Energy - Joint

Organizational meeting of the Joint Committee on Energy, and thank you all for coming. uh, our agenda says, I will introduce Representative Gramlich as our vice chair and Senator McKee is our Senate vice chair and of course former Speaker Shepard is our House chair, so I want to welcome all of y'all, uh. And our staff Most of y'all know Michelle Nelson, who's been with us a good while, Kathy Li is our committee staff, and although I guess she's in the room, but Alex Stephens is our attorney, and Alex always does a great job. This is an announcement. It's y'all are supposed to know this, but some of y'all maybe don't or forgot the green folders leave those at your desk or at your seat in the staff will keep those updated, so don't take them away and you don't have all the goodies you need when you come to the next meeting, so and any information you need related to that, you know, Michelle and Cathy would be glad to provide that to you. Um, Since I don't know who all is here with what agency. I'm going to ask one by one and y'all just kind of queue up gently. Those who are with different entities and agencies and organizations that are involved in energy issues. I would like to recognize y'all and uh So we'll just start. Well, I'll start with uh Jack, would you just stand up and say who you are and then we'll go counterclockwise around the room, so people will know. Uh, Jack Warner here, uh, I am the placeholder. Let. I will be. OK. Thank you, sir. And of course Jack's former state representative. Go right ahead, thank you. OK. I. and I'm all that I'm John Arkansas. Thanks, John. Stay. OK, Stacey, right. solutions So OK. OK. Thank you. Charlie Spas, I represent Black Hills Energy. We're a. Thanks. You go I out in the public. OK. And former Miss Arkansas and my friend. Thank you, Evan. The association as well. We have um um, you know, Exxon. OK, I'm not skipping the back row back there so y'all don't be shy. Go ahead OK. Turner with. OK. OK. and OK, thanks, Jess. You You need the co op. attorney with the AG's office. Uh, I'll be here in. Thank you, Jess. It's very smart race consulting and we were. Walmart Thanks, Lucas, Michael. And the majority leader of the house OK. Uh, Mr. Speaker, should we let our members of the committee introduce themselves. Let's do that. We'll start on the left. We'll start with Senator McKee and go around and just briefly we know most of you, but those of you that are new, we want to talk about what where your district is just so we know what part of the state we're from. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Matt McKee. I represent a large part of hot springs, Garland County, North Garland County, Hot Springs Village, North and Northwestern Saline Counties all the way up to the. Baskee County line. So glad to be on the committee, Senator Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I represent Senate District 7, Allan Clark, I represent Senate District 7, which is right next to Senator McKee's district. I have eastern Garland County, South. And West Slane County, northern Grant County, and almost all of Hot Spring County. Uh, this is my 2nd time, and The time that I've been here going on 13 years to serve on energy. I wish I could have been on it every time. It's a difficult selection with the other choices, including children and youth that I have, but I learned so much on this committee last time, you don't hear, you don't learn it on the news and getting to talk to scientists and get to talk to industry experts that I didn't know existed and the confidence. that I have and no one that I know what I'm talking about and the stuff around me is crap, uh, makes us a great committee to be on. Thank you, thank you, uh, in sense that uh 13, uh, I represent, uh, Southwest Arkansas I live in Texas County. Louisiana. OK, wasn't able to get on the committee, uh. Yeah, everybody turn your mic on. It's you're on TV Steve Unger, District 19. I live in Springdale, represent, uh, South Springdale, West Springdale, all of Johnson, a little bit of Fayetteville and a little bit of Tawneytown. OK, Representative Torres. Representative Randy Torres with District 17, Solem Springs Gentry, and Springtown, and this is my first week. Glad to be on this committee. OK. I'm Richard McGrew District 85, lived in Hot Springs represent West Garland County, Hot Springs Village, Mountain Pine Jesseville, my first time on the committee. My career within the electrical field, and I'm glad to be here. Right. Representative Cameron Cooper, District 57 represent the western half of White County, east third of Faulkner County in the northwest corner of Lone Oak County. Uh, Representative Steve Holliwell. I represent District 37, which is part of Poinset, parts of Cross and St. Francis County. Representative Rick back by that district is Conway County and a large portion of Van Buren County, and I've served on this committee of a few times, and it's good to be back. Representative Ron McNair, I represent Boone South Boone County District 5, my 6th term in the house, and I think I've been on this, all of them, I think, but I forgot. I enjoyed it's a great committee. Representative Whitaker. Representative David Whittaker, House District 22, which is everything in Fayetteville west of Garland Avenue out to nearly Weddington Woods. The entire city of Farmington right up to the gates of Prairie Grove. It is my first time on this committee after a dozen years in technology and ready to go to the next frontier. Representative Graham. Hello, my name is Zach Gramlich. I represent Central Fort Smith District 50 as an alternate last year and I'm happy to be on the committee this year and learn some stuff. Vice Chair Shepherd, do you have any comments? OK, I think most people know who this guy is, so we'll we'll we will. Thank you all for being here. I don't have a whole lot to say today, but I do want to say that uh you have picked an interesting time to serve on this committee, and I'm honored to chair it at this important time, uh, one of the things that I have is a general goal and certainly want your input on it is I believe the state of Arkansas should have a stated energy policy, and I don't think we do. We got some good ideas, but I think we need to put set some priorities, and so when we're out here working on different legislation, we, we actually have those priorities, and I'm I'm glad our folks involved in lithium situation as well as our utilities, our regulators are here because all those things have to work together. The lithium thing is is a very new, uh, thing for Arkansas. I remember when all our phones had NICAD batteries, which is why they didn't work very well, but obviously the lithium development in South Arkansas is a tremendous economic boost for our state, and a lot of that will be coming through this committee any legislation or issues are done with that, so I'm, I'm thrilled to have all of y'all on the committee and at this time I I'd like to ask if there's any any questions of any committee members just for for the chairs or to the staff. There was another representative from the governor's office. I'm sorry, who, who else came in from the governor's office, Jacks I'm sorry, who, who else came in from the governor's office, Jack, have her come. Come on, Rachel, don't be shy, dear. Sorry, snuck in at the last minute. I'm Rachel Smith from the Governor's office. I cover agriculture, energy, and policy, so I'll be covering joint energy during session and beyond that as well. Look forward to working with y'all and having a productive session. Thanks, thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Jack, for making sure we recognized her. Any questions, Senator Hickey? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. Just for clarification, do we have any type of joint rules on this or what's our procedures we'll ask Michelle. it She said we didn't have rules for the committee last time and I'm at this moment and I'll defer to our House chair as well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If something comes up, we need to adopt some rules. I'm Confident we'll deal with that and I would encourage anybody that has suggestions on that to get with us on it, but, but this, like I said, Jimmy, if it ain't broke, let's don't fix it. I just needed clarification. Thank you, sir. Any other? I had a Professor wants it said questions, comments or complaints, and I probably use that from time to time by, if not, I want to thank all of y'all for doing this, of course, as you know, as a, as a joint committee, we, we don't have regular meetings, but I think as legislation is being introduced. We may find ourselves in a need to find a little niche in the calendar where y'all can count on when this committee is going to meet and I assume we'll still stay in 171, Michelle, this, this will be our regular meeting room, so it's one less apt reason you have to find your way through the tunnel or across the street to get to Big Mac, so nothing else. OK, well, if there's no other comments or questions, we are adjourned.