(The Center Square) – Arkansas Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, called a new law prohibiting cities and counties from discriminating against crypto mining business a “trojan horse” that is “one-sided.”
The Joint Advanced Communications and Information Technology Committee and Energy discussed the new law on Tuesday.
The law states digital mining businesses may operate in Arkansas as long as they comply with state laws concerning business guidelines and tax policies, ordinances concerning operations and safety, and other applicable rules and laws. The businesses must also pay all state and local taxes.
Also including in the law language that says local governments may not discriminate against digital asset mining businesses through rezoning, imposing different requirements, or other actions.
“What we’ve done by trying to say, ‘you’re not going to discriminate against this business,’ the reality is what this wound up doing is discriminating against every other business out there because now as of Aug. 1, there is a protected class with this industry out there,” King said.
Vilonia is one of the towns that denied a permit for a crypto mining business. The city’s planning commission denied a request from Vilo AR LLC after residents raised concerns over noise, according to a report from TVH11.
King plans to present an interim study bill on the topic by next week.
“We’ll get a counterargument of something different from this meeting which is one-sided,” King said.
