Can I Sign Kentucky Banking Word

Industry sign banking kentucky word now

no i'm gonna let the discussion of course those guys get me all right this time we're going to go ahead and call the natural resource committee meeting to order i'd like to ask the clerk to call the roll senator carpenter senator caslin senator embry senator harper angel president in the district thank you senator senator schickel senator southworth senator webb senator westerfield here in my office upstairs thank you senator senator wheeler senator turner chair smith president of the room do we have quorum yes all right i need a motion for the approval of our minutes motion by senator wheeler have a second we don't need one for it we don't need the okay no minutes need to be approved we have a very busy agenda so if you please forgive me for the pace we're going to try to move very quickly i have something unique for the members of this committee that's been brought to our attention over the weekend and i'm going to need some participation from each of my members on this we have a group that's going to come to the table with american resource corporation they approached me i guess late last week they've got a plight going on that's going to if we're not able to find some sort of uh resolve for them it's gonna create the layoff of some 176 miners from what they're they're telling us and obviously that gets our attention there's not many minors left so i'm going to let them come up and tell you what's going on with them and tell you how they think we can help them so gentlemen please come to the table and identify yourself our records please please turn the microphones on they've got a little tab on there thank you sir my name is mark jensen i'm the chairman and ceo of american resource corporation as well as the executive chairman of land betterment corporation and i'm thomas save president of american resources corporation i thank you all for giving me a few minutes to talk about our companies our companies are laser focused on creating jobs in eastern kentucky we've been operating in this area since 2006 tom salve and i have my partner we've invested over 17 million of our own capital into the community our current company american resource corporation is a nasdaq listed public company that has acquired five companies out of bankruptcy and established those companies to run for the next 40 years to be able to produce jobs in the community in pike county ledger county in perry county and not county for the next 40 years by restructuring and repositioning these assets for the metallurgical market the steel industry where we see the growth where we're at today is over the over the last five years we've acquired over 48 million dollars of reclamation liability through the bankruptcy courts that nobody else wanted and we've taken those liabilities and we've gotten bond releases for the state of kentucky of over 20 million dollars today we sit on 28 million reclamation liability we have over seven million dollars of reclamation work currently in the world is something hey somebody that's probably listening in online you need to mute your phone if you don't mind where we sit today is we we've acquired complex properties that had complex challenges from an environmental standpoint these companies were in bankruptcy they didn't have the capital to meet their obligations and and due to that there we had to clean up some of the messes that our predecessors have created as a company we've never impacted we've we've net impacted less than eight acres of land in the state of kentucky we've reclaimed and gotten bond releases on over seven thousand acres where where we're at today is we we are on the abs list so we're blocked from from operating or being on a permit ourselves because explain to the members what the abs list is please it's applicator violator system where if you have a co non-compliance with the state and it's not reclaimed in a certain period of time you have to get that you have to get your you get a co and you go on the applicator violator system we've had that and we've a lot of the companies we've had we've had a lot of issues that we haven't been able to reclaim as fast we've acquired 48 million viability now we're down to the latest issues that have us blocked on the abs and billy shelton our attorneys clarify this is three issues out of those three issues we had one of them abated last week we've had the other one abated uh that's going to be we have one of the other ones that's going to be abated in the next two weeks and then the third one is an issue we're dealing with a local landowner because of his cattle what we're sitting here today is we have 176 jobs that can be created in perry county we've employed over 100 people in the community for the last year what we're asking for is to let an operator an independent operator of us that's not on the avs list operate that mine to maintain the base load order so those 176 people can go to work they can go to work immediately over in that in pike county we have another mind that we can start up we have orders for today we can start up another 76 jobs we don't want the economic benefits from the mind we'll we'll focus on the reclamation all we're asking for is we can let our independent operator who's not on the avs list to be able to operate on that permit which has been done hundreds of times in the state of kentucky and let them create those jobs let them produce that met carbon that goes into the steel industry which is going to fund our infrastructure for our green infrastructure bill that hopefully gets passed here and fulfill the orders that we have today we've given this the perry county community between land betterment and american resources we have clearly stated to them a commitment to create over 500 jobs in perry county over the next two years we have the capital to do it as a nasdaq-listed public company we've raised over 13 million dollars in the last year we have 86 million dollars of available capital to us land betterment has 50 million dollars of capital we can invest into the state today as a public company we also just announced we've closed a spec 100 million dollars that we're looking at land properties to reinvent the community to create sustainable jobs to create jobs that can last for a long time in this community for people that need them why do we do it i'm i was born in indiana lived in new york and moved and came down to kentucky in 2006. what i saw in kentucky was some of the strongest workforce in the region in the country these people want jobs and they want to work hard for them and they want to create economic stability for the region and at the end of the day my public company today is owned by its shareholders it's owned by my team i'm an investor my eastern kentucky employees are investors the management team is built by people in that community that saw the vision of the future the opportunity that is available to them today and all we're asking is to unlock that that that will power that that desire to work and to create jobs and and get these people off on employment i have people email 100 i mean i had 100 people that wanted to show up today i asked them just to focus on doing what they're doing because i said i'll come here and i'll fight for them i'm a passionate guy i love my people and i love my company and i love what we're doing because it's creating opportunity for the long-term aspects of what that region is great at they can build things they're very talented individuals the men and women that have been with us have been with us since inception i mean over the last 14 years since i've been operating in that region they've been there the people that have joined our company have been with me since day one and at the end of the day the people that are managing this company today are eastern kentucky employees they're running a nasdaq-listed public company because they're that talented and all we want to do is be able to put these people back to work and create the opportunity let my independent operator go in there and operate perry county i don't need the economic benefit for it i'll spend the next month cleaning up more reclamation liability that our predecessors created and by doing that then i could take back over the mine and i get i'll get the economic benefit at that point but right now we're at risk of losing 176 jobs in perry county and another 76 jobs in pike county and losing my commitment of ability to create 500 jobs in perry county over the next two years all we're asking is let the independent operator operate let me focus on cleaning up these reclamation liabilities and on those properties creating new industry through my land betterment company tire recycling i have the commitments to build it today eco homes building an alternative to double wide trailers that are more energy efficient and lower costs for the homeowner to live in i'm building them i'm building them with my own capital my own company's capital we're not asking the labor force to do it either we want to provide them a better place to live that company was started we had an employee that had a 600 utility bill from his double-wide trailer that's not sustainable so we came up with a solution and we get we got the funding to build these where he would have a net zero utility bill by putting solar panels on it american resources we control today 16 patents and permits for our american rare earth division a division we started on embarking on in eastern kentucky four years ago today we've licensed technology from ohio university purdue university penn state university arkansas university and texas tech university to employ those technologies in the state of kentucky to be able to showcase that we can produce critical elements in the united states today president biden just just signed an executive order to focus on critical helmets it's a major problem we have if we're going to build a green economy we need critical elements we need to be able to produce it here domestically and rely upon it my company can do that we have the technology to do it and we want to build the first facility here in eastern kentucky we control the reserves it cleans up the environment and it's an economically viable solution to create additional jobs that we're not even factoring on today i'll tell you what let me hold you for one second i have one question that i'm going to ask one first so walk us through the crux of what what can our committee do when i when you all had talked to me uh first part of la or later part of last week our concern was about time was an element and if we're not able to be able to get this resolved uh the work losing of a workforce and i will tell you something i you know i don't know when the last time we had a coal miner down here protesting because they've all lost their jobs and we've closed 318 coal mines in the shortest period of time in all history we've all seen the fallout from it so you have an audience here that all has our understanding and cares a great deal about these workers how how can we help you and then once if you guys walk me through that then i have senator matt caston's got a question for you yes sir we'll get dnr to let me name my independent operator to mine that permit and work with us on an agreed order but in the meantime i will focus on the reclamation my company will do that let my independent operator operate on that permit today it's been done in the past and it can be done again he's independent from us there's political roadblocks locally from people that don't want to see it happen but all i'm asking for is to let my independent operator put those 176 jobs to work if we don't we will lose the order it's a steel mill that we need effort of time and i mean to cut you off i'm going to yield to senator caslett and we have the uh some people from the cabinet i think gordon sloan gordon are you still are you on still yes sir i'm here okay when i get after matt cass and senator cass and ask this question i'm going to yield back to you and you can kind of bring us up to speed on what uh what's going on and what we all can do to to try to help uh this move forward so i'm gonna yield to senator kassin right now mr chairman i'm probably gonna wait i'd like to hear gordon's comments first before i ask mine thank you all right very good thank you all right uh gentlemen thank you all for talking at this point right now it doesn't mean it's over with we are going to have to stick to pretty tight schedule uh gordon i've already identified you and i know you so at this time gordon sloan i'll yield it to you you guys have about eight minutes if that's okay thanks i think we can do a lot better than that thank you chairman smith members of the committee secretary goodman sends her regrets today for having a scheduling conflict that kept her from appearing uh as chairman said i'm gordon sloan commissioner department for natural resources i also have some members of my team available today if the committee needs institutional knowledge that i may not have i'm from martin county in eastern kentucky i've worked in underground mines and on surface coal mines i know what good paying coal jobs mean to the men and women of eastern kentucky part of my job now is keeping as many minors employed as possible while complying with state and federal mining laws while american resources or art presents an opportunity for mining jobs it first has to correct its record of violations before those jobs can become a reality section 510c of the federal surface mining control and reclamation act or smakra prohibits issuance of a permit to any applicant who owns or controls mining operations that have unabated or uncorrected right uncorrected violations anywhere in the united states until those violations are at least in the process of being abated or corrected to the satisfaction of the issuing state or federal agency a company can't be issued a permit arc and its subsidiaries have outstanding failure to abate cessation orders in both kentucky and indiana that have rendered arc blocked in the avs system and that system is uh maintained by the office of service mining reclamation and enforcement or osmre and that essentially keeps track as we said of coal companies failure to base cessation orders state civil penalties and federal fees across the united states the bottom line is the ark is and has been blocked by state and federal law from receiving rights to a permit until it abates outstanding violations art purchased the whitaker coal permits in par in perry county out of the perry pardon me out of cambrian bankruptcies in the fall of 2019. because of the avs block art did not become the permittee of the perry county permit and can itself operate the mine if our itself can operate the mine it stands to reason that it can't assign a contractor even independent contractor as hazard coal sales may be the right to operate to mine either the cabinet's been in discussions with arc since october of 2019 trying to get the company to abate its mining violations that would allow the resolution of ads problems in kentucky and a path forward for operation of the perry county complex the cabinet is not preventing mining at the perry county complex rather arc's failure to comply with mining laws is the reason miners aren't working there today even if kentucky allowed mining at the perry county operation the federal office of surface mining reclamation and enforcement would likely shut down the mine and issue a notice against the kentucky program itself that would threaten kentucky's ability to operate its mining program i'm an eastern kentucky native and i look forward to the day when the perry county mines can reopen and help revive the lives of perry county thank you thank you mr sloan i think i speak on behalf of moses committee we are 100 for the jobs and we want to see our region sort of be reinvigorated but nobody on here wants us to do something outside the scope of what the law is but i'm curious um at first glance of looking at this i thought that this could be something that could probably be done with an agreed order as we've done in the past where we get you all together with your concerns and you have concerns of me coming from a mining reclamation background and coal ining myself um this is big expensive stuff and anytime you're doing reclamation you're not moving any coal you're not making any money so it's expensive but it has to be done and so if this company if that was the issue agreed to step forward and meet the demands of an agreed contract would that not be the best way forward and also again at first glance of it i looked at the permit block that looked like that was put on to by the previous owners of this uh property is that correct no sir arc has subsidiaries dean mining not county cole samuel cole company et cetera who had these uh violations these mining violations prior to the time that they got the perry county complex permit or at least purchase the permit okay and then i have a couple of my members have got questions uh real quick in the effort of time and then you guys will be able to respond uh senator caslin please mark i appreciate your your presentation and your passion uh for the mining industry i i represent uh davis mclean and hancock county and uh we've lost almost every one of our minds uh in the west and and we feel that as well and you know i would hope that the state um you know being a business owner as well sometimes if we're not careful we regulate ourselves out of jobs and i agree with what uh chairman smith said that we would never ask anybody to do anything that's outside the law but also realize that you're a taxpaying citizen and the government operates because you pay taxes and that's where we get our funds to operate on and so you know i would hope that that they can reach an agreement with you all to save these jobs to keep the business open uh because in the end the state still has the liability if you are there or not and so i would really hope that we can kind of come to some kind of an agreement to get you all open and benefit perry county appreciate your comments senator cass and at this time senator wheeler thank you mr chairman and uh i agree with your comments and senator caslin's comments uh you know my region has been economically devastated by the loss and coal jobs over the last uh 10 years and i would think mr sloan being a martin county and i think that county has probably suffered as much as any of my district from the loss of of coal jobs um you know we would like to get these people back to work in as efficient and as safe a manner as possible while at the same time you know making sure that that obligations are fulfilled i guess my question is more to mr sloan is there not any way to work on uh that the cabinet could issue some type of conditional waiver to permit the contractor to mine on the condition that you know some of these funds are used to abate these uh these outstanding obligations thank you for the question uh essentially not as i mentioned uh even if we came to an agreed order on the violations that exist in kentucky there would still be violations that exist in indiana and from the federal program so we essentially like i said even if we came to an agreement and what's typically called an agreed order uh osm uh and the avs system would not allow us to put them to work mr chairman if i maybe permitted a brief follow-up yes please do um is there any way of bringing the federal authorities in on this so that we could maybe proceed because i think as senator caslin stated if these obligations i mean the state is going to get stuck with them if if if if these guys don't get working and get the capital they need to pay these fines and violations i mean is there a way that we could jointly work with the federal authorities to permit these people to get to work we've had discussions with our local lexington office of osmre and they are very adamant about the the need to correct the violations and pay the penalties that are existing on the avs system i wish we could we obviously want minors to be working but because of these violations and the system that's set up to prevent violators from going from one operation to another we just can't do it thank you this time i'll yield you you gentlemen have heard the discussion here uh would you all like to respond yes um i'll keep it very brief we reclaimed over 20 million dollars with reclamation liability from five bankrupt companies mr sloan mentioned five bankrupt companies we've acquired including the one in indiana required out of bankruptcy to save the community's interest at the end of the day when we when we showed up at the whittaker cold bankruptcy the cambrian cold bankruptcy the state showed up as well and they said they would work with us they said we were permit blocked then they said they would work with us we operated the mine under the permit operating agreement which was assigned to us by the bankruptcy we're at we're not asking to let us mind the call i'm asking to bring an independent contractor in which we can assign the rights to under our permit operating agreement which we acquired by the federal bankruptcy court to enable us to operate to enable us to name who's going to operate there we want that contractor to be operating we'll focus on reclamation i get no economic benefit my interest would be to reclaim those properties as quick as i can so i can take over the economic benefit once we're done these mines are now positioned i've invested over 10 million dollars of capital into perry county complex to get it back to a state of sustainability for the steel industry at the end of the day the state said they'd work with us we're willing to work with them on reclamation i'm going to work do more reclamation than i have on my own jobs i've done reclamation for other companies let me ask you not i guess and i apologize but i know you guys understand the time what happens if you don't get relief and what's the timeline walk us through what happens and when currently right now we're spending two hundred thousand dollars a week to maintain that mine two hundred thousand dollars a week that if the mine was operating would be generating cash flow to sustain 176 jobs 200 a week that i could put towards additional reclamation currently today i'm wasting 200 000 a week sitting on a mine that if we don't start producing the next week we lose the order for the steel mill up in canada that wants to buy this product to ship it right back down to the u.s you have a contract right now for the we have we have a con we have three contracts for that mine today that can supply the base load of that mine to make it profitable to create 176 jobs for the next 40 years if we lose that order we can't sit on another we can't sit on 200 000 a week for the next year until another baseload order comes around if we lose it the mine's done the workforce is done and we'll reclaim the property we'll cut up the material and there'll be no jobs created in perry county for the next in that ever nobody's going to put the amount of capital it takes to get that mine back up and running again all right gentlemen do we have any other questions from our members oh senator carpenter i've just got a question so is is the issue at the state level or or at the cabinet level are they trying to is our cabinet folks saying that they can't help you because of issues in other states that you have at federal issues i'm i'm a little confused on what the actual problem is there's two issues an agreed order would have to be done through our indiana mine which we're fully reclaiming we're about 70 percent of the way done right now and state of kentucky which we can get if we if the state of kentucky would give us an agreed or i can get state of indiana i met with the governor number two in the governor's office and he said he would give us an agreed order they're lobbying back against each other they're using each other as the bad guys and at the end of the day we want if we can get a great order in the state of kentucky i can get an agreed order in indiana completely separate issue though to mitigate the whole problem is don't give me an agreed order let me just get my reclamation done and let me focus and let my independent operator who's not abs block operate on the mind and create the jobs there's two solutions to the problem and at the end of the day what what it is though is it's every time we talk to indiana they say talk to kentucky every time we talk talking they say talk to indiana we're not creating new jobs in indiana it's a pure reclamation job we bought it for the reclamation we took it over we put a million dollars out of a million three to reclaim it it's almost done but at the end of the day what it's it's about jobs here it's about jobs in kentucky our investment our 150 million dollars we're putting to work we want to put it to work in kentucky not at our west virginia complexes in kentucky because we this is our workforce these are my brothers and sisters that i've lived lived with for the last seven years in point these are the people i love and at the end of the day the opportunities here well i think senator smith mr chairman if you don't care uh he brought this to here today on last minute because he knows how important the issue is and he knows that if he can bring both parties together and maybe somebody at the at the federal level if we have to that he can try to get something accomplished and i think that was the point of the meeting and to bring this to light so everybody understands the importance of it and what you guys are trying to do and and hopefully make sure that the cabinet is trying to do everything they can to work with you to try to get this accomplished so i know that he'll with his due diligence he'll continue to work on the process so we appreciate you all coming today yeah thank you senator carpenter we are getting close on time but uh gordon can you still hear me or mr smith i apologize i don't mean to take familiarities with you um gordon have you evaluated jensen's authority from the bankruptcy court to see whether or not it provides them with the ability of putting in an uh the authority to put in another operator our legal team has uh senator and unfortunately because the ark is abs blocked we simply can't do that uh i should also mention that arc has sued us as recently as this week and perry county resort in perry county to to try to get this matter resolved as well well i will say one of the greatest frustrations that i have is that the call all the complexities of it is hard for people to try to follow with all the smacker and all the different acronyms we use and the history just it's tough but what i hate is inside of all that is a shell game that gets played with a lot of these industries where one person points a finger at the other the army corps of engineers won't do this because of them and and in the meantime we don't have a lot of investors beating the door down to come into rural parts of east kentucky to take over abandoned coal mine so it puts us in a true predicament um and let me let me ask you this as we wrap up here what's the longest you guys have to be able to hold on before you have to make a critical decision we we're at a point where i mean the steel mill's saying is if we're not producing next week they're pulling the order and they're going to give it to west virginia so you lose your contract and then the next week [Music] i guess from the cabinet gordon i guess are you the head i guess you're the commissioner so you can probably speak i don't want to speak for the secretary um what can you tell this committee about whether or not it's realistic for you all to because you can't get to osm until you guys get your stuff clear that's just part of the shell game we won't know we can guess and theorize about what osm will do but until you actually get there we don't know what can you tell us about realistically approaching this thing because here's something either they're going to move forward and they're going to invest or they're going to close up and somebody's going to be down hazard in all these counties trying to explain to people why 176 people lost their job and i will tell you i'm going to tell them that we did everything we could on this committee to make sure that did not happen so i'm asking the cabinet if they could if they're willing to go at this from a different direction and sit down and work on an agreed order and i'll say to you all these agreed orders are not easy i mean i've like i said i've done reclamation work and that's the expensive part of the job so if the cabinet gives you something maybe they'd be distasteful and cost you all some money cut into profits but if this committee is willing to to step out on you you have to do exactly what that says and i don't want to come us come back in here and find out you all left this room and did something different than what we're trying to help you achieve um but with that said uh gordon walk me through this what what can we do what are you all willing to do thank you senator smith we are willing to work with american resources just as we've always been we have provided them with people to go on site to explain the different violations that have to be corrected we've given them slide shows powerpoint presentations uh all the information that we can but we as the cabinet can't actually go out there and do that work we have to rely on them to do it and right now i think we have about 13 violations here in kentucky that that we need to have corrected so that's just the bottom line senator yeah and i appreciate that but you and i both know that uh i could have a pond on my property that needs to be dipped and it's rained for two or three weeks and to put a piece of equipment in there is going to do more environmental damage than it is for me to do it and so we've held off and set some of that stuff in a desk drawer until it dried up enough to let a coal company go in there and dip those ponds and get it clean and everybody's happy that the environment's much more protected to do it that way it's easier to do a good uh pond to put your your feel in and uh so i think there's a smarter way for us to do it but i'm i don't want to talk about what what you guys have done in the past i'm trying to look for a way forward and and things aren't the same anymore i mean this whole economy's changed the way that we do businesses change the way that you all do business is going to have to change going forward because we don't have the old coal companies that scopa had years ago when we had an office in lexington and had great dinners and you had 105 members those days are gone and if we don't adapt if our cabinet doesn't adapt uh then we're gonna the downturn for the what's left in the coal economy is gonna be worse than what it is right now which is saying a lot so i i i would encourage you all um a matter of fact i'm going to entertain a motion guys to ask the cabinet motion that you all get back with us in a period of uh uh 10 business days is that okay with you all because it's getting kind of late in the week but but in 10 business days you all report back to this committee if it's the will of this committee and and tell us what's happened to this group and what's been done on the cabinet's position because you all represent us to try to do everything it can to prevent us from losing this job so i've made a motion if the committee's so i have a second uh all those in favor sign of i all those opposed likewise so hopefully men that's we've run out of time i i want you to know that we're we're going to fight for these cold jobs we're going to fight for any job and you may not be in the coal fields here you may have farmers or whatever but i want to know natural resources cares about these jobs senator southwood i have a quick question for the commissioner is all of this 13 violations from regulation or are there statutes involved well our regulations descend from the statutes themselves so we do have our statutes that are in keras uh 500 501 etc and then we also have our apartment 350 and then we have our regulations that are provided for under the statute but specifically the regulations have created extending language from the statute that's kind of the specifics of these violations you are correct senator mr chairman um another thing we need to maybe ask the cabinet to attempt to look at is perhaps a waiver typ emergency regulation thank you good and duly now i hope you feel like we heard you and that we put to the limited ability of our powers to to put a shoulder behind what you guys are trying to achieve hopefully this thing gets worked out but we are we're in a new crossroads for what's happening in the american industry for investors for states and cabinets and this could be a chance for us to really you know move forward then so gentlemen thank you all for coming um we're going to have to wrap up move on to our next presenter so thank you walt thank you everyone we don't take it lightly that you took your time out of the day to speak with us and let us tell our story very good thank you keep those jobs thank you all right this time we're going to move into our next bill senate bill 172. senator how is this your first be on from this committee it is oh boy welcome to natural resources please go ahead and thank you mr chairman take care see we're going to turn the mic over to you get my glasses out so i can see my notes here um i'm here today to ask for your support for senate bill 172. it's a house cleaning bill that makes some changes in our dig law to comply with federal regulations uh to keep their grant funding going i have karen wilson and linda bridwell with here to speak on the bill and ask answer any questions that any of you might have yeah please go ahead you're recognized it's carrying it as whoever wants to speak first i'm i'm sorry mr chairman this is linda bridwell i'm the executive director of the public service commission i'm sorry i couldn't see what was happening with the chairman so i apologize again thank you for hearing us today we'll be quick my name is linda bridwell i'm the executive director of the public service commission um just to give you a brief overview the pipeline and hazardous material safety administration is responsible for regulating and ensuring the safe and secure movement of hazardous materials by all modes of transportation including pipeline so the kentucky public service commission is responsible for administering those regulations during a recent audit of the kentucky program fimsa which is the the name of it is identified a deficiency in the state regulations that potentially allowed an exemption for reporting this statutory change is to close the exemption for reporting damage to underground facilities and thus maintain our fimsa compliance [Music] senator carpenter just a question so is this is you saying this is a correlation with eight one one uh or a one one issues now that we have or what's it is this tied to something different it is tied to the federal funding of the pipeline and hazardous material safety administration this is simply a cleanup in the statute there are there is at least one other bill that is over in the house right now that has some other eight one one but this is in the 811 bill but this is simply a one sentence change to clean up the statute to close the loophole or i'm sorry it's not a loophole but a potential exemption for reporting damage that this will eliminate okay because uh senator hornbeck and i have been working with 8-1-1 for several years trying to get this cleaned up because i'm in the business where we're digging digging utility lines and having to call 8-1-1 and all that stuff so i was just curious because right now how all the community agencies don't have to report it's a nightmare for a guy like me who's trying to dig across a property and you have to call 8-1-1 and then you have to call four other utilities who don't correspond and are regulated under 8-1-1 and so we're trying to clean that up and we don't get we can't get much traction because a lot of the municipals and utility companies don't always know where their properties are so they love for a guy like me to hit it to help them find it and then they charge me a fee for helping them find it and so uh that's why i was bringing that to our attention to make sure we all understand it but i understand that's not necessarily part of this issue but it is part of a bigger issue all right so i have a motion by senator castle in a second by senator wheeler oh sorry we have a question senator turner mr chairman i would like to possibly ask for a question uh you use the word cleanup could you give us a little bit of explanation of that i'm i'm like him i every now and then use an excavator i don't wanna avoid brothers do and when you use the word cleanup could you explain a little bit i read the language but i haven't read all of 367 and the section's applicable so try to take a short paragraph okay i will try and make this short there is simply in the state regulations under the statute a potential exemption for reporting damage to hazardous underground facilities and so this statute change just simply eliminates the possibility of any exemption for reporting damage to underground facilities and that is simply to maintain the fins of compliance the pipeline hazardous materials safety administration compliance i thought that i just wanted that for the record to make sure i was on the same page thank you thank you all right so we have a motion a second at this time we'll ask clerk call the roll senator carpenter senator caslin senator embry senator schickel senator southworth senator turner aye senator webb senator westerfield all right thank you senator senator wheeler aye chair smith hi the motion is reported favorable um thank you very much guys we appreciate that congratulations on getting your your bill out of here uh last thing on our agenda oh let's let's hold off on consent right now it's okay okay yeah you have to get up on the floor all right guys listen the last one we're going to do is senate bill 255. uh for those of you members uh that have been here for a little while you remember back in 2015 kentucky was one of 18 states that offered a statewide commercial orientated tax and senate program this was to create incentives for energy independence which we call the energy independence act in the state of kentucky it helped us create facilities refurbished facilities and create refill facilities excuse me uh with renewable energy sources as the driving force behind that and what happened is as we put this together really tremendous bill people still refer to it as house bill one it was never utilized so we put a lot of really neat things into place to drive this industry and while people loved it and we got a lot of words about it nobody actually took us up on it fast forward to now there's a new sector that's using a tremendous amount of power and that that is uh mining for bitcoin that's tied into the blockchain industry this committee's probably more familiar with it than anybody since we've handled the bulk of blockchain legislation and both chambers what we did with this bill is we have got companies that are spreading across the country and they really like kentucky because as these coal companies and other businesses have closed this creates surplus power and so the power companies are stuck with either raising your bills which we've seen or finding places that use it when you mine for bitcoin imagine something the size of an airplane hanger filled with nothing but hard drives as far as you can see that work 24 hours a day seven days a week and when they burn out they simply swap them out and put another one in it's amazing what they're doing it's part of the future but it uses a lot of power and i'm happy that it does so they're looking around places in kentucky rural areas much like hazard in the western part of the state pikeville many others harlan where they can come in and it doesn't really matter about roads or other access points as long as they've got power and the ability of mining they can take these places anywhere so it really opens up pockets of kentucky that have traditionally been tough to try to build industry in so what we did is we took this old bill that was a success but never utilized and simply plugged in the ability to do blockchain to be able to be a mining company and so to prevent it from being anybody that's living their mom and dad's basement has four or five hard drives we want it to be a significant serious investment uh we put in there that there needed to be at least a million dollars investment in it to get it going um and i think i would not even mind expanding that which the house may do if we can get it out of here to do 200 000 square feet but this thing is taking off we've got 10 offers on the table from companies that have approached us that are going to be spreading out all across kentucky to utilize this and so the bill in front of you has got a committee substitute and the only change in the committee substitute is i had overlooked one part on page six the line where it says line 17 coal or natural resources and we had some concern from the coal association and so we just simply struck that language so with that said this is just a new frontier for the state of kentucky and i would like to make a motion for passage of senate bill 255 and i actually need a motion on the sub motion second substance will all those in favor of adopting the committed substitute sign of i pose likewise i have a motion on the bill do i have a second have a second from uh cbn senator embry and we'll call the roll mr mr chairman i've got a question if i could absolutely thank you mr chairman i in the bill you make a change to energy independence uh uh this grant program uh to energy-based businesses i just want to make sure um that is would this only be limited to businesses uh that are doing this cryptocurrency mining um that are somehow either directly or tangentially related to the energy sector or can they be anybody because they're i mean as you well know there's a lot of cryptocurrencies that are being developed and and traded on on the stock exchanges that people go and buy shares in today and there's a lot of mining in this these currencies going on some of which is not at all related to energy is it limited to just the energy sector yeah the house bill one that we did originally was for to drive the energy industry to make it more efficient to expand our footprint to get old places refurbished and picked up this just simply adds to that so it doesn't change the original it's an energy bill for that um so it you have to fall within the guidelines of what the energy bill said and this is one of them that does that they're taking old buildings uh old sites and and using it to suck up a lot of the surplus energy so you definitely have to be an energy consumer uh and be investing in that to participate in it so i'm not sure what industry you'd be thinking about uh that may be interested in it um but i'm sorry maybe i'm not aware of it maybe i don't understand your question that's okay i think you've you've uh given me enough to to get an answer that i need thank you mr chairman very good so we'll call the roll senator carpenter senator caslin senator embry senator schickel senator southworth i senator turner senator webb senator westerfield i would i may explain my vote briefly chairman please do chairman i appreciate it i thank you again for once again taking the initiative on this very emerging very cutting edge technology issue that frankly touches a great deal of sectors and i think will continue to touch more sectors beyond just energy whether it's finance and you mentioned that last year as well in your blockchain bill from healthcare to records to data centers to you name it there's going to be a connection with this and blockchain technology and cryptocurrency i think as well which again is is taking on a bigger footprint in the financial markets every day i forget i don't know what uh bitcoin is valued at today but i wish i had some and i don't so i i'm grateful that you're taking the lead and doing things to establish kentucky as an opportunity leader here for this area thanks senator wheeler aye and chair smith i vote um as this thing moves onto the floor i give you a chance to read more of it and i think many of you in this room are not aware of it already but you have one into your district uh they um hire a lot of people and they spend a lot of money coming in i wish this did more the problem with blockchain is exactly like senator westerfield said there's so much of it unfortunately this doesn't affect anything other than their consumption of energy but if he likes the idea of banking i have a banking cryptocurrency bill that we're going to be discussing tomorrow so hopefully we can get that out of banking but i appreciate this committee you all have done the state's work this committee has done more blockchain legislation than any other committee in the state we have led the way on it we've actually we're number three in the nation for this so i thank each and every one of you for reading the bills participating in it and helped me move it forward so if there's no further business in front of this committee uh senator schickel you came in do you want to cast a vote very good let the record reflect there we have it members do we have any other thing any comments or announcements for the committee seeing none we stand adjourned