Repeating the notion that she wants to be known as the education governor, Gov. Sarah Sanders signed her higher education overhaul bill into law at an economic forum in Little Rock Tuesday (March 18) before nearly 1,000 business leaders.
At a packed house crowd in the Wally Allen Ballroom at Little Rock’s Arkansas Economic Development Foundation (AEDF) luncheon, Sanders shared remarks that touched on education and jobs, before signing her higher education reform measure, the ACCESS Act, into law.
The AEDF is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization established in 1955 that raises funds to support economic development efforts in Arkansas, including research, site visits, and recruitment support. The foundation frequently helps pay for overseas business recruiting trips for the governor and staff of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
In a public ceremony on stage, Sanders signed SB246 and HB1512, the ACCESS Act, which overhauls higher education to include more scholarships for college students and workforce development as well as changes the higher education funding formula to be more rewarding for schools whose graduates meet employer needs.
“Education has on ramps and off ramps, and we need to make sure those are easy to get to and that starts with this legislation,” Sanders told the audience of business leaders and economic developers.
Sanders also bragged on Arkansas’ economy, which still boasts a low jobless rate of 3.6% and an expanding workforce. She said 2024 was a “banner year” for Arkansas’ business climate and noted being No. 1 in the lowest cost of living, in-bound population growth, and the fastest growing state economy in the nation.
“Because I’m governor, I’d like to take credit for a lot of those No. 1 positions. In a lot of rooms, to be fully candid and transparent, I would. But this crowd knows better. So I will be careful to state our claim that government is the one making it happen. We know it is because of each of you and the leadership you have in your communities and in your companies,” she said. “Our role and our goal is to remove barriers and add fuel to your fire and help you be successful.”
ALBERMARLE CEO & LITHIUM
The keynote speaker at the luncheon was Kent Masters, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Albemarle Corp. His company has been a longtime investor in south Arkansas’ brine industry and is poised to be significantly involved in the burgeoning lithium industry in that region of the state.
Lithium is used in a variety of products, notably in pacemakers, drones and batteries for cell phones and electric vehicles – spaces where Masters said demand is not slowing down. He was interviewed before the crowd by Arkansas Secretary of Commerce Hugh McDonald.
The Albermarle CEO said his company originally landed in Arkansas in the 1960’s to mine and process bromine, which is made from brine and was once used for fuel additives. That is no longer part of the company’s portfolio, but they now make chemicals from bromine that are used for flame-retardant products.
“Our biggest markets are now flame retardants, so an additive that goes into plastics, so anything that has high voltage or significant current, so computers, electronic, anything with a screen requires some type of flame retardant in the plastic, and that is our biggest market today,” said Masters.
New technology has experimented, successfully so far, in extracting lithium from bromine in a new manner. Instead of using evaporation to separate lithium from bromine, a chemical process has been developed to separate lithium molecules, which is at the center of hope for acceleration for Arkansas’ potential lithium industry in the Smackover Formation.
“It feels like we’ve been looking for it [lithium] forever, but it’s actually at its infancy,” said Masters. “So the fact that it’s in the brine in the Smackover Formation and we have a bromine operation there and we pump those brines out today, we pre-treated already. We do almost everything you need to do to extract the lithium except actually extracting lithium, and then we put it back in the formation.”
Calling it a “big opportunity” but cautioning that the effort is still early-stage, Masters said a pilot plant in Arkansas could be scaled up when risks subside. Currently, lithium prices are not at a point where large-scale extraction makes the most sense. There are also different ways to extract lithium and Albermarle’s investments in North Carolina, Chile and Australia could prove more cost-effective in the long run.
“We’ve been on that journey for some time and we think it is a big opportunity,” said Masters.
He also warned that China, which currently controls about 70% of the world’s lithium production, will continue to be a force. He said the U.S. must develop lithium supply chains in order to remove reliance on China.
“[The] global lithium market goes through China today. The western world needs to break that to create a western supply chain to compete with China. And there are a lot of rationales. Whether you believe in EVs or not, there’s a lot of national security implications. Lithium ion batteries are in everything from pacemakers to drones to your cell phone. Electric vehicles, there’s a lot of application for it, both commercial and all around the world, but military applications as well. I don’t think western governments will be comfortable allowing China to control that. So that [supply chains] has to be built,” said Masters.
While Arkansas has major potential for lithium development, Masters said that federal policy hasn’t been fully mapped out for it, and the current tariff and trade wars has produced uncertainty for the time being for businesses like his to make even larger investments. But he predicted the day for a green light will come should federal policy and market conditions dictate.
“There’s a lot of moving pieces at the moment, but we are getting ourselves in a position so we can pull the trigger on investment at both King’s Mountain (in North Carolina) and maybe in Arkansas, but probably not in parallel. I think we need multiple shots at this if we’re going to pull it off,” he said.
OTHER HIGH-PROFILE BILLS
Later in the day, there were other legislative achievements on the economic development front and with high-profile bills that have been moving through the legislature.
For starters, the Arkansas House passed on a 76-12 vote SB307, the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act, which would allow utilities and electric cooperatives to file annual riders with the state Public Service Commission (PSC). Those riders would allow them to increase rates annually before a new plant is fully capitalized, rather than the current system that enacts a larger rate increase near the end of the process. The commission would have to determine if the update is in the public interest.
Lawmakers and economic developers said the change in process is needed to more quickly pay for and build electric generation plants, which are critical to landing large new industrial projects that require more power.
SB307 now goes to the governor’s desk for signature. Sanders has indicated her support for the bill as an economic development necessity.
HB1634, the sports raffle act, was signed into law today by Gov. Sanders. It provides a way for certain raffles conducted by institutions of higher education or affiliated nonprofit organizations to raise money for schools.
Sanders also signed SB263, which increases the homestead property tax credit by another $100 to $600 annually.
She also signed HB1489, which allows for nitrogen gas to be used as a method of execution for death row inmates.