speaker 40
1:31:57
the table with me? Would that be okay? That would
Representative John Maddox
Unverified
1:32:03
be fine. They're already here. John Maddox, State Representative, District 86.
Speaker 293
1:32:07
Catherine Andrews, Director of the Arkansas Office of Outdoor Recreation.
Speaker 294
1:32:13
Becky Flynn, Deputy Director of the Arkansas Office of Outdoor Recreation.
Representative John Maddox
Unverified
1:32:17
Okay, I'll start, and I'll be extremely brief. And I think this is going to be a very brief
presentation, but I always like to have someone here to answer other questions if there are any. So in 2023, we did the Natural State Initiative, and we created what was called the Opportunity Zones. And it's a great concept, and we've had numerous interest from business in that,
but no one has actually pulled the trigger yet. So what we're doing is we're modifying the Opportunity Zone legislation, and we're decreasing the threshold. We're decreasing both the investment threshold and we're decreasing the area around the Opportunity Zone to qualify for that. So just trying to get a little more investment or get some investment. Frankly, we haven't had any yet. This will help all of our areas, but specifically it will hopefully help the high unemployment areas.
And this bill, the original act, and this also makes special accommodation for high unemployment areas. So with that, I'll let these others speak on it if they'd like. All
Speaker 293
1:33:25
right. Thank you. Yes. So right now, the requirement in a high unemployment area is $250,000 minimum investment. We've gotten a lot of feedback from small business owners across the state who've said we want to invest in these areas around the state parks
where these natural NSI Opportunity Zones exist, but right now the barrier is really high. And so by lowering the investment amount, that helps them financially able to attain the incentive, And then by increasing the area, that also gives more opportunity for those small businesses to take advantage
Speaker 301
1:34:14
All right. I'll just add as well that as we travel the state to places in eastern Arkansas, in the Delta, in southwest Arkansas, in the River Valley, where these opportunities exist, We continue to get feedback from local folks, potential entrepreneurs that really want to take advantage of this and see some economic growth for themselves and their families. And so we've received feedback that there's high interest, but it's just not yet attainable at the current levels.
All right. You ready for questions? Yes, sir. All right. Committee, any
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:34:57
questions? I've got a quick question. Yeah. Representative Garner. I just have a quick question about how opportunity zones work. So once you get that area developed, then that's not an opportunity zone anymore, or does it always stay an opportunity zone? And how do you make sure that after that happens the projects are quality projects, if for lack of a better term?
Speaker 293
1:35:19
This is completely different than the federal opportunity zones. Okay. So this was something that was created two years ago. It's called a Natural State Initiative Opportunity Zone. It's a little misleading. It's not the federal one. So those rules do not apply. What this is is it's four different state parks, Pinnacle Mountain, Queen Wilhelmina, Delta Heritage Trail, and Petty Jean. And right now, as it exists, it's an eighth of a mile around those state parks, including the state park area. It's just that area of that zone.
So if you are a bike shop and you want to go put your bike shop at the Delta Heritage Trail somewhere, you have to locate within one of those areas in order to receive the sales tax incentive and
Speaker 303
1:36:06
the income tax credit. So it's just that zone for right now.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:36:12
And I get that, but once you get all of these folks moving into that one opportunity zone,
then you can decide that a different place needs to have those incentives. I mean, you've got limited funds, I assume. We're not going to overdevelop one and leave out the others.
Speaker 293
1:36:33
Sure, yes. So there's just a way to figure out. Right, it's a way to increase economic development in those areas, and those four zones were created because there is significant investment from the state and public-private partnerships within those four areas.
And so we hope that each four of those will receive lots of attention. And then if we see great growth from those, then we could increase to other parts of the state. That's our hope. And we haven't seen
Speaker 303
1:37:03
any investment to this point. And so if we do, we hope we can make more. All
right. Okay. Committee, any other questions? seeing none is anyone oh sorry we
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
1:37:19
went um right thank you mr chair so we went from you know the
crop burning to this i was trying to get my bearing so there is four places you're looking at now and did i hear that you're wanting to expand our hope
Speaker 293
1:37:34
is in the future if we see that these are successful that one day we could yes okay so i have well
Speaker 309
1:37:41
i've probably got a separate rant on that so
Speaker 168
1:37:44
thank you all right committee any other
questions seeing none does anyone in the audience wish
to speak far or against the bill
Representative John Maddox
Unverified
1:37:56
representative maddox you ready close for your bill yes sir thank you mr chair so committee i was actually in this committee and presented in 2023 this was the governor's what was called the natural state initiative. Again, there has been interest, but unfortunately there has actually been, no one has actually taken us up on it. So it's an exciting project, but we're certainly like to see some interest and see
if we can make this successful. So with that, I'd close and appreciate a good vote. All right.
See a motion? All right. See a motion do pass. All
those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Congratulations. Your bill
Speaker 313
1:38:43
passed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee. All right. Representative Brown. I think he's doing 1928. You're next.
Speaker 168
1:39:05
Thank you, Mr. Jarrett. Can I have Jarrett Garrett join me at the table,
Speaker 314
1:39:13
please? All right. You can introduce yourself. Jarrett Garrett, Arkansas Farm Bureau, Director of Commodity Activities and Economics for Poultry, Swine, and Small Remnants. All
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:39:21
right. Mr. Chair, Matt Brown, District 55. House Bill 1928 is a bill that's been brought to us by Farm Bureau to help out our poultry farmers. Back in 2003, the legislature passed Act, I don't think it's Act 2003, I think it's a different Act number. Sorry about that.
But essentially it created this system to help control nutrient runoff from poultry farms in certain protected watersheds. Essentially, if a poultry farm is located in a designated nutrient surplus area, the poultry farm is required to comply with a nutrient management plan as approved by the local conservation district and the resources commission. This bill provides that if you are complying with the nutrient management plan, which you by law are required to comply with, then you have immunity from being sued by a third party for complying with your plan.
The issue that has arisen is that in some other states that neighbor us, some trial lawyers, not that I want to talk about lawyers, but some trial lawyers are making an industry out of suing farmers for nutrient runoff and things of that nature, even though they are complying with the law and are within their specs. This bill simply provides that if you are doing that, you're okay. Bill also provides that if, for example, you should not be in compliance, like maybe your plan says you have 100 units of phosphorus or nitrogen or something and, oops, it was 102, then the remedy is for the Natural Resources Commission to go in and take care of it on the administrative side through corrective action or possibly a fine,
not for plaintiff's lawyers going into federal court and seeing you in federal court. And with that, I would be glad to answer any
Speaker 316
1:40:50
questions. And by that, I mean have my witness answer the questions. We're
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
1:41:00
quite honest ourselves. All right, committee, any questions? So let me see if I heard you correctly. So if you have a poultry farm and it's high in nutrient in that area, so you have to neutralize that back or do something to bring that back to where it's not over, I don't know the proper
Speaker 137
1:41:16
word, but too much of it in that area.
Speaker 314
1:41:21
Is that what you're saying? Yes, essentially. Right now the nutrient surplus area in the state of Arkansas is limited to like North part of the state kind of western central area of the state believe it encompasses about 10 counties and essentially what the state has done is identified that that is a nutrient surplus area what this what this bill would do like when you're implementing a nutrient management plan it essentially
looks at what's what's available it also identifies what you're trying to put on the field and it compensates uh to bring that back to to normal
Speaker 318
1:41:55
production levels all right thank you all right uh representative richmond thank
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
1:42:02
you mr chair so the the real issue that you're trying to address here is these predatory lawyers from out of state that are actually coming after our farmers because again they're looking at an opportunity to make a considerable amount of money, possibly, and that you're trying to administratively create a situation that
could alleviate this problem, first of all, such as if you do have a test that is higher than it's supposed to be, maybe a fine, but the real intent is to fix the problem. Correct. Okay, thank you. All right. Committee, any other questions? Seeing none, do we
have anyone in the y'all inch wishing to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, Representative
Speaker 316
1:42:48
Rose, you're ready to close for your bill? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm closed and make a motion to do pass.
All right. We have a motion to do pass. All those in favor say
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:42:59
aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. Your bill is passed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also have 1827. I was covering for Representative Wardlaw. Could I run
Nathan Reed
Unverified
1:43:12
that real quick? It's a good bill. I tell you what, would you just step aside for just a moment? I promise, Representative. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, Mr. Chair. She can run our bill.
Let's not let everybody leave now. We've got until 1230 today. Representative, you're
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:43:36
recognized to present your bill. Good morning, committee members. I'm Representative Denise Sennett. represent District 80 here downtown Little Rock and parts of Pulaski County. I like to call up my two witnesses. I have Pulaski County Attorney Adam Fogerman, and he's my neighbor as well, and Attorney Richard Madison. I present to you House Bill 1855, legislation aimed to
enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of fire protection services across Arkansas. This bill empowers the Department of Agriculture to recommend adjustments to fire protection district boundaries in case of overlapping jurisdictions, areas lacking fire protection in contiguous districts. By streamlining this process, we can ensure optimum coverage, reduce redundancies, and approve emergency response time for our communities.
HB 1855 addresses the Department of Agriculture to recommend adjustments for fire protection districts with overlapping boundaries, ensuring clear jurisdictional lines and reducing service duplication. This bill enables the department to propose boundary adjustments for districts, adjacent to areas without fire protection, facilitating the extension of vital services to currently unprotected regions.
For contiguous fire protection districts, the
department can recommend boundary modifications to promote better resource allocation and coordination among neighboring districts. HB 1855 established a clear procedure for districts to request boundary recommendations requiring written submissions and for contiguous districts, either mutual agreements or demonstration of good cause.
Upon receiving a recommendation from the Department of Agriculture, The requesting district must petition the county court, which will hold a hearing considering public input, and decide on the proposed boundary adjustments. Furthermore, the bill defines districts broadly to include various fire protection entities, such as nonprofit fire corporations, volunteer fire departments, and county-created fire service districts,
Speaker 327
1:46:28
Ensuring inclusive, okay, I'm sorry, that was a lot. Oh, you had to wait too long. I'm open for
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
1:46:41
questions, sorry. All right, question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Did the Department of Agri, are they okay with this bill? Yes. All right, thank you. All
Speaker 228
1:46:49
right, maybe any other questions? Representative Steele. Mr. Chairman, I have a motion at the proper time.
All right. Committee, any other questions? Representative Steele? Oh, anybody in the audience wish to speak for or
Speaker 47
1:47:09
against the bill? Seeing none. Representative
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:47:13
Dean, you're closed. Thank you for the motion, Representative Steele. I'm closed. This is a good bill. Me and these two gentlemen, we've been working on this for quite a while, right? I mean, since what, last year? Last session, we did an interim study, and so we don't have any oppositions for this,
and I think this will help Arkansas define these districts so we can better serve our constituents. And I'm closed.
Speaker 330
1:47:38
Thank you. Okay. Representative Steele, you're recognized for a motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Motion do pass. All right. We have a motion do pass. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. The bill's passed. Thank you. Representative Brown, would you like to reintroduce yourself? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:48:02
Sorry for trying to jump the queue. Matt Brown, District 55. Members, Representative Wardlaw couldn't be here today, so you asked me if I would run 1827 for him, so please don't hold that against me. This was a bill that was brought to Representative Wardlaw by the agency as well as the Sportsman's Caucus. There is no known opposition. It's a good bill. The Arkansas Hunting Heritage Act, which was passed back in 2005, provides that essentially to the greatest extent possible Game and Fish Commission decisions regarding land should not decrease the amount of acreage out there available for the citizens of Arkansas to hunt on as of the acreage that was there in August of 2005. So what has happened
in the 20 years since then? We've gotten a lot more land either purchased or under lease that's available now for the citizens to hunt on. This bill simply resets that floor to the amount of acreage as of today, as of 2025. The other thing this bill does is it does give the game and fish a little bit of, I guess, protection for lack of a better word. It does provide in there, it clarifies that if the game and fish loses acreage, like let's say they have some land under lease and it gets to a point that the lease is too expensive to continue, they can go ahead and not
continue that lease and that doesn't count against them as if they've done something wrong and decreased the land because that's outside their control and I think that's fair. The final thing the bill does is it does provide also that to the extent some land is lost that the Game and Fish should try at its best to replace it with like land in a reasonably close proximity of land that was lost. So for example if they lose you know a thousand acres of duck hunting land down around Stuttgart try to the extent you can try to get a thousand acres of duck hunting land somewhere around Stuttgart. Don't replace it with a you know a thousand acres of deer hunting land up in the mountains or something. And with that I'd be glad to answer any questions. All right. Question?
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
1:49:43
Representative Kozart. Representative Brown, does Representative Wardlaw have a good excuse for not being here today and presenting this? Honestly, I was so stunned he asked
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:49:54
me to run the bill. I didn't actually ask him why I wouldn't be here today. Well,
Speaker 137
1:49:59
he needs an excuse to ask this next time. I'm sure it was
a very good reason, though. Yeah. All right. Committee, any other
questions? Anyone in the audience wish to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, are you ready to close for your bill? I'm closed.
Make a motion to do pass, Mr. Chairman. All right, we have a motion to do pass. All those in favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed? Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee. Representative Beatty, would you like to present
your bill? The alternative is to reconvene this afternoon. I think we'd like to get done with this. All right, let's get after it.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:51:14
Representative Howard Beatty, District 95. We'll start with Senate Bill 361, and with your permission, I invite Clint O'Neill to join me at the table. All
Speaker 106
1:51:46
right, you're recognized to present your bill.
Speaker 342
1:51:54
Just recognize yourself. Clint O'Neill, Executive Director, AEDC. Thank
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:52:01
you. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'm here to present Senate Bill 361. It's to create the Industrial Development Authority Expansion Act. Basically, if you look through the bill, we have the Metropolitan Port Authorities that was established by legislation. This bill basically mimics that to create an industrial development authority to secure economic development. Key parts of the bill that actually creates the formation of industrial development authorities
and says that it provides creation by one or more local governments to secure and develop industry, foster economic development, increase job creation and capital investment. the powers and responsibilities are identified in the bill that they're authorized to establish, acquire, develop, improve, or maintain industrial and commercial facilities for job training, rail lines, other economic development projects, and they can cooperate with various governmental entities and act as an agent for the United States government. Each IDEA would be governed
by a board of directors with members appointed by the local governmental entities that create them. The board would select their officers and the operating procedures for the IDAs. As far as financial operations, they would have the power to borrow funds, issue bonds, enter agreements and payment of property tax with lessees or purchasers of industrial facilities. There would be some tax exemptions. Bonds issued under this act would be exempt from state, county, municipal taxes. They could enter into agreements, like we said before, in pilot projects for payment in lieu of taxes.
The bill allows for a transfer of surplus property or rail or rail track material with intermodal facilities, metropolitan poor authorities, and planning and development districts for rail purposes. Overall, the purpose of this bill is to provide a framework for the establishment and operation of industrial development authorities to promote industrial development, economic development in Arkansas, facilitate job creation, and leverage the investments of the state's infrastructures and facilities. We've been very successful with our metropolitan port authorities.
This just adds on to that, and we'll model that language. With that, we'll entertain any questions. All right, committee, any questions? I got a quick
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:54:21
one. Yeah, Representative Garner, you're recognized. Thank you. I just have a quick question about eminent domain. Who does the organization answer to? How is that determined?
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:54:29
Eminent domain was, I think, did we take this out? There are a
couple of bills that I have where we deal with eminent domain that we remove. Basically, if eminent domain is in this bill, I can't recall because I struck it from another
bill that we were working on with Senator Gismaine. If eminent domain is in this bill, it's going to be eminent domain from the organizations and entities that have eminent domain now, your county and your cities that would utilize that. This would not create any special authority for these folks, for this industrial development authority. All right. Committee, any other questions? Seeing none,
anyone of y'all just wish to speak for or against the bill? Representative Bailey, are you ready to close your bill?
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:55:12
I'm closed for my bill. I'd appreciate a motion due passed and a good vote
of the committee, and thank you all for listening. All right, committee will see
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:55:23
a motion. We have a motion due passed. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. Next. Next one's a real easy one. Again, Representative Howard Beatty, District 95, to present Senate Bill 407. Senate Bill 407 is to repeal the Arkansas Catfish Processor Fair Practices Act of 1987. And basically it does just that.
It repeals that piece of legislation. You know, just a few points why we don't need this legislation. There have only been three companies licensed under the act since it was passed in 1987. There's one company that was licensed in 2016 and two companies in 2019. So it's very limited use. Since then, there hasn't been an application since 2019. The nature of the catfish processing industry has changed dramatically in Arkansas since its passage, and this is a bill that is supported by the industry.
It is recommended by the Department of Ag. This is an agency bill, and they recommend that the Processing Act of 87 be repealed. All right. Entertaining questions. Committee, any questions? Seeing none, anyone in the audience would speak for or
against the bill? Representative, are you ready to close for your bill? Mr. Chairman, I'm closed for
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:56:32
bill again. I appreciate the motion due pass. We have a motion due pass. All those, our
committee, we have a motion due pass. All those in favor say aye.
Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. Next. Representative Howard Beatty, District 95, Senate Bill
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:56:48
421. And with your permission, I would invite Secretary Westward to the table, sir. All right. Secretary, are you still here? Yes, you are. That's our West Ward Department of Agriculture.
All right. You're recognized to present your bill. Members, Senate Bill 421, just the subtitles basically to authorize the Arkansas Health Natural Resource Commission to issue general obligation bonds for the development of water, wastewater, and pollution abatement projects in the state. I had all my stuff organized here, but I think I dropped something out of the packet. Basically, 421 would allow the issuance of general obligation bonds up to $500 million,
and also I think it allows a portion not to exceed $165 million, that would be designated for irrigation facilities and usage. Key provision of the bill is that these bond issues would be subject to the approval by a majority of the qualified electors in the state that would get to vote on this proposition at the 2026 general election, or a special election that's called for that purpose. Setting out the terms and characteristics of the bonds, it and courting issuance in series material
the 35 years after the issuance um and we'll move over now he brought some of the good talking points uh since january 2021 um oh yeah the um the state uh departments approved 477 water and wastewater projects for about two and a half billion dollars that are in all of our counties all 75 of the counties throughout the state right now the the estimate on on water projects as we all
know we hear that it's 13 billion dollars over the next 20 years uh general obligation bond authority for water and wastewater it's existed since 1981 it was granted by the general assembly in 81 87 97 2007 and then it was a statewide vote back in 82 88 98 2008 so 850 million in bond authority uh the remaining bond authority will be exhausted at the end of august summer of 2027.
so again i said it would seek to authorize 500 million in general obligation authority and then that would allow that through the biennium to be 60 million ensuring that this program would continue through 2043. debt service will be financed through the existing 14.8 million dollars that we have in general revenue and current and future loan payments the additional bond authority would not require any increase in general revenue
let's see upon the passage of 421 signature the governor issue general obligation bonds will be placed on the statewide general election as said in November 26 a vote of the people in an additional if additional authorities approved by the state of Arkansas. Department of Ag would prepare work plans every two years that would be presented to Natural Resources Commission, Chief Fiscal Officer, and the legislature and governor for approval prior to the utilization of any of these bond authorities. We all know that this
is a very important aspect of what we need in the state and basically this just kind of outlines the framework and established framework for taking care of financing the critical projects that are needed by all
of our counties. With that, we'll entertain any questions. All right. Committee, any questions? Seeing none, anyone in
the audience wish to speak far or against the bill? Representative, are you ready to close for your bill?
Speaker 342
2:00:57
Mr. Chairman, I am closed, and I'd appreciate a good motion and a good vote.
What's the will of the committee? I see a motion. I see a motion due pass. Representative Cozart. All
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:01:11
those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those three should be the last time you guys have
to look at me in committee. So thank you all. All right, what are we like? All right, Representative Womack had a
bill, HB 1675. Anyone here to present his bill? No. And SB 464, anyone here to present that bill?
No. With that, we're adjourned. Thank you all for your patience.
Agenda
REGULAR AGENDA
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1675 Womack TO AMEND THE INSPECTION FEES UNDER THE ARKANSAS GRADE "A" MILK PROGRAM ACT OF 1981.
HB1680 Vaught TO PREVENT A FOREIGN-PARTY-CONTROLLED BUSINESS FROM LEASING LAND; AND TO PROHIBIT A PROHIBITED FOREIGN PARTY FROM HOLDING AN INTEREST IN REAL PROPERTY OR AGRICULTURAL LAND IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.
Vaught
SB361 Dees TO CREATE THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES EXPANSION ACT; AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE CREATION OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES TO SECURE AND DEVELOP INDUSTRY AND FOSTER ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
Beaty
SB407 Gilmore TO REPEAL THE ARKANSAS CATFISH PROCESSOR FAIR PRACTICES ACT OF 1987.
Beaty
HB1827 Wardlaw TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS HUNTING HERITAGE PROTECTION ACT.
M. Brown
HB1852 J. Moore TO ESTABLISH A RIGHT TO REPAIR FOR CERTAIN AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENT.
J. Moore
HB1855 Ennett TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND THE ARKANSAS FORESTRY COMMISSION; AND TO AMEND THE LAWS RELATING TO FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT BOUNDARIES.
Ennett
SB421 Hester TO AUTHORIZE THE ARKANSAS NATURAL RESOURCES COMMISSION TO ISSUE GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER, WASTE DISPOSAL, AND POLLUTION ABATEMENT PROJECTS.
Beaty
HB1045 Cavenaugh TO PLACE CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS ON AN INDIVIDUAL PLANNING A CROP RESIDUE BURN; AND TO ADDRESS LIABILITY OF AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS FOLLOWED CROP RESIDUE BURN REQUIREMENTS.
Cavenaugh
HB1900 Beck TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING INFORMATION PROVIDED TO ROYALTY OWNERS RELATED TO DEDUCTIONS; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING SANCTIONS FOR NONCOMPLIANCE RELATED TO INFORMATION PROVIDED TO ROYALTY OWNERS.
Beck
HB1923 Maddox TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ACT; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING NATURAL STATE INITIATIVE OPPORTUNITY ZONES.
Maddox
HB1928 M. Brown TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS SOIL NUTRIENT APPLICATION AND POULTRY LITTER UTILIZATION ACT.
M. Brown
HB1937 Jean TO AMEND THE METHOD OF VALUATION FOR MINERAL RIGHTS UNDER ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 16, § 5; AND TO CLARIFY THE METHOD OF VALUATION FOR OIL AND GAS WELL PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT.
Jean
SB464 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING SALES OF RAW MILK; TO ALLOW SALES OF RAW MILK AND RAW MILK PRODUCTS AT LOCATIONS OTHER THAN THE FARM WHERE THE RAW MILK OR RAW MILK PRODUCT WAS PRODUCED; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT- HOUSE, Apr 2, 2025 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Roger D. Lynch Chair
Unverified
Representative Rick Beck
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Representative DeAnn Vaught
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Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
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Representative Marcus E. Richmond
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Speaker 66
Alan Perkins
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Speaker 70
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Speaker 95
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Chair
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Representative Lane Jean
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Speaker 64
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Representative Kendra Moore
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Speaker 129
Representative Bruce Cozart
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Speaker 137
Representative Denise Garner
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Speaker 132
Speaker 149
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Representative Chad Puryear
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Speaker 165
Scott Waller
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Speaker 182
Representative Tracy Steele
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Speaker 185
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Russell Thomas
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Speaker 215
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
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Representative Carlton Wing
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Representative Cameron Cooper
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Representative John Maddox
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Speaker 40
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Nathan Reed
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Representative Denise Jones Ennett
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Speaker 327
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Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
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Speaker 342