A new park complex expected to open in Benton on April 1 will offer numerous amenities, Hot Springs Village Property Owners’ Association governmental affairs committee heard during member reports at its March meeting. GAC member Paul Day said Benton Mayor David Mattingly recently briefed a Benton Area Chamber of Commerce committee on several major projects. The $50 million Riverside Park is anchored by the 87,000-square-foot River Center and its 5,200-seat arena. River Center will have basketbal...
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U.S. Rep. French Hill last week congratulated Philander Smith College on its 140th anniversary, and he predicted that many more decades of success will follow. In a speech Thursday on the House floor, Hill told colleagues that the historically black school in Little Rock is "an early higher education institution built and created by former African-American slaves -- the first such institution west of the Mississippi River." The Republican from Little Rock praised the school's contributions to th...
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A delegation of Arkansas congressmen sent a letter this week to Secretary of the Department of Energy Rick Perry, urging him to review the Clean Line project, a transmission line that runs through Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The Arkansas Public Service Commission rejected the proposed project, but the Department of Energy (DOE) used Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to authorize its development and construction. This is the first time DOE has used this provision in this way. Th...
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Republican legislators in Arkansas are urging Rick Perry, the newly elected secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to “preserve states’ rights” and review Clean Line Energy Partners’ proposed Plains & Eastern Clean Line project, a 700-mile transmission line that would bring wind power from the Oklahoma Panhandle region to the mid-south and southeastern U.S. U.S. Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton and U.S. Reps. Rick Crawford, French Hill, Steve Womack and Bruce Westerman sent a letter ...
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The House voted Wednesday to approve a $578 billion spending bill that keeps the U.S. armed forces operating through September and sets the stage for substantial increases in the Pentagon's budget as advocated by President Donald Trump. The fiscal 2017 defense legislation passed by 371-48 in the GOP-led chamber, clearing the way for the Senate to act. Arkansas' four representatives, all Republicans, backed the bill. The Trump administration is preparing a $30 billion supplement to the bill, whic...
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The House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) approved six bills today, each designed to improve the environment for small business. All of these bills had previously passed the Committee in a prior iteration. Several had been approved by the full House. HFCS Chairman Jeb Hensarling commented on the legislation; “Top-down, driven policies have stacked the deck against small businesses. Excessive and outdated regulations give the biggest companies a competitive advantage, but undermine entreprene...
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Legislation that would allow for wider distribution of research on exchange-traded funds advanced in the Senate on Thursday. The Senate Banking Committee approved the measure, the Fair Access to Investment Research Act of 2017, by a voice vote. The bill would enable broker-dealers to provide ETF research to clients without the information being considered an unregistered offering. The practice isn't currently allowed because of a technicality in securities law that doesn't give ETFs the same saf...
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All six members of Arkansas' congressional delegation urged Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Tuesday to "protect state sovereignty" and defend "states' rights" by blocking construction of an energy transmission line proposed to cut across Arkansas. In a letter, the six Republicans urged the former Texas governor to help them fight Clean Line Energy Partners' $2 billion project, which would carry electricity from Oklahoma wind farms to consumers in the southeastern United States. U.S. Sens. John Bo...
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David Nason, a General Electric executive and former Treasury Department official, has told the White House he is no longer interested in serving as the Federal Reserve's bank supervision chief. Nason, who heads GE's Energy Financial Services division, had been seen as a leading candidate for the vice chair for supervision position, a critical role in efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to revamp financial rules. "Mr. Nason informed the White House that he no longer wished to...
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embers of Arkansas’ Congressional delegation plan to send a letter to newly appointed U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry asking him to reverse the Obama Administration’s participation in the controversial Clean Line project through Arkansas. Ernest Moniz, the energy secretary under Obama, used “Section 1222” of the Congressionally-approved 2005 Energy Policy Act to green light the $2 billion, 720-mile transmission line that travels through three states to deliver wind-power generated electricity. ...
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