Senate City, County and Local Affairs Committee
January 30, 2025
Senator Gary Stubblefield City County Local to order. And before we start, I want to ask you to bear with me for a word of prayer for the accident that happened last night along the Potomac River. And just pray for those families. [Prayer] All right, first order of business is Senator King. Senator King's not here. Senator Hill, you're up. If you will go to the table and recognize yourself, you are recognized.
Senator Ricky Hill Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ricky Hill, District 11.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Do we have an amendment with this?
Senator Ricky Hill Yes, we do, sir.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Okay. We need to go ahead and deal with this amendment.
Senator Ricky Hill The amendment basically strikes on page one, deletes lines 35, 36. And page two lines 1 and 2.
Senator Gary Stubblefield And the reason for this amendment was?
Senator Ricky Hill The reason for this amendment is because there was an error when it was engrossed.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Okay. Any discussion on the amendment? We have a motion to move to adopt the amendment. All those in favor? All opposed. The amendment passes. All right. You're recognized, Senator Hill.
Senator Ricky Hill Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is Senate Bill 60, which is a crypto bill. I know we've all debated crypto left and right, even brought up during the special session. So I'm not here to debate crypto. What I'm here to discuss today is a little safety mechanism to put in our crypto. The state of Arkansas has roughly 53,000 square miles in it. Got five facilities listed here. And they are listed: Little Rock Air Force Base, Camp Joe T Robertson, Ebbing Air National Guard, Fort Chaffee and Pine Bluff Arsenal. Those are the five facilities that the United States considers major military facilities in the state of Arkansas.
And I'm wanting to put a 30 mile radius around those to prevent a crypto mining facility from going in. That's pretty much all. Come on back over here to page two, section two, I actually use the wording from what we passed during the special session that the Oil and Gas Commission when they issue their permits, that that falls under those same guidelines that we did back in Senator Bryan's bill. But that being said, I'll be glad to take any questions.
Like I said, the main thing that I want to do with this is our military, as you know, is under a lot of stress, pressure. And they're always in danger even when they're out in training. This just alleviates one area. I know the crypto facilities say they cannot be manipulated. And I'm going to say that if someone can build something, someone else can tear into it. And with this, I'm just wanting to try to make sure it's a safety issue for our veterans.
Senator Gary Stubblefield All right. You've heard an explanation of the bill. Any questions?
Senator David Wallace Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Hill, you said it would only be five.
Senator Ricky Hill The five major military facilities in the state of Arkansas.
Senator David Wallace Okay. So it would not be around every National Guard armory, every other facility. Just those five?
Senator Ricky Hill Just those five. Yes, sir.
Senator David Wallace And those again are?
Senator Ricky Hill Little Rock Air Force Base, Camp Robinson, Fort Chaffee, Ebbing and the Pine Bluff Arsenal.
Senator Gary Stubblefield And I certainly think we can recognize them for having wanted Fort Chaffee, especially with the F-35 there. Senator Bryant?
Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Hill, what threats does crypto mining, the operation of crypto mining, not the ownership-- I think we can agree that the foreign ownership adversarially to the United States is an issue. But if it's not owned adversarially, what is the threat that we're trying to prohibit?
Senator Ricky Hill As artificial intelligence continues to improve daily, we've got a lot of issues out here that we're uncertain about and just trying to alleviate something from happening that could possibly happen to our veterans who are out here serving this country, put themselves in danger every day.
Senator Joshua Bryant So we're uncertain what those threats are?
Senator Ricky Hill It's always an uncertainty on any threat. But you know as well as I do, our air bases, military personnel, someone is always trying to break into their systems and they're always trying to do something. That's a known fact. Even the Pentagon can be maneuvered into. And so this right here, just to put a buffer around them. We have a no fly zone in areas. So this is just basically a no crypto zone. And like I said, with the state being 53,000 square miles, if we can't give up a little bit of space for security, what can we do?
Senator Joshua Bryant So has the federal government weighed in? I mean, they've got national base, they've got bases all over the nation and they've got crypto mines that are many, many sizes bigger than what we do here in Arkansas that are allowed to operate and remain to operate. Has the federal government weighed in on this security?
Senator Ricky Hill I have not asked the federal government to weigh in on the issue simply because sometimes the federal government moves slowly. And I feel like we need to move at a faster rate. It is our job as legislators for the state of Arkansas to protect our military personnel.
Senator Joshua Bryant And I'll continue, Mr. Chair, with your permission, unless you hold me back. Just a couple of questions on the bill. In reading the bill and some of the amendments--
Senator Ricky Hill Tell me where you're at, sir.
Senator Joshua Bryant Page two, line five.
Senator Ricky Hill Page 2, line 5.
Senator Joshua Bryant Unless the asset mining business was issued a permit by Oil and Gas on or before December 31st, 2024, they shall not operate within and they shall cease operation. Oil and Gas has not finished the promulgation of rules to even issue permits. But you find that we're kind of opening ourselves up to liability, saying you can operate if you have a license that does not yet exist.
Senator Ricky Hill Well, we passed this back in June during our special session. There's no reason they should not have already had that done. So we took our time out. Maybe they need to get on the ball. Maybe they need to do their job.
Senator Joshua Bryant So we're opening the state up for a little bit of liability because we haven't quite tied off the issue.
Senator Ricky Hill I don't feel like we're opening ourselves up for any more liability than what we're opening our military up.
Senator Joshua Bryant Okay. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Any other members have questions? No more discussion? Senator Hill, you're recognized to close for your bill. Is there anybody in the audience-- Sorry about that. Anybody in the audience? Come to the end of the table and state your name and who you're with, and you'll be recognized. Didn't mean to leave you out.
Bill Vickery Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Bill Vickery with Capital Advisors Group, and we represent the the Arkansas Blockchain Council, which is a consortium of the mining operations.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Mr. Vickery, you're recognized.
Bill Vickery Thank you. First of all, I want to say I have a lot of respect for my friend here. And so it's difficult to oppose him on issues because I do respect him and he is my friend. But as we look through the bill, as it's been amended, there are some issues that do pop out in terms of just the structure of the bill itself and then the implementation of the bill and then ultimately the impact on cities where mining operations currently exist and pay sales tax on the power that they consume.
So if we look at the initial section one where we determine what a military facility is, as we move through both, we noted the Little Rock Air Force Base and Joe T, Ebbing at Fort Chaffee and the Pine Bluff Arsenal. Without clearly defining, we do get into, as it reads, includes without limitation, a military base or camp, hospital or clinic and arsenal. I'm sorry. Okay. So I apologize. We weren't aware of-- I mean, I knew the amendment was voted on at the table today. Okay. Yeah, well then I apologize for that simply because we were unaware of that before we came in today.
And to some degree, the reason that I'm testifying today and the folks that actually own the mining operations is we became aware of the amended bill late last night. And so I'm here this morning to try to testify. So continuing on, the key element for us, though, is in Section two on page two, where we get into, as Senator Bryant noted, in line five, subsection B, 'unless the digital asset mining business was issued a permit by the Oil and Gas Commission on or before December 31st, 2024, a digital asset mining business shall and then not operate, ceased to operate'. So we passed in the fiscal session the law that we operate under now, and you're all familiar with it. And then it went into effect a number of days later calling for the Oil and Gas Commission to promulgate rules and regs over the course of however long that took.
It's an impossibility for any business to achieve subsection B in section two simply because the permits did not exist then and they do not exist now because the rules have not been fully promulgated. They haven't come before you for your final approval too. So we would be codifying a physical impossibility by requiring these permits to have been granted when they themselves could never have been granted because they didn't exist.
And so that would be unique, to say the least, in terms of the legislative action. So that's an issue that for existing businesses that may be inside the range and inside the, I guess, the newly defined area, that makes it an impossibility for them. And that gets into a number of legal questions about does it become a taking, any wide variety of legal issues that are opened up as far as that's concerned.
Then we get deeper down into the bill, into the intent section, and we note that as far as the emergency clause is concerned, that there is a risk from digital asset mining. I'm on the final page now, that says that without limitation, threats to national security. And a major issue here, I guess, is that Andrews Air Force Base, where the president's plane, Air Force One, takes off and land has no buffer around it, that Fort Knox in Kentucky has no buffer around it, that all of our nuclear arsenal in the country today, there is no geographical or real estate boundary that surrounds it.
So I guess a question from my point of view is if this indeed is a national security issue, why has there been no DOD finding of fact? Why has the Pentagon not weighed in on this? Why do we not have the current commander of the Air Force base asking for this? And the answer is we don't know because the machines themselves are relatively crude in terms of computing power. There are any number of other computers that are located physically much closer to any air base or any of these military facilities, Fort Chaffee or Ebbing in Fort Smith, which are critical. And there is no doubt about that, that national security obviously is a preeminent concern, especially for the air base here and the air base in Fort Smith.
But the number of computers that are much more sophisticated and easily more weaponizable and actable that exist within a shorter span of real estate. Sometimes within less than a half mile that those computers have a significant amount of liability in terms of being weaponized and utilized against. And then lastly, just because it's all online, the actual distance itself becomes less about the buffer that's created and actions are taken in other countries that impact computer networks here in the United States.
So it's a little bit of false hope in that if you can get a physical barrier that will prevent a digital attack. So for all those reasons, and especially sort of reiterating Section two, subsection B, the fact that a permit is required, but the permit doesn't exist, that does open up the state in terms of codifying something like that is problematic, to say the least, simply because the bill would require that to happen and the permits still don't physically exist. So with that, I'll attempt to answer any questions. But as Senator Hill knows, he got the C team today in me.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Committee members, any questions? The growth of AI, what effect would it have on this?
Bill Vickery Senator, I am way out of my depth when it comes to artificial intelligence. I can only speak to this particular issue and understanding the very surface amount of the business that I do, that the computers themselves are sort of one dimensional in nature. They're created to do one thing and that's mine and that's what they do. I think you're talking about a very open ended subject that I am in no way qualified.
Senator Gary Stubblefield The reason I ask you that is I heard a report yesterday that we had assumed the Chinese were 20, 30 months behind us. And instead, they're more like three months behind. So I was just curious as to how this would affect these digital centers.
Bill Vickery I also read that and there are, again, people much smarter than me to comment on that. I'm out of my depth on that.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Mr. Cummins, do you have a--?
Bud Cummins Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Bud Cummins. I'm an attorney. I represent the Arkansas Crypto Mining Association. Mr. Vickery did a good job of pointing out maybe some of the flaws. Certainly, like Mr. Vickery, I commend Senator Hill for being concerned about this. The technology is evolving very quickly. I'm a former United States attorney. I served during the time immediately post 911. I served on the Attorney Generals Committee to develop. We basically stood up a domestic counterterrorism program that didn't exist before 911. I held top secret FCI clearance. I'm not insensitive to national security concerns.
My concern here is that the people that should make those initial judgments about where the threats are, I think are in Washington. Hopefully they're there studying these issues carefully. And until we hear from the Air Force base or for the Department of Defense, my concerns about takings and just jeopardizing legitimate investment in the state of Arkansas may trump that. Until somebody tells me there's a threat, then I'm more concerned about having a system where people-- this is a growing industry and we want Arkansas to get its share of the investment. So if somebody came to me and said-- one thing that concerns me, though, that we didn't mention is there's kind of a retroactive authority here for the attorney general after a permit has been granted, somebody has made their investment and has stood up a facility.
It appears to me that retroactively someone could make a complaint, the attorney general could go shut them down and completely ruin their investment. So I think from a business standpoint, that's troubling. If somebody came to me for advice and said, you know, is there a risk here? I would certainly say yes. I think it's a tremendous unknown created by this bill about the reliability, your ability to rely on your permit to protect your investment.
So I think that facet of it is also a concern. I would just recommend that it would be better to wait for an identification of a specific threat and address that. But I certainly don't think it's inappropriate for the state of Arkansas to be concerned about that. And I think otherwise I echo Mr. Vickery's comments. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Thank you. Committee? Senator--
Senator Jim Petty Thank you, Mr. Chair. One question. I don't know if you two gentlemen want to address this or Senator Hill. But just kind of going back to the crypto bill, there's nothing in here that is changing the ability of a county or a city to enact an ordinance to regulate noise or energy or whatever. Nothing is changing. If they don't have an ordinance, they can't, to your point, go back and make it retroactive, punitive, retroactively punitive. But they can enact one in a proactive way to address it.
Bill Vickery Yes, the way we read it, that's correct.
Senator Jim Petty That’s what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure. I know Senator Bryant, that he may have a comment, but a simple nod, if you agree, is sufficient for me on that since he's the crypto guy. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Committee, any other questions? Anyone else from the audience? Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. We have Jerry Lee Bogard. Mr. Bogard, would you identify yourself and who you're with and say your name?
Jerry Lee Bogard My name is Jerry Lee Bogard. I live in Stuttgart, Arkansas. I have an investment in AI development. And I'm here to express my concerns this morning to the committee. I appreciate you, Mr. Chairman, recognizing me, and I appreciate my friend Ricky Hill, who we've shared a duck blind together a time or two, and certainly commend his efforts and his concerns about national security.
My concern here is that there is a clear distinction between a data center development for things like robotics and medicine or unmanned tractors or creating an iron dome over this country and how we make that defensible every day. And we're clearly in a race with everybody else in the world to figure out who's going to dominate the AI space on a daily basis. That's an ongoing battle that we're involved in now. We can't get away from it. We're going to fight this war and we better win it or it's going to change everything about our lifestyle.
I'm not here to debate the validity of the crypto industry or not, but I'm here to point out that there is a very distinct difference between specific crypto mining software and hardware and AI development for all of the other aspects that will determine the future national security of this country. And surely we're going to have to fight this battle. Arkansas is uniquely positioned to be a global participant not only for our own national security, but for our allies as well. We know that there's a multibillion dollar investment going in over at West Memphis for air development.
I'm aware of other developments that are being considered here in this state. They're going to be vitally important to this country. This is something that Arkansas needs to be positioned to take advantage of. We don't need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. And so I urge Mr. Hill, Senator Hill, this committee, to take in all of the consequences of what this bill may lead us to. We don't want to be back here like we were last year on 851 trying to fix something because we didn't consider all of the unintended consequences that may happen here. So with that, I'll close my remarks and answer any questions that you might have of me.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Senator Rice, do you have a question?
Senator Terry Rice Thank you. Did you testify on the original crypto bill?
Jerry Lee Bogard Yes, sir, I did.
Senator Terry Rice I was thinking you did. And I know you were very knowledgeable. Appreciate you being here.
Jerry Lee Bogard Thank you, sir.
Senator Terry Rice And I remember that committee because it was fixing to be voted on and I don't know that they'd even ask any questions because we didn't know what questions to ask.
Jerry Lee Bogard Yes, sir.
Senator Terry Rice And I finally thought of one enough to let it be known. I didn't know anything about it, but I was wanting somebody to. So we had more debate over it. That's where I feel like I'm at today. I think something needs to be done because of what I've learned in the past, but I don't know what needs to be done.
Jerry Lee Bogard That's the reason why I drove over here this morning.
Senator Terry Rice All the stuff that's gone on between then and now, we have places that it's ruined people's lives, at least for a time, with the noise levels and all the stuff that we've been through, we put citizens through. I don't want to procrastinate because of my ignorance and other people and not doing something to protect critical infrastructure when there are other places they can put these in Arkansas. And Arkansas still go ahead. So can you help somebody like me that doesn't know enough to ask the right question?
Jerry Lee Bogard Well, let me give you an example. In this bill, as it's written today, and I don't know what the magic is about 30 miles in the day that we live in, because I'm not sure that you can defend three miles or 3/10 of a mile. We do have remote locations in certain counties of Arkansas, but very few of those counties that would be suitable or desirable for a large scale-- and we're not talking about a small crypto mine like sits in Arkansas County.
We're talking about 1,000 and 2,000 acre campuses that will serve this country for 50 years in the development of of hyperscale computing, quantum computing, all of the things that we are in this new age of, that are going to determine things. And they're remote for a reason because they're a nuisance if you put them in town. And you have all of this pushback like we had on the crypto mines, right.
And I spoke out against, not against the business of crypto mining, but against the business of foreign adversaries establishing crypto mines in Arkansas. And I stand by everything I said there because I do believe it's a potential national security threat to this country. But I'll take the other side of that and I look at where I've been in my life and some of the things that I've been associated with in my life and I realize that the very first time since World War II that technology changed the world was in 1990 in Desert Storm.
And I happened to have the good fortune to work with a guy named Mike Jarue, who was one of six mathematicians that created the Patriot Missile defense system in Aiken, South Carolina, and it changed the world forever. It proved that the United States was superior in every aspect of it. How did it get developed? Well, it got developed on a military base. But now here we are 35 years down the road, and we're talking about developing an iron dome over this country. Where is that going to be developed? It's not going to be developed in urban areas.
It's going to be developed in places like Arkansas that has flat, remote land, that has the natural resources and the availability to generate power that's going to develop these air facilities. And so when we think about a bill that accommodates everybody's concerns on a specific sector, we don't want it to bleed over into something that truly is a national security threat today. Are we three weeks ahead of China? I suspect we're not. Are we behind? Many people think we are. And there are trillions of dollars, trillions and many trillions of dollars that are being deployed today around this country to develop these data centers, to put us ahead back in the game and get ahead of the game. Otherwise, we're putting ourselves behind the eight ball.
And so for as much as I have been vocal about my concerns about foreign ownership and crypto, and I stand by a bit of that. I'm not against private business and I'm not against good people or honest citizens who are in the crypto mining business. That's their business, right? I don't want them located next door to me. But I don't mind them being in remote areas that don't impact anybody in Arkansas.
And so let's don't cut off our nose to spite our face. And what are we going to do over here in West Memphis if it's determined that the military installations over in Memphis, they're right across the river, what if this bill causes an impact there and you've got $10 billion that are being deployed? I've seen that. People are bidding on the structural steel today. So let's be very careful in our consideration. Otherwise, we're going to be back here trying to fix it. And that's not a place I don't think any of us want to be.
Senator Terry Rice I do appreciate your input and I think it is common sense. But the thing I think this nation has done is we've shot ourself in the foot so long with with our lack of border security, with our lack of defending around military bases and installations. And I am greatly concerned about that, that if we continue to wait and don't do something, if we don't put some barriers up, it's too late just to regret it later.
Jerry Lee Bogard I don't disagree. I think we need to understand what those barriers need to be. And that's the thing. And it doesn't do any good to put up barriers that only prohibit you from accomplishing your mission. And so what I'm here to say today to you is that I appreciate every effort that you make. And let's make sure that we understand all of the issues well.
Senator Terry Rice And again, just one more time, I have regretted that we didn't know more.
Jerry Lee Bogard I remember our conversation.
Senator Terry Rice Many months ago. And I'll tell you what. And it's like this, too, the people of Arkansas that are struggling out there right now-- I hope the economy does get better. But they're struggling week to week. They're going to be asked to pay higher energy bills because if this stuff's coming, there's got to be more energy put into Arkansas.
Jerry Lee Bogard No doubt about it. And the upgrade to the grid is going to be a conversation that we're all going to have. And I would suggest to this committee that any bill that you consider needs to consider the fact that a year ago when we were having this conversation, or not even a year ago, the excess energy consumption by crypto mines represented a potential majority of the excess energy in the state of Arkansas.
Now, today, it's projected that AI development nationwide will take up over 50% of it by the middle of this year. So you can see that the national security threat to the country sort of flips in terms of industry. And then what do you do about the developments of things like the lithium play down here? So we have very serious issues of natural resource consumption, energy consumption. How are we going to generate additional 500 megawatts over here to participate in what truly is the race for national security?
There are a lot of things that needed to be considered here. And I don't put myself forth as being a scientist. I'm an investor and I'm a curious person. And so I try to understand what I'm involved in. And I appreciate your time today.
Senator Terry Rice I appreciate your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Gary Stubblefield All right, Mr. Bogard, I got a question.
Jerry Lee Bogard Yes, sir.
Senator Gary Stubblefield I'll go ahead and ask later. Senator Bryant, you're recognized.
Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Bogard, for being here. I know you've weighed in a lot on crypto and asset mining and just overall AI and your expertise. It's my understanding, if you look at just AI, take the functionality of what's in the building, you got to have a physical location.
Jerry Lee Bogard Yes, sir.
Senator Joshua Bryant You have to have power.
Jerry Lee Bogard Yes, sir. Redundancy of power.
Senator Joshua Bryant Redundancy of power. And then you've got to have basically the technology to get the information in and out of the facility.
Jerry Lee Bogard You've got to have a way to cool it. You've got to have access to the cable.
Senator Joshua Bryant The cable, the fiber optics. If you were to just take any generic facility that deals with data processing AI, crypto or blockchain, which one of those three pose the threat? I'll kind of expand on it and maybe narrow my line of thinking. If it's a physical threat, I can place something in the facility that does harm of a radius to the area, that's one possibility.
If I can pull power off the substation so great that it causes a blackout to the geographical area of which that substation surrounds, could that be a potential? And could I put something on the transmission lines of data, the fiber optic, that creates an issue which could impact security of a facility. And of those three, which one is distance a relation to one of our national security points of interest?
Jerry Lee Bogard I think that my answer to that question is that the scope of that is so broad. Anything that you can put in, you can take out. If you're in the fiber optic realm or if you're hooked up to StarLink, for example, you don't theoretically even need the fiber optic. So I think the answer to your question is that changes rapidly with technology.
And I would say today that anybody, if you looked at it from just a pure where we are today, then you would have to say, well, anywhere you have a foreign adversary that has a relationship to any of those three categories is a potential threat. I don't think anybody here would deny that our military bases are under daily threat. Some known, most are unknown. And we only know about them when they cause something bad to happen.
So we're here today because there's a lot of unknowns. But one thing that we do know is we have an adversary that announced this week China Deep Seek that put the whole world on its ear with the advancement that they have made in AI development. And most people think that we are behind now. Think about what you just asked me. So there was a groundswell of subscription to Deep Seek this past week. Jim Cramer even had a feature on it in his financial show. And unknowingly, millions of people worldwide signed up for Deep Seek, and when they did, their subscription required them to hand over without protest all of their financial information, all of their personal information.
Millions of people around the world signed up for that because they couldn't wait to get on to the next potential TikTok or whatever the case may be. These are our foreign adversaries. And so, to some degree, they just made everything that we're discussing here moot, because if we have foreign adversaries in this country today operating, and surely we do, and they have the ability to access anything in open AI because they just subscribe to it in an open platform with China, then how can you protect?
Where is the magic number? Where is the ability to protect? The only ability that we have to protect is to do what America has always done, and that's to out develop and out create technology that protects us. And if we don't do that, we have failed in our job.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Any other questions from members? Mr. Bogard, after all you've said today, what effect or potential effect will these crypto mines have on green energy, wind mills, solar panels?
Jerry Lee Bogard I was approached by a group this past July based out of Seattle, Washington, and I hosted them at my place on two different occasions. And we looked at every aspect of the windmills and the potential to create renewable energy here in Arkansas. And I determined that the risk that the windmills posed from an environmental and safety and cultural standpoint of view versus the amount of electricity that they could produce was not worth the risk. That was my own personal assessment. I could have made some money off the deal and it was a lucrative deal.
But in my view, it does not accomplish what it is that we need to accomplish, which is to produce more affordable power for our people that can be replicated in a redundancy so that we take these risks off the table. I think the whole issue of solar is a different issue. I think that it's more accommodating in terms of the power generation that it creates and the green footprint that it sort of eliminates. But then, of course, when you do that, then you're committing a resource in perpetuity that is lost for its intended purpose, meaning the land itself. So we need to be very careful about what we dedicate and where we dedicate it to.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Any other questions from committee members? Do we have anybody else in the audience?
Jerry Lee Bogard Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Thank you for coming. Anyone else from the audience? Michael Lindsay. Okay. Seeing no one else listed, Senator Hill you're recognized to close for your bill.
Senator Ricky Hill Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just so everyone will know, Mr. Bogard is a pretty good duck hunter. I will let you know that for sure. As I said earlier, Arkansas has roughly 53,000 square miles. We're asking for a small spot to protect our military. We've heard testimony from a lot of different directions from AI to cryptocurrency. And I want to make sure we understand they are actually two distinct entities themselves. They're different.
What we're looking at here is someone being able to come in and modify the crypto algorithm. They say it's simple. The industry says it's not easy to manipulate it because it's just so simple. As we all know, anything can be manipulated. If someone gets into something, it can be manipulated. And my main part of this bill asking for these five facilities, I'm not asking for the entire state. Crypto is here to stay. I am not anti-crypto. I am pro-military.
My stance here is I want to do all I can to protect our military and the facilities to protect our personnel. Now we hear everyone say it's not that big a deal. Where are you coming up with 30 miles out? And I'll tell you how I came up with 30 miles. When I drew 50 out it looked too large. And I drew 25 out. It didn't look far enough away from a military base. That's where the 30 came from. I had it graphed out, looked at it from those five facilities, and I felt like that was a pretty good protective area. We have no fly zones. We have lots of other things that we do. You just don't walk into the airbase. You have to go through guard checks. Everything is safe. We try to do all we can to protect them.
I'd like to remind everyone that under the geopolitical tensions that we're in right now, especially high tensions with nations like China, Russia, North Korea, we cannot afford to overlook our military. We've got to protect them. That's the main thing I want to say. We've got to protect them. And yes, why has their base not weighed in on this? I mean, they're not political. They're not going to come out here to us. This is our job is to make sure we do that. So with that, I would ask you all to have a good vote on this.
Senator Gary Stubblefield You've heard Senator Hill. We have a motion do pass as amended. Any discussion? We have a second. Discussion?
Senator Joshua Bryant I just want to say, as a former Marine, somebody that, too, is passionate about military affairs-- I have relationships ocean to ocean, overseas. Somebody that was kind of thrust into the crypto debate for reasons of simple property rights, which expanded into where we landed during the fiscal session trying to get to a place that we can live in harmony and still adapt to entrepreneurship that I would like to see our work play out.
And I agree with everything Mr. Bogard said, and I agree with all my research. And I'll say it again, if you haven't went into a crypto facility or a data mining facility or an AI facility to see how they operate and how they work for the betterment of society and trying to adapt to new technologies, I would encourage you to do that because the threats that we think may exist, again, are just, we think they may.
And I understand we have to look to see what that looks like. But at the same time, if our federal government under two different administrations have not seen the threat, I think it's in our interests to make that decision for them. Because I certainly do not see the threat of that. If the threat were here, it could be 50 miles away because it's a building, it's power coming into it, and it is the transmission medium of the data going in and out. So I would appreciate a no vote on this. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield All right. Any other discussion? We have a motion on the floor do pass. All those in favor say aye. All opposed. Let's roll call it. It's very close. Let's just roll call it.
[ Senator English, no. Senator Hester, no. Senator Rice, aye. Senator Wallace, no. Senator Davis, no. Senator Bryant, no. Senator Petty, no.]
Senator Gary Stubblefield The bill fails 5 to 1.
Senator Ricky Hill Thank you, committee, for your time.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Thank you, Senator Hill.
Senator Bart Hester Can I be recognized?
Senator Gary Stubblefield Sure. You're recognized
Senator Bart Hester So remember, as we know by Senate rule, we can't meet once we gavel in at 11:00. We have 12 minutes. Maybe we can get through the other bills. But I would just ask the chairman if we end up having to pause a bill or if we don't get through, can we come back immediately following session and finish? Hopefully it wouldn't take long, but I guess that's my request of this committee that a lot of people are here geared up to finish some of these things. Maybe we can finish in 12 minutes. But if not, I hope we can come right back. Session won't take long.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Yeah. We have Senator Davis' Bill and one other bill. Senator Davis is it. Senator Johnson's not here, so let's go ahead and do Senator Davis' bill. We've got time. So you're recognized.
Senator Breanne Davis Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll start with Senate Bill 98. So Senate Bill 98, at just very high level, it does three main things. It adds grocery and convenience stores to the list of approved retailers to deliver alcohol. And we know that grocery stores only can carry beer and wine. It limits it to wet counties only. And it establishes a third party delivery permit overseen by ABC that will include permit fees, training standards for employees, that will address identifying underage persons, intoxicated persons and fake or altered IDs.
Arkansas will be the 35th state to allow third party delivery if we pass this bill. And every single state surrounding, that touches Arkansas, already allows this. This legislation was modeled exactly after Texas and the way that they do third party delivery. So I'll go through it and then quickly, but a little more detailed, and we'll be happy to answer any questions. So in the first section, this is where it adds the grocery or convenience stores to the approved list of retailers that are allowed to deliver.
We know liquor stores have been allowed to deliver since 2021. So this is not new to the state. It's just expanding a little bit on who is allowed to deliver. Like I said earlier, it's wet counties only. And it also clarifies the law on curbside pickup. And the second part, this where we see that it establishes that third party delivery permit with ABC. And it allows them to promulgate rules for the delivery system, which includes age requirements for the employees and also helps them in identifying where wet counties are or where it would be illegal to deliver in the state of Arkansas.
It also allows ABC to establish fees for a permit. And then if you go on to page three, there's determination of delivery area where it just very clearly outlines wet county versus dry county. And below that, it talks about the delivery handoff, so what employees will be responsible for when they are actually delivering this beer or wine with grocery deliver.? And it has standards set in there that you have to be 21 or older, present an ID, can't be intoxicated. It clarifies the responsibility of the third party putting all liability on that third party company, which I think is very important.
And we've seen that compliance rates, of course, across the country are in excess of over 90%, ensuring that they are safely delivering to customers' homes or the place that they are to ensure that they're over 21 years old and they're meeting the standards within law. And then it creates a training program that ABC will oversee to ensure that the employees are trained adequately so that they're not delivering to people that should not be delivered to. But with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.
Senator Gary Stubblefield All right. Committee, you've heard an explanation of the bill. Any questions? Senator Rice.
Senator Terry Rice Does this allow Uber drivers to deliver if they get certified?
Senator Breanne Davis Well, I actually don't know the answer about Uber. I know like DoorDash and some of those companies. But yeah, I guess if they-- well, let me take that back. If they apply for a permit with ABC, they have to apply for a permit and be given permission to be able to do it. So, yes, if they go through that process and ABC verifies them and acknowledges them as a permit holder, then yes.
Senator Terry Rice So anybody that's 21 years old, whether it's a company, DoorDash or whatever, their 21 year old, the company would be liable to see it's delivered properly and assessed for age. But if a single person, an Uber driver or somebody that was doing that could deliver, you got people 21 years of age delivering. And you're telling me that data across the nation hadn't been a problem.
But I see a problem with young people being able to do what young people do. I did some of it, too. And it's the only thing I see that left out of, and I hate to be snarky, but we've amended and added churches or schools for later. They will have to come back and add those.
Senator Breanne Davis Senator, I may have misunderstood your question a little bit. If you're an Uber driver, you work for Uber. And so Uber is who would apply for that permit through ABC and then have training standards in place for all their employees, which are their Uber drivers. So it wouldn't just be a random delivery person.
Senator Terry Rice This takes all the onus off of the seller?
Senator Breanne Davis Correct.
Senator Terry Rice All the onus off them that they have now? Correct? If they're delivering now, they're responsible for doing it right.
Senator Breanne Davis Which is just liquor stores right now.
Senator Terry Rice Which is what we passed and we put an emphasis on it being done properly, safely, according to law. And to me now we're stepping down. We're taking the liability off the one that is closest to it and putting it on somebody making maybe minimum wage that doesn't have near the liability. See what I'm talking about? I talk about it every liquor bill. We are proliferating, making it easier and easier and easier and every day more common for our young people. It's just another thing. I'm not anybody to judge but this is what we're showing our young people. And that may be the reason. But I'm not going to be a part of it. But I appreciate you answering my question.
Senator Breanne Davis Thank you. And I would say that having liability on the third party actually strengthens our delivery laws because once the groceries transfer from the grocery store to the delivery person, which is what a lot of grocery stores are using now is third party delivery to deliver groceries, that person is the one that will knock on the door or see the person face to face, verify that they're 21, verify that they're not intoxicated, and that it is in fact the person that bought the groceries and the beer or wine in the first place, that they're there in the home or wherever they're being delivered.
So if we left the liability on the retailer, the retailer is not actually there delivering the groceries to verify that it's getting to the correct person. So I think it actually strengthens it because that third party, they don't want to mess up and get a bad reputation for dropping off beer and some produce to a bunch of 16 year olds. They want to ensure that their reputation stays intact and that when they deliver, they're delivering to exactly who was able to purchase that beer or wine in the first place. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Committee, we've got to gavel out in three minutes. I hate doing this worse than I hate doing anything else because some of you people I know have driven a long way to come. But we're going to go ahead and pick up this bill again next Tuesday.
Senator Breanne Davis I thought we were coming back after session today.
Senator Gary Stubblefield I'm sorry. After session, we will come back. We'll return after session and finish up these last two, three bills.
Senator Breanne Davis Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Gary Stubblefield So it won't take us very long.
Senator Breanne Davis My second bill is not really controversial, so we'll be fine.
Senator Gary Stubblefield That's what they always say.
[RECESS]
Senator Gary Stubblefield We'll call this meeting of City County Local back to order. We stopped a while ago before Breanne got to finish. So we've got seven members here. So we've got one that won't be here. But Breanne, you are recognized to continue with your explanation of the bill.
Senator Breanne Davis Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was just taking questions, so I'll continue taking questions if there are any.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Any other questions? Senator Bryant.
Senator Joshua Bryant Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Davis, can you give me a fact scenario, like a process from a consumer wanting a beer to consumer having a beer? What this looks like.
Senator Breanne Davis Yes. So say I have a Walmart delivery account, which I don't. I like to pick up my groceries in person. But if I did, I would order online my groceries for the week or I want to make something for dinner real quick. So I go to my cart, I add the groceries that I buy and I say, You know what, I'd also like a bottle of white wine with whatever we're having for dinner tonight. So I add it to cart. I'm verified on the front end that I am at least 21 years old.
So there's a verification process on the front end with your purchase with the retailer. An d then where liability changes is when Walmart puts my grocery delivery together and they hand it off to the delivery person. That's when liability transfers over to the third party delivery person company. And then they come to my home. I schedule when I want that, around the time I want my drop off, 4 to 4:30.
They drop off my groceries and they verify that I'm 21 or whoever answers the door. Maybe with my six year old playing in the floor, I can't get the door. So my husband answers the door. They see that he's over 21. They can see that I'm here. And then they're able to hand it off. Now, I think there will be more detail in that. That's very high level because there'll be rules that ABC will come up with for exactly what that looks like for training and to make sure that they're doing it the correct way.
I mean, that is part of the bill to ensure that the delivery drivers are doing age verification, that they're not passing it off to someone that's intoxicated, and I'm not giving them a fake I.D. And so that's a very high level what that process will look like.
Senator Joshua Bryant So if I don't go direct to a retailer and I use a true third party like Uber Eats that has a menu option, I can order from Taziki's or whoever just wants their service for UberEats to boost their sales, could Ubereats list a local package store that wants to participate in their program and that driver would go pick up my meal or swing by the package store, grab that product based on their platform? There would be rules on how that would be done. And then once that package store hands that product to UberEats, they take the liability until they hand it to a 21 year old. Is that accurate?
Senator Breanne Davis That's correct, yes.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Are there any other questions from committee? Seeing none, we have a couple of people that are going to testify for. One against. Mr. John Crowe. Yeah. If you will state your name.
John Crow My name's John Crow. I own 107 Liquor in Sherwood. I'm also the president of the United Beverage Retailers of Arkansas, which, when I wrote this, represented roughly 70 members. But we're up to 80 now with everything that's happening here scaring folks towards me. And I'm used to delivering alcohol, not speeches. So if y'all could just give me some leave right there. But I'm here to testify in opposition to Senate Bill 98, which would allow third party delivery companies to deliver alcohol directly to consumer.
This bill aims to fix something that isn't broken. Liquor stores across the state are already successfully and safely delivering purchases to consumers. The consumer need is being met. To date, the ABC has levied zero delivery violations against Arkansas liquor stores. This is in part because liquor stores are held liable for sales and deliveries, something this bill would eliminate. This is all about accountability. SB 98 shifts liability away from retailers onto third party delivery drivers, which reduces accountability for underage or improper sales. It also allows third party delivery into adjacent wet counties, which totally changes the landscape for liquor stores in northwest Arkansas.
That's why that's in there. Importantly, third party delivery services seem unable to comply with local laws and deliver alcohol safely. In the state of Oregon, the commission charged with oversight for alcohol sales, compliance and I.D. checking, undertook an assessment project in 2022 designed to collect data about whether third party delivery services were adhering to the law and following good practices for alcohol delivery. They found that 37% of home alcohol deliveries were not compliant with I.D. checking requirements, including 2% that were delivered with no contact at all. I make a lot of the deliveries from my liquor store and we have requests all the time to leave it at the door.
And I've never once left it at the door without looking the person in the eye and taking their information. I don't know if Amazon would do that. Shockingly, delivery drivers were less likely to check the IDs of younger customers, which I don't get. But this is what the state said. Among 21 to 23 year olds, 46% did not have their IDs checked. Third party folks don't have anything on the line. I've got my entire everything. Everything I have is on the line. If I deliver to an underage person, leave it at their door, don't see it, I've got a lot at stake here.
In California, state regulators also found that food delivery apps contributed to a huge surge in alcohol sales to minors. All this stuff is easy to find with a Google search. In the April 22 investigation, they found that delivery apps had an astounding 80% failure rate, meaning minors repeatedly and successfully ordered alcohol via a delivery app. The big companies backing this bill want to profit from alcohol delivery but don't seem willing or able to comply with laws and deliver alcohol legally and safely. That's why I'm asking you to vote no on Senate Bill 98. And I'm more than willing to take any questions that you guys might have.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Anyone have any questions? Senator Bryant?
Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does this bill prohibit you as the owner operator of a package store from continuing to deliver?
John Crow No.
Senator Joshua Bryant It does not. So you can still compete in the market. If somebody has a relationship with you or wants to build a relationship with you, they can still use an app.
John Crow I have an app and a website. Yes. And third party delivery is happening in Arkansas already, but it happens through me. So DoorDash, for example, they blow me up all the time asking me if they could have access to my inventory. They're going to give me an iPad, orders are going to come through, they will know what my inventory is because I've given them an FTP file transfer protocol thing or whatever. And so it can happen, but I have to be the one making the delivery. So DoorDash is already doing it.
Senator Joshua Bryant So you, in this process, which you're glad to do, you're taking the liability.
John Crow Yes.
Senator Joshua Bryant Would you agree that if this were to pass, you could still choose to do that and accept that liability or you could allow those asks from a third party to come do that for you and take that off your hand while you still make the sales but now they have the liability. Would that be an accurate statement?
John Crow I think so, yes. If this bill passes, the liability is off of me and goes to them, which I think is dangerous. I mean, if you're a minimum wage employee just running around and making deliveries and nobody's coming to the door, are you going to go make your next delivery? Amazon wants you to keep a schedule. Are you going to wait there for 10 or 15 minutes for them to come answer the door to check their I.D.? I think they're probably going to leave it and move on. I'm not going to do that.
Senator Joshua Bryant Do you believe that Amazon has drivers that will do Amazon packaging? Because, you know, if you look at the process as a whole, they have very large warehouses strategically located and they've got the final mile drivers back and forth.So do you think they'll, on their route, they're going to load-- because the process is quite ingenious. They fill these huge cages with routes that for efficiency and product. And do you foresee them like stopping their route to go into your package store to grab that package because they have got--
John Crow No, no. I'm sorry.
Senator Joshua Bryant I would see that it's a third party that has the technology and the entrepreneurship and the ability to create a system of which they still hire and employ drivers, but their sole function is to make those runs directly for the purpose of alcohol rather than the purpose of alcohol and deliver this box of whatever my wife ordered last night at 10 p.m.
John Crow I don't think Amazon, specifically Amazon, their drivers are not employees. They're all contract labor. They don't want to pay payroll taxes and benefits and things like that. So what I foresee happening, worst case scenario, and I think Senate Bill 97 and 98 put together create a perfect storm to ruin the independent liquor store industry in Arkansas and give it to big companies.
And I can walk through all that with you. But in the three permits, it gives them the state in the adjacent counties, it gives them all the northwest Arkansas to make deliveries. But I don't see why Amazon would not buy a liquor store permit, never have a customer walk in, set up shop in one of their big distribution facilities and then just deliver everything from there.
They will deliver everything you need to your door. So it changes the landscape. And Amazon's got thousands of vehicles on the road right now in Arkansas. So I've got one delivery van that I've invested in. You know, I've got my whole livelihood on the line if I mess up.
Senator Joshua Bryant I appreciate that. And I'll make a note to the sponsor to ask if the bill allows a third party to own a liquor license. So I don't think it does but I'll ask it.
John Crow It doesn't restrict it.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Any more questions from the committee to Mr. Crow? Seeing none, we have Michael Lindsey to speak for the bill.
Michael Lindsay Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Michael Lindsay, director of public affairs and government relations for WalMart. I'm going to be very brief. I do want to address something that was mentioned earlier about the study in Oregon. So whenever Oregon initiated their alcohol delivery, they essentially passed it, allowed it without any rules or requirements They didn't even require a signature on their package deliveries.
In 2023, Oregon passed laws that pretty closely mirror our requirements to create a third party delivery permit so that the companies that are delivering the products have to be vetted by the state agency that oversees alcohol in Oregon, requires signatures, requires verification of age, requires verification that the person accepting the delivery is not intoxicated. So essentially Oregon realized, yeah, we can't just go on the honor system with alcohol. We have to verify age, which is what this bill does.
So this bill brings all those rules and regulations and requirements that that customer would face in our store and puts it at the front doorstep as well. And so from our perspective, this bill has the same sort of checks and balances that any customer would see purchasing in a store. I'll close with one last fact in that customers are moving towards delivery. This is where they've decided they want to shop and this is how they're going to shop. And so from our perspective, to be successful and to serve our customers, we have to meet them where they're at.
And where they're at in a growing percentage is delivery and being able to serve them at home. This is for beer and wine only. That's the only thing that grocery stores are allowed to sell here in Arkansas. We're not asking for liquor. Liquor stores and package stores still have that advantage over anything that we might be able to serve. But with that, I will close and just open up for any questions that you might have or.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Senator Petty.
Senator Jim Petty Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Lindsay. So I think Walmart has been very successful and been very good for Arkansas. What I hear is the potential harm for the small guy. And I come from a small town. So I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for the smaller operators. That being said, again, I think Walmart brings a lot to Arkansas and the country.
You and I had a conversation and you can tell me you're not comfortable or don't want to say it now, but just previously Wal Mart had a bill or two and they said that they would be done for eight years. And you were done for eight years. I've heard you say that with this and the other one that you have, you'll be done for ten years. Is that your testimony here today?
Michael Lindsay When we look at the future and what best serves our customers, the two bills that we're supporting this session, we feel like it addresses the needs and what our customers are wondering for at least a decade. And so as far as I'm aware, we have no plans to come back for any legislation, at least for the next decade. I mean, if you would have asked me ten years ago whether delivery was an issue, I would have said, I can't imagine. But here we are ten years later. And so in ten years, the customer may be in a different spot and we may need to come back in ten years. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Alright, committee, any other questions for Mr. Lindsay? Senator Bryant.
Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, mr. Chair. So I've just made myself a little flowchart of from retailer to consumer and I put retailer, third party driver and consumer. So looking at those four, can you tell me for the Walmart Corporation, in states that are successful at this product where your relationship and liability end and what you do to ensure the consumer that probably created the problem by ordering it but wrecked and wasn't really 21 because things happened, issues occurred during the process that you couldn't predict.
Lawyers will do what lawyers can do. So just curious where your liability ends. And if you owned a third party? Or do you own your own drivers now in your process and you're just going to add this component to them? Or just anything you can develop in the system.
Michael Lindsay Sure. And again, I'm just speaking for Walmart. And other companies, other retailers may use a different system. But Walmart's probably a little bit unique in that our delivery system, we have our own platform. So like DoorDash has a platform and Uber Eats has a platform and other companies have their platforms, we have a platform as well called Spark. They're contractors that work for us and deliver our groceries now.
And so it's technically part of Walmart, but they're still independent contractors. So the way it works, just as Breanne stated, you go on the Walmart app, you place your order. If you're over 21 and you select a beer or wine selection that's in stock in our store, then it's available to be put in your cart. You check out, we pull the order together. We have a driver come up that has gone through the training process that's been approved by ABC after we've gotten our permit, company license.
So the driver that's been approved to deliver alcohol, and not all of them may be approved to deliver alcohol. They have to complete that training program. But once they complete that training program, they come pick it up, they take it to the doorstep, they ring the doorbell, they verify, they scan, they take the I.D., they have to scan it. And we've got handheld apps that if you don't scan it, the delivery isn't complete, which is fine.
If the driver can't complete the delivery, the person is not home, somebody over 21 isn't there, then they just bring it back to the store and they still get their fee and they're paid. So there's no incentive for them to just drop it off at the door. And they cannot complete a delivery unless they scan a license. So for us, for the store liability, it ends once we hand it to the Spark driver. The platform's liability then picks up until they make a successful delivery to the customer.
Senator Gary Stubblefield All right. Senator Bryant, you're finished? Committee, anyone else have any questions? I'm sorry. Are you good? Okay. You're excused then, Michael.Any other discussion on that? We have one more.
Bill Pascal I'm Bill Pascal and I represent UBA, who John is the president of. And I just want to come to table and thank Senator English for even getting us to this point. She's the one that sponsored the delivery bill in 21 that has been very successful. As John mentioned, our liquor stores have been delivering since then. We have about 60 or more around the state that do deliveries today, and we've had zero violations in that time.
And our only debate today, we don't have any problem with grocery stores delivering. We don't have any problem with WalMart delivering. It's just accountability, the end accountability. Who is accountable? And the bill that Senator English passed put that accountability on the store. And it made an employee of that store, you have to have an employee deliver that. And that's the only debate here today. It's not that we don't want WalMart to deliver or Kroger to deliver.
We don't have any problem with that. It's just who ultimately is accountable if something goes wrong, if they deliver into a dry county or deliver to an underage person. And one last point. The delivery money now, the liquor stores are getting it. They're local. That money stays here. Aside from Michael's Spark, DoorDash and UberEats and those folks, they're not local. That money's leaving the state. So that puts our independent folks at a little bit of a disadvantage. But it's nuanced. I know that. But I wanted to come to the table and say thank you to Senator English for even getting us to this point, to this discussion.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Well, thank you. We kind of like her, too. All right. You're excused. Any other questions or comments from the committee? Or audience? If not, Senator Davis, you're recognized to close.
Senator Breanne Davis Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So specifically, I'd like to address just a couple of things. The first one is to address Senator Bryant's questions about if they buy a permit for a retail store and then are then delivering, if Amazon or whoever did that. So on page two, line 26 of the bill, it specifically says that a third party delivery permit shall not be issued to the holder of a permit in the manufacturing or wholesale tier of the alcoholic beverage industry. Of course, we know there are only so many retail permits across the state. It's already legal.
If you have a retail liquor store and you want to deliver or you know that you can. So that wouldn't prohibit that. But it does address specifically manufacturing and wholesale. The second thing is the liability portion. So to be clear, if Walmart or Kroger said, well, we don't want to bother with a third party, we just want to have our employees do it, deliver themselves, then the liability never transfers.
So at all times, regardless of whether it's the retail store or the third party delivery company, somebody has the liability. And if Walmart or Kroger never transfers the grocery delivery into the hands of a third party delivery service, then that liability stays with them all the way to the front door. So there is accountability, I think addressed pretty specifically throughout this bill. And it gives ABC the ability to promulgate rules and ensure that the training and compliance that they're looking for from these employees employed by the third party delivery service meet the standards that they want before they issue a permit. And if a company is not meeting the standards or handing out beer to 15 year olds, then they stand to lose their permit. That is the accountability. Very bad headlines, losing their permit, unable to do business in the state of Arkansas in terms of delivery, all of these ways.
So 100% from the time that you order to the time it's delivered to your front door, somebody is liable and somebody answers to ABC the whole time. So to me, there is accountability all throughout this bill. It's very clear. So thank you all for your consideration. You know, we talk about small business and big box stores, all this stuff, but ultimately allowing third party delivery of alcohol, beer and wine supports the local brick and mortar businesses. It creates local jobs within stores and within these delivery related work.
So they're actually employing people from your communities to work and to pay taxes into your local community and hopefully make your community a great place to live and continue thriving. With that I'm closed for the bill. I'd ask for a good vote. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Committee, you have heard the closing of the bill. The chair would entertain a motion.
Senator Breanne Davis Motion. Thank you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Myotion do pass. Any discussion? We have a second. All those in favor say aye. All opposed. The bill passes. Senator Johnson is going to put off his bill till next Tuesday. So do do have Senator Penzo here?
Senator Breanne Davis Mr. Chair, I also have Senate Bill 102.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Okay. If you want to go ahead and run that while you're there, just go ahead. You're recognized.
Senator Breanne Davis Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Senate Bill 102, to give a short background on it, in 2021, myself and then Representative Michelle Gray passed Act 951. And it essentially set standards statewide for paid canvassers. We said a lot of different things. You cannot have been convicted of numerous different crimes. You have to be a resident of the state. It's all listed out. It's been in practice for several years now. But there were no standards for paid local canvassers.
So this bill simply takes everything that we did for statewide paid canvassers and put it into local paid canvassers. So we set the same standards so that it would be clear and easy for anyone to understand, and there would be continuity between state and local paid canvassers. The only thing I'll say is there's new language in one spot, and that is page four, line 19. And right there we just said that the signature section of the petition shall be formatted as prescribed by the county clerk because they're the ones that are in charge of some of the standards of these paid local canvassers in these local elections.
And it shall contain the same number of signature lines prescribed by the Secretary of State for statewide petitions. We put that in there because every two years the Secretary of state puts out guidelines for paid petitioners, well, for canvasing, if anyone's trying to get something on the state across the board, on the ballot statewide. So typically there's a page listed that shows an example of a form of how you want to pass around and collect signatures.
And we just said, hey, we're just going to say that the page will look the same in terms of number of signatures prescribed by the secretary of State. It'll just be the same at the local level. So that's the only thing that's new. But we're just making it the same as we already do statewide. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Okay. Committee, you've heard an explanation of the bill. Any questions? Anyone here to speak for or against the bill? If not, the chair will entertain a motion.
Senator Breanne Davis I motion do pass.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Motion do pass. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye? All opposed. Congratulations, Senator Davis. Anyone else have a bill to run today?Seeing none, we are adjourned till next Tuesday.
