Legislative Summary 87th General Assembly Legislative .
Legislative Summary87th General AssemblyLegislative Summary 200987THGeneralAssembly20091
87th General Assembly2Legislative Summary 2009
87th General AssemblyLegislative Summary 2009Executive CommitteeArkansasState Chamberof CommerceAssociatedIndustriesof ArkansasChairman of the BoardChairman of the BoardRandy WilbournCranford JohnsonRobinson WoodsRay C. DillonDeltic Timber CorporationVice ChairmanVice ChairmanMichele BondTyson Foods, Inc.Vice ChairmanRussell BraggOK Industries Inc.Ed DrillingAT&T ArkansasVice ChairmanPhillip BaldwinSouthern Bancorp, Inc.Vice ChairmanWritten by:Kenneth R. HallExecutive Vice President, State Chamber/AIAMichael O. Parker, Esq.Dover Dixon Horne PLLCVice ChairmanAngela DeLilleDirector of Governmental Affairs, State Chamber/AIAVice ChairmanEdited by:Steve M. cousinsLion Oil CompanyMaggie SansWal-Mart Stores Inc.Vice ChairmanGeorge WheatleyWaste Management of ArkansasBill HannahNabholz Construction CorporationVice ChairmanTreasurerJeff ThatcherDirector of Communications, State Chamber/AIABill J. ReedRiceland Foods Inc.Gary HeadSignature Bank of ArkansasTreasurerPast ChairmanGary HeadSignature Bank of ArkansasHugh McDonaldEntergy Arkansas, Inc.Past ChairmanBenny BakerInternational Paper ContainerDivisionEx-OfficioBob LambBob Lamb ConsultantRaymond BurnsRogers-Lowell Area Chamberof CommerceTable Of ContentsState Chamber/AIA Executive Committee & Staff.3Message from State Chamber/AIA Governmental Affairs Team.4I. Lobbying Summary.5II. Tax Update.8StaffRandy ZookKenneth R. Hall, J.D.III. Economic Development Related Legislation.12President/CEOExecutive Vice PresidentSusie Marks, CCESenior Vice President - ProgramsAngela DeLilleDirector of Governmental AffairsJeff ThatcherDirector of CommunicationsDeb MathisManager, Scheduling & EventsBill WatsonMembership Development RepresentativeMarcus TurleyMembership Development RepresentativeSue WeatterJoanne DouglasDirector, Governor’s Quality Award ProgramIV. Arkansas Secretary of State Business and Commercial Services.16V. Tracked Bills That Became Law.17VI. Tracked Bills That Did Not Become Law.27Appendix A 2009 Arkansas Legislative Agenda.41Pinnacle Members.44State Chamber/AIA Membership Information/Application.46Receptionist3
87th General AssemblyLegislative Summary 2009Dear State Chamber/AIA Members,During the 87th Arkansas General Assembly, the State Chamber/AIA was successful in its role as the businesscommunity’s voice before Arkansas’s elected officials. While crafting the legislative agenda in the months prior to thesession, our membership identified four priority issues in addition to the general issues we attend to during each session.We are pleased to report that we were able to accomplish all of the agenda’s priority items while also working to pass orblock general issue legislation in a manner that enhances Arkansas’s economic climate.Through the State Chamber/AIA’s leadership and with the cooperation of several key legislators, we saved manufacturersmillions of dollars with the passage of a further reduction in the sales tax they pay on energy costs. We also weresuccessful in accomplishing the three other priorities of protecting; a) the education reforms passed in 2003-04, b) thelegal reforms passed in 2003 and c) the workers’ compensation reforms passed in 1993. Finally, we were successful onseveral other issues that impact the business climate, such as taxes, energy efficiency and climate change, unemploymentinsurance, protecting the popular vote election of the U.S. President, constitutional amendments to enhance economicdevelopment, immigration, animal cruelty and a statewide trauma system.In late February we hosted our first Legislative Luncheon that was very successful. This event drew more than 300 guestsincluding legislators, constitutional officers, legislative staff members, State Chamber/AIA board members, State Chamber/AIA Governmental Affairs Committee members, Leadership Arkansas Class III members and Leadership ArkansasAlumni. The event provided an excellent opportunityfor legislators to network with members of the state’sbusiness community as well as an opportunity forbusiness leaders to discuss issues with their legislators ina one-on-one setting.We have prepared this 2009 Legislative Summary for youto use as a resource document. It provides more detailson the priority issues, the remaining agenda issues onwhich we concentrated our lobbying activities, a reportfrom our tax counsel, a complete list of all bills we trackeddivided into groups of bills that passed and those thatfailed to become law, and other information of interest.Thanks to all who read our Daily Legislative Updates andmade contact with their legislators. Our efforts rely uponstrong grass roots participation by our members.Sincerely,Kenneth R. HallExecutive Vice PresidentAngela DeLilleDirector of Governmental Affairs4
87th General AssemblyLegislative Summary 2009I. Lobbying SummaryPrior to the 2009 legislative session, the State Chamber/AIAmembership adopted as its top legislative priorities: to lead the effort topass a sales tax exemption for energy used in industry and manufacturing,to protect the education reforms passed in 2003-04, to protect thelegal reforms enacted by Act 649 of 2003 and to protect the workers’compensation reforms enacted by Act 796 of 1993. We are pleased tosay that we were successful in all of these areas.With the economy slowing, Governor Mike Beebe took a conservativeapproach to the state’s budget and coordinated with legislative leaders toblock tax exemption bills. However, the Governor maintained his priorityto further extend the reduction in the sales tax on food. We worked withlegislative leaders to plead our case for a further reduction in the salestax paid by manufacturers on their energy costs and eventually prevailed.Only a couple other sales tax exemption bills became law.There were a couple of bills filed that threatened to weaken theeducation reform measures we helped pass in 2003, but these bills weredefeated in the Senate Education Committee.We maintained a stand-down agreement with the Trial LawyersAssociation and therefore only a couple of bills were pushed thatattempted to address tort reform. One was easily defeated and anotherbill to help the nursing home industry was negotiated with the triallawyers and passed.Throughout 2008 we had regular meetings with leaders of the AFLCIO to discuss workers’ compensation legislation. Our meetings resultedin an agreed package of legislation, which made only minor adjustmentsto Arkansas’s workers’ compensation laws that continue to work well foremployers and employees.Tax IssuesTo accomplish our goal of achieving a sales tax exemption for energyused by manufacturers, we balanced our analysis of this session’s politicalenvironment with the desire of all manufacturing members of the StateChamber/AIA. First, we filed a bill that would have created an exemptionfor all fuels used by all manufacturers in Arkansas. However, it was veryevident that such an exemption was not in the Governor’s budgetnor was there sufficient political will among legislators to pass suchan exemption in 2009. We then shifted our focus to extending the 2percent reduction we gained in 2007 on electricity and natural gas usedby manufacturers in NAICS codes 31, 32 and 33. We worked closelywith House Revenue and Taxation Committee Chairman John Lowrey,House Joint Budget Committee Chairman Bruce Maloch, Rep. DavidDunn and Sen. Barbara Horn who negotiated with the Governor’s officeand helped build legislative support inside the Capitol. We also organizedand managed a group of manufacturing lobbyists who worked to gainlegislative support. Eventually we agreed upon a three-fourths percentreduction in the sales tax paid by manufacturers in NAICS codes 31-3233 on their electricity and natural gas. Our agreement was contained inidentical bills, HB 1624 and SB 875, which became Acts 691 and 695.In addition to the sales tax reduction for manufacturing, we alsoproduced a package of four additional tax bills and were able to passtwo of them. Early in the session our Tax Committee developed a bill toclarify the exemption for machinery/equipment and tools/dies (SB 770),a taxpayer’s bill of rights to address tax appeals (SB 769), a bill to extendthe time period to carry net operating losses forward on income taxreturns (HB 1911) and a bill to extend the time to claim rebates on localsales taxes paid in excess of old local caps (HB 1949).All of these bills were held until the sales tax reduction formanufacturing was completed, which was in the latter weeks of thesession. The state Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) wasstrongly opposed to SB 769 and SB 770. We met with DFA two or threetimes trying to resolve our differences but got nowhere until we obtaineda Do Pass recommendation from the Senate Revenue and TaxationCommittee on the tax payer bill of rights, SB 769 by Sen. Larry Teagueand Rep. Keith Ingram. Then we were able to negotiate an agreementwith DFA on SB 769 that changed the standard of proof in tax appealcases from beyond a reasonable doubt to clear and convincing evidence.SB 769 is now Act 755. We also reached an agreement with DFA on SB770 that clarifies the existing exemption on dies and molds. SB 770 isnow Act 1208.HB 1911 by Rep. Keith Ingram and Sen. Larry Teague was an attemptto make Arkansas’s income tax laws more consistent with most otherstates and the federal government. Currently Arkansas only allows netoperating losses (NOL) to be carried forward for five years while thefederal government allows 20 years and more than 80 percent of thestates allow at least 10 years. Our bill would have extended the NOLperiod to 15 years and would not have impacted state revenue untilfiscal year 2016. We were able to move the bill out of the House butit died the last week of the session in the Senate Revenue and TaxationCommittee, which was killing all remaining tax bills that had a negativeimpact on state revenue.DFA did not oppose our bill to extend the rebate time for businessesto recover local sales taxes paid above old local caps but mayors andcounty judges stopped HB 1949 by Rep. Davy Carter on the House floor.Our Tax Committee also agreed to endorse HB 1060 by Rep. TracyPennartz that would have established an investment tax credit for therehabilitation and development of central business improvement districts.It also failed to gain support from the Senate Revenue and TaxationCommittee the last week of the session and was referred to interimstudy. Finally, in the last days of the session Rep. Ed Garner pushed HBFURTHER REDUCING THE SALES TAX MANUFACTURERS PAY ONUTILITY COSTS – Governor Mike Beebe signs into law Acts 691 and695, which further reduced the rate of the excise tax on utilities usedby manufacturers from 4 percent to 3.25 percent effective July 1, 2009.Passage of the legislation was a priority for the State Chamber/AIAduring the 87th General Assembly. Looking on behind Beebe are (frontrow left to right) George Wheatley, Rep. David Dunn (D – Forrest City),Sen. Jimmy Jeffress (D-Crossett), Kenny Hall, Sen. Barbara Horn (DForeman), Angela DeLille, Gary Sams and Tammy Waters, and (back rowleft to right) Randy Lann, Randy Wilbourn, Rick Heis, Randy Zook, SteveCousins, Johns Suskie, an unidentified individual and Benny Baker.5
87th General Assembly1947 out of the House but joined the many bills that failed in the lastweek to gain support from the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee.This bill would have created The Arkansas Capital Gains Reduction Actof 2009. It was also referred to interim study. This is a tax issue that theState Chamber/AIA Tax Committee should look into prior to the nextlegislative session.Workers’ CompensationHB 1362 by Rep. Mike Burris, Rep. Rick Green, Sen. Jerry Taylor andSen. Joyce Elliott contained the agreement negotiated between the StateChamber/AIA and the AFL-CIO on workers’ compensation issues. Thisbill simply exempted workers’ individual disability policies that they paidfor from the workers’ compensation benefit offset requirements, clarifiedthe responsibility for second injury claims, allowed certain claims to movefrom the Second Injury Trust Fund to the Death and Permanent DisabilityTrust Fund and strengthened the proof of insurance requirements forcertain contractors. We ran into some unexpected opposition fromlegislators responding to concerns by small contractors and had somelegislative drafting issues that complicated the contractor issue even more.However, we worked with the labor leaders and legislators as well askept constant grass roots pressure on legislators to honor the negotiatedagreement between the State Chamber/AIA and the AFL-CIO. The billeventually passed and is now Act 327.During the session, about a half dozen workers’ compensation billswere filed in addition to our agreed bill. Four were held or withdrawnin honor of the agreement between the State Chamber/AIA and theAFL-CIO. The other two passed. One was a simple attempt to deal withvolunteer firefighter’s training, SB 872, which also expanded workers’compensation coverage to include volunteers who do not fight fires. TheState Chamber/AIA and AFL-CIO testified against the bill in the SenateCommittee but it was obvious the legislature did not see this bill having astrong impact on the overall workers’ compensation system. It is now Act808.Rep. John Edwards filed HB 1403, the Uniform Emergency VolunteerHealth Practitioners Act. This bill was designed to help Arkansas attractmedical professionals to assist in the case of an extreme emergency. Afterthe bill was filed, the State Chamber/AIA and the AFL-CIO studied thebill and determined that it would provide a positive impact on the qualityof life for all Arkansans and amended our agreement to include HB 1403,which is now Act 432. This bill will allow out-of-state medical providersto be declared state employees for the purpose of receiving Arkansasworkers’ compensation benefits if they are injured while working inArkansas. The state of Arkansas’s workers’ compensation trust fundagreed to accept such claims, which facilitated management and labor’sability to include this bill in our agreement.Energy Efficiency and Climate ChangeAs the bill filing deadline approached in early March, most of the billsrelated to energy efficiency, climate change and other issues arising fromthe Global Warming Commission were filed. The State Chamber/AIATask Force on Energy identified about 30 bills related to these issues butonly seven required opposition. Of the bills that we were either neutralon or favored, about 10 became law. Our opposition efforts focused ontwo bills, HB 1851 by Rep. Kathy Webb and HB 1903 by Rep. Joan Cash.We worked with a large coalition of our industrial and utility membersto stop these two bills. HB 1903 would have required electric utilitiesto achieve energy efficiency recommendations by 2013 but would haveallowed the utilities to pass the cost of the programs on to rate payers.Our estimates were that these programs could cost Arkansas ratepayers as much as 72 million per year. HB 1851 would have requiredArkansas’s public utilities to purchase at least 2 percent of their energyfrom renewable electric generation facilities. Our information indicatedthat such purchases could cost between 20 cents and 50 cents per6Legislative Summary 2009kilowatt hour while we currently pay about 7 cents per kilowatt hour. Weopposed both of these bills because of their cost impact on our memberbusinesses. HB 1903 was pulled down by the sponsor without a voteand HB 1851 did not receive approval from the House Insurance andCommerce Committee.We also applied grass roots pressure and worked with a coalitionof organizations and businesses to defeat HB 1968 by Rep. KathyWebb. We feared this bill would have created a chilling effect uponpeople’s willingness to serve the state through participation in boardsand commissions that address the environment or any other issue byexpanding the conflict of interest laws including an impact on familymembers and the addition of criminal enforcement. We believe that manypeople participate on boards and commissions because of their expertiseand experience, and we could see this bill causing such expertise to goaway.Unemployment InsuranceFive members of the State Chamber/AIA Unemployment InsuranceCommittee including the co-chairs of the committee and theorganizations’ Executive Vice President participate in the ESD AdvisoryCouncil, which also includes five representatives of the AFL-CIO andthree consumers. This Advisory Council meets quarterly to discuss issuesrelated to the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) system and alsonegotiates legislative issues. The economic downtown had a dramaticimpact on the state’s Unemployment Insurance Benefit Trust Fund, whichbecame depleted in March. Department of Workforce Services staffestimates the Trust Fund will have a shortfall of at least 300 million in2009 and likely again in 2010. The state started receiving federal cashadvances in March that are interest-free through 2010. The fund and itsloans are the responsibility of businesses in Arkansas.To meet the financial needs of the trust fund, we agreed to a 2,000increase in the taxable wage base effective Jan. 1, 2010. Additionally, wesecured labor’s support when they agreed to allow discharges to betreated in the same manner as quits. The change in the wage base willcost employers about 50 per employee per year on average and willgenerate about 46 million in additional benefit funding per year. Thechange labor agreed to will save the fund about 25 million each year.The agreement supported by management and labor was filed as SB429 by Sen. Tracy Steele and is now Act 802. This bill also makes changesto our UI system to qualify for federal stimulus dollars. Arkansas willreceive 59.9 million from the stimulus package, which will go into ourtrust fund to defray benefit costs associated with the required federalchanges. The federal dollars are expected to cover the additional cost toour UI system from the changes for about six to eight years. The agreedbill also had six sections of technical corrections and changes.Popular Vote for U.S. PresidentHB 1339 by Rep. Eddie Cooper and Sen. Terry Smith would haveassigned Arkansas’s presidential electors to the winner of the nationalpopular vote rather than the winner of the popular vote in Arkansas. Asimilar bill had failed to move in past sessions but to our surprise this billmade it out of the House. We applied heavy grass roots pressure to thisbill, which was never brought up for a vote in the Senate State Agenciesand Governmental Affairs Committee. The State Chamber/AIA stronglyopposes any attempt to remove Arkansas from the Electoral College andwe will make our opposition a priority issue for future legislative sessions.HealthcareThe State Chamber/AIA worked with the Arkansas EmployersHealthcare Coalition (AECH) on a few healthcare-related issues in thissession. In the first half of the session, the b
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Vice Chairman GEoRGE WHEATLEy Waste Management of Arkansas Treasurer GARy HEAD Signature Bank of Arkansas Past Chairman HUGH MCDoNALD Entergy Arkansas, Inc. Associated Industries of Arkansas RAy C. DILLoN Deltic Timber Corporation Vice Chairman MICHELE BoND Tyson Foods, Inc. Vice Chai
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