Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.

Welcome to Arkansas Week.

I'm Dawn Scott.

Thanks for being here.

South Arkansas could see an economic boom from the extraction of lithium.

The metal is an essential ingredient in electric vehicle batteries.

But the US trails far behind other countries, especially China, in processing it.

That could change.

And joining me to discuss the great potential is US Representative Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Arkansas's 4th Congressional District.

Thanks so much for being here.

Well, hello, Don, Great to be with you.

And this is a really exciting topic when you think about the potential for South Arkansas and the implications for our country, not just in providing a a critical element that is coming mainly from China right now, but also along with the economic growth opportunities, the national security implications for the whole country that could come right out of South Arkansas because of these deposits of lithium that God blessed Arkansas with.

Well, you became chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee earlier this year.

That helps guide federal energy and environmental policies.

And it comes as ExxonMobil is reportedly planning to construct one of the world's largest lithium processing facilities near Magnolia, which is what we're talking about.

The Wall Street Journal quotes an analyst who says that that could generate 15% of all finished lithium produced globally.

Congressman, what do you know about this?

Well, this is a big announcement.

There's already some work being done down in South Arkansas, a company called Standard Lithium that's over in El Dorado.

They've been working with Linksys, which is a long time operation down in in the Union County and they're working on getting this lithium out of the brine that's been processed for bromine for decades.

And now you've got Tetra that's talking about a plant and now ExxonMobil, which is a name everybody recognizes, that's talking about some really serious investments.

And they purchased 120,000 acre lease or lease holdings that, you know, they estimate contain about 4 million tons of lithium just in the 120,000 acres.

And you know, you, you, if you try to put the pencil to what, 4 million tons of lithium's worth, it's worth between 30 and $60,000 a ton right now.

So you're talking about, you know a couple $100 billion worth of lithium that's just in 120,000 acres.

That Exxon's looking to build a plant to process that and meet 15% of the world's lithium demands.

But there's a lot more lithium in the smack over formation in South Arkansas than just what's in that 120,000 acres.

So this truly could be a a major, major economic boon for South Arkansas that that formation, that smack over formation is extremely important in the process of siphoning lithium from the brine.

Water is a geologic trend for viewers.

Unfamiliar it runs from Texas to Florida.

Rich with that saltwater brine.

Tell us what it'll take for companies to scale up production.

Now you're talking about multi billion dollar investments.

You're talking about developing new technology that like I said, standard lithium is ahead of the curve on doing a pilot plant and extracting this lithium out of the the water.

This is something that we've known as there for for quite some time because you've got Albemarle in Columbia County or Magnolia and Linksys in Union County that they've been extracting this heavy salt water from deep out of the ground in that smack over formation for decades.

And they get components to make specialty insulations and a lot of other things that go into electronics that are already being utilized from the bromine.

But now that lithium is such a valuable commodity, we've got investors that are anxious to be able to extract the lithium to meet even more demands.

And you know, there's been talk that the value of the lithium may be more than the value of all the oil and gas produced in South Arkansas overtime.

So this truly is a a big issue and a great opportunity.

But it also comes with challenges because you're talking about the influx of a lot of capital, which means you're going to have a lot of construction workers, you're going to have growth in the area.

It's going to put pressure on everything from water systems and sewer systems to housing and education and even you know, the hospitals in the area and the healthcare.

It's a good problem to have, but it certainly needs to be addressed holistically.

And you know, I've visited with the governor about this and others in the state about how we, you know, we get a plan together to make sure that this transition happens as as smoothly as possible and look at other areas of the country like the Permian Basin out in West TX that experienced large boons of people moving in and resource development.

But it's a, it's a great problem to have.

And I know that Arkansas ingenuity will figure this out.

And you know, looking forward to what the future holds, well, we know major automakers are planning significant expansions of the electric vehicle production in the coming years.

And of course this could be as you said a big economic boon and you know you mentioned that infrastructure and the population growth and all of what would need to be expanded down there in an area that really couldn't support that right now.

Would the federal government help?

Well, there there are grant programs and that's something that I'm checking into that we're we're trying to turn over all the the leaves to see if there's something where the federal government can help certainly with longterm technical education opportunities.

There are programs there and that's why, you know, I've met with the governor and I know that she's putting together like a task force to look at this.

And I feel comfortable that, you know, people are aware that there are issues are going to have to be solved.

And we're working together to try to come up with the best way to solve those problems because it's in everybody's best interest, not only the current residents that live in these communities, but also the people who will be moving in and the ones who will be making big capital investments.

And this is something that will be beneficial to the whole state.

So I'm confident that we will work through these issues and we will find the resources that are needed to get everything up and running until you know it's more self-sustaining and generating the own, the revenues that will be needed to provide all these services.

Last question, this is off topic.

When you head back from recess, there's a September 30th deadline to pass a spending deal or face government shutdown.

The House and Senate will either have to pass 12 appropriations bills or continue resolutions maintaining funding levels.

So what do you, what do you think needs to happen?

We have about 30 seconds left.

Well, Congress needs to do our job and pass the appropriation bills.

We've been, we've got those out of committee in the House.

The sentence been working on bills.

It'll be yet.

It's yet to be seen if we can get all that done by September 30th.

But I think if there is a continuing resolution, will be a shortterm resolution.

And we're going to see a different process play out in Congress, this Congress, because the House has taken a firm position on not doing an omnibus and doing the appropriation bills.

I'm glad to be part of that.

We appreciate your time.

Congressman Bruce Westerman, thank you so much.

Thank you, Don.

Always good to be with you.

You as well.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back.

There are concerns that a new state law loosening child labor requirements will lead to an increase in children being exploited and involved in workplace accidents.

Act 195, known as the Youth Hiring Act, took effect a few weeks ago after being passed by the Arkansas legislature.

Joining Me Now, Kara Butler, who is an employment and labor attorney with the Mitchell Williams law firm, and Keisha Smith, the Executive Director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and I appreciate both of you being here today.

This is a topic that we do need to talk about.

Similar laws, though I want to start with, have been passed elsewhere in the country employers struggling to fill positions.

It also comes as the nation is seeing an increase in sanctions imposed against companies who are illegally hiring children.

Kara, I want to start with you explain what Act 195 entails right?

So before I'm Act 195 was passed in Arkansas, those who are 14 and 15 so youth were required to get a work permit are also known as an employment certificate.

Basically the certificate outlined they had to say obviously their age verification, it had to discuss what job they were going to work, what employer they would work for, their working positions and also would have to be signed by a parent or guardian.

What Act 195 does is it basically dispenses with that requirement so that 14 and 15 year olds are no longer, they no longer have to get that workers permit.

So essentially they can work anywhere, any place at anytime.

Yeah, well there are some, there are still some restrictions.

So although the the administrative requirement of the workers permit is now gone for 14 and 15 year old specifically, there are still some guidelines.

For instance, there are some jobs that might be considered dangerous that 14 and 15 year olds aren't supposed to do.

They can't work on like heavy machinery.

And also there still are hourly requirements.

So there are for instance at 14 or 15 year old can't work, you know more than 40 hours a week.

You know Arkansas has received national media attention for making this change.

Which brings me to the question, is there a difference between the laws here in Arkansas and laws elsewhere?

Are we more lenient, KISA?

Yeah.

So I think you know with this law taking away the permitting process we have, we have put ourself in a place where we are different than other states.

And the question is really why we were doing such a thing?

Because as Karen noted for specifically for 14 and 15 year olds, there is an hourly restriction in terms of how many hours a child can work on a on a school night.

We want our children to go home and be able to get a good night's sleep, get ready for school next day.

You can't do that if you're the person closing down a fast food restaurant for the day.

So that's very important And there's only so many hours of a week that they can actually work.

Most parents and even some employers don't know that offhand.

And so that permit was there to be able to say you are verifying that you understand the rules and that you were agreeing to this and equally that a parent knows that this is what a child is doing right now and is signing off.

Well, you and your group testified before the legislature when this bill was being debated.

I know there are other concerns too.

Yeah, I mean those are those are you know one of what I just discussed are our primary concerns at a time where as noted, we are seeing more children illegally working in locations and jobs that they shouldn't work in roles they shouldn't work and for hours that they shouldn't work.

It seems like it doesn't make sense for Arkansas to be pulling back a sign off that is a paper trail that says that the employer knew that this child was 14 and or 15 when they when they signed up.

And equally, it's just, you know, I, I have a big concern.

I'm a parent myself.

My child had a job all the time that she was in high school.

But I would be really concerned about an employer not being willing to say, yes, I understand the the, you know, the restrictions and the requirements for when I hire someone this year.

Sure.

Or that maybe your school might be more important.

Etcetera.

Absolutely.

You know, we invited the bill's sponsor, State Representative Rebecca Burke.

She's a Republican from the Springdale area, to join us on this program.

She was unable to participate, but she did share some information.

She noted that a second law, Act 687, was also passed this year to add criminal penalties for those who violate the labor laws.

Kara, what what does this allow right.

So there's always been civil penalties in place under the law and in under this Act 687, those civil penalties have also been slightly increased.

But what as you mentioned, what's also been added are the criminal penalties.

So if I'm an employer is cited for a labor law violation for violating one of the child labor laws and they can be sentenced to you know to certain certain times, so maybe like a Class C misdemeanor.

And then this increases based on the penalty.

So for instance, if a child was maybe injured in a workplace and it was related to it to one of those violations and the penalty would increase, well, it seems then that that balances out the welfare of the children.

Do you think so or it's not enough?

We think it's not enough.

Very, very appreciative, Representative Burks and Senator Pinzo, for passing the second law that really takes us in line with what the federal requirements are.

But again, we really do feel like you need to ensure that a parent is aware that their child is working and that that that parent has signed off.

And then more importantly, you know, these penalties are if it, the Department of Labor is able to go into a facility and see that something has happened.

The Department of Labor only has so many staff.

We have numbers of businesses that employ younger children.

There is no way that the Department of Labor can actively be and have a presence in multiple businesses to ensure that these violations aren't occurring.

And so there is still that level of concern about how these violations are found and what happens and how quickly government agencies can act on what's happening.

Well, sure, there are federal laws in place to check ages and place restrictions, but do you think additional state protections are needed?

It sounds like yes, I do.

I do.

I think just there, there's a lot of conversation to be had about strengthening what happens when a child goes to be employed.

I I'm a mom.

My daughter actually did apply for a job when she was 15 years old.

She had her identification.

It was copied and the fast food place hired her, made her clothes multiple nights a week.

When we filled out the work permit, they ended up terminating her and it's because they were like we didn't hire.

We don't hire 15 year olds, but they did.

And so some things can be honest mistakes and some things can be employers intentionally going after younger employees.

But there has to be some verification at the 8:00 at at the time of hiring that shows that employers have checked how old a child is, a parent or guardian is aware of the fact that that child is working and that the employer is following the law.

I think we have time for one last question that the state set a record for having all time lowest unemployment rate recently, but fewer people looking for employment.

Do you think this is a response to some of this?

Yeah, I think that we are, you know, especially coming out of the pandemic, employers are struggling and we see it no matter where we go.

There's hiring signs out everywhere.

So employers are looking for individuals like the good actors are trying to follow the law, but there are bad actors that will hire anyone who comes to work.

And I do think it's important for employers to remember, as we've discussed, although these permits are gone, it's still very important for employers to follow these laws that we've discussed and making sure that you're complying with those laws too.

Great discussion.

Kara Butler, thank you.

Along with Keisha Smith, we appreciate you being in studio with me at.

Thank you so much.

Stay tuned as we feature a vineyard that has brought the Napa Valley experience to the capital city.

When people come to Rusty Tractor Vineyards, I want them to first of all look and see how beautiful it is.

We want them to think, man, this is cool.

You know, this is, it's not Napa, but it's like Napa in Little Rock.

We can literally drive 5 or 10 miles from downtown, have really good homemade Arkansas wine that they take a sip and they go, man, we didn't know we could.

We could have this go to wine made in Arkansas.

And whenever we hear that, it just makes us smile because it's kind of rewarding for all the hard work you put in.

I'm Sherry Meyer, and this is my husband, Doug Meyer.

Doug had a tractor dealership Capital Equipment was driving by this property 30 years ago and saw an old sign called the agent and bought the property.

It was an old dairy farm, used to be called the Kenzel Dairy.

We wanted a unique label and so tractor business, old forts and tractor.

It's like a 1918.

So we said let's do Rusty Tractor Vineyards and it's kind of stuck and people like the label.

Our first wine label was a piece of duct tape.

Yeah, it worked.

Neither one of us had any aspirations of having a winery.

We just started planning the grapes and we planted so many that we realized we had to have help.

And so we said, well, let's just start a winery here in Little Rock.

And it's been a labor of love.

It's just been a great, great trip.

It is definitely A-Team effort.

We have a great team of people that work on the vineyard, work at the venue.

If farming has taught me one thing, it's that you have to start somewhere and you chip away at it every single day and you eventually get through right on time.

This will be my 12th year winemaking, so I started at Chateau, Ozark in 2011.

I did my internship in the field there for my horticulture degree and I lived there on property and helped with the harvest that year.

And yeah, kind of baptism by fire.

If you would have told me when I was in school that I'd be doing chemistry for a living, I would not have believed you.

So I just measured out my enzymes and essentially they help me extract as much juice as possible.

It helps break down the cell walls and the grapes.

So my love of wine came from.

Growing plants and being outside.

I did not want an office desk job.

I absolutely love being outside.

I love the fact that no matter what you do, there's always going to be more to learn about these plants.

Wine is kind of like an art form, and the fact that you put your work out for the public to critique and criticize, and whenever you get good feedback, it feels incredible.

These are our AQW Awardwinning wines, which is the Arkansas Quality Wine Competition.

And what that does is that sets a standard for winemaking in Arkansas.

For someone to grow grapes and make wine in Arkansas, it's much, much more difficult than it is in Napa.

Here we have humidity, night and day temperatures, rainfall.

There's just so many other factors that they don't have to deal with in California that we do here.

So we plant hybrid grapes.

And what they do is they take the wine characteristics of Old World grapes and the disease resistance of New World grapes and they breed them together and they do that in Clarksville, They do that at the Cornell, they do that in California and they create great breeding programs.

So what we're harvesting today is Tremonet, which is a hybrid variety.

The University of Arkansas has a fruit breeding substation in Clarksville and they have released at least four wine grapes that I'm aware of.

Opportunity, Enchantment, Dazzle and indulgence.

We grow dazzle and indulgence.

It feels phenomenal to have gone to school where the grapes that I'm growing originated from.

I mean they they put in all that hard work and we get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

We live on a beautiful piece of property.

We're on 80 acres, but we back up to several 1000 acres.

We are technically in the county, but the city limits is directly across the street.

I think it is a big impact on Little Rock just because whenever people hear a vineyard, they think, oh, I don't want to go all the way out there.

And then it's 15 minutes door to door downtown.

And it's kind of country living with city access.

We wanted a winery in Central Arkansas and we wanted to have events.

We're close to, you know, the state capitol.

We're close to the city center, so it's easier for tourists to come here.

So I'm going to pour these.

I'm also pouring these into our reedal glasses.

You know, we take pride in the wine that we make here, so we want to make sure that we're serving in a glass that amplifies the wine that's actually in the bottle as well.

There we go.

When you get your glass of wine, you're going to hold your glass up and you're going to give it a swirl.

You're going to take a look at it.

You want to know what's going on in there.

You want to make sure there's no impurities, which we're looking.

It looks beautiful in there.

The higher the alcohol content, the more of the leg you're going to get to see there.

And then after that, you're going to get it with your nose.

So you want to taste from the top and the bottom of your glass.

So you're going to stick your nose up here.

If I gave you this in a plastic cup, you weren't going to get any of those noses at all.

So crazy how much wine and the glass interact with each other.

So cheers you guys.

Let's take a sip.

I tell you it's very rewarding.

You know, I, I grew up on a farm.

So, you know, you're used to seeing from the time you plan it to, you see it grow.

It's very labor intensive.

It's perennial.

So I mean every year, you know, you just get to see the the beauty of the grapes coming on in the winter time.

You prune it way back and then you see in the spring, you see it start to bloom and then you see the bunches of grapes.

Come on.

Arkansas is really pushing agritourism.

It's getting to be bigger and bigger and we're trying to do more agricultural related events here all the time.

They'll have people come out and enjoy our beauty.

The deer are our main problem.

They eat our crop, they eat the berries, they break the wood for next year's harvest.

We have to preserve the aesthetics of the vineyard because of our Event Center, the weddings and all the corporate events and all of the open the public days.

Whenever litter comes out to see us, we want them to be able to see a clean shot of the vineyard, right?

And if we put a fence on there to block out the deer, it would kind of go against the grain to what we're trying to achieve out here.

It's very disappointing whenever you have worked all year for this harvest only to see it eaten by wild animals.

It is hard work, but you know the people that want to work hard and produce something like this.

It's a passion you have to have really.

I feel like we are able to provide the community with a wonderful venue, with wonderful wine.

We have an amazing team that works great.

I'm very grateful.

I'm very proud.

It just means everything, both of us.

We hear the same thing over and over again.

Oh my God.

We can't believe this place is in Arkansas.

We can't believe it's in Little Rock.

It's just so cool and to see how happy they are.

It makes us happy and proud of of what we put together.

We want to just make the best wine we can in Arkansas with the grapes we can produce.

This segment of good roots is made possible by support from Acre Trader and that wraps our program.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Dawn Scott and I'll see you next time on Arkansas week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.