Cryptocurrency miners sue Arkansas officials, cite ‘unconstitutional regulations’
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A federal lawsuit filed Thursday seeks to overturn an Arkansas law and a regulation for being unconstitutional.
The Arkansas Cryptomining Association filed the suit naming Attorney General Tim Griffin and Oil and Gas Commission director Lawrence Bengal as defendants. It asserts that a cryptocurrency law and regulation in the state violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Act 174 of 2024 amends the law to mandate that any cryptocurrency mine in the state must not be foreign-owned. The lawsuit continues to point out that Rule K was passed shortly after the court placed an injunction on Act 174 in an attempted end-run, the lawsuit states.
Rule K gave the Oil and Gas Commission authority over cryptocurrency mining operations, including issuing required operating permits.
The lawsuit cited language when Act 174 was debated in the Senate that specifically mentioned preventing China as a mine owner, followed by a statement from the governor’s office to, in part, “kick a Chinese communist-owned company out of her state.”
The lawsuit continues that when Rule K was submitted for approval to the governor’s office, it included a statement that the commission needed it to execute Act 174. The lawsuit returns to statements made surrounding Act 174’s passage that “From the beginning, the primary purpose of Rule K was to target persons believed to be Chinese nationals or with Chinese ancestry.”
The combined action of the act and the rule violates equal protection, the right to due process, the commerce clause, the supremacy clause and is taking without just compensation, according to the lawsuit, which asks the court to find them unconstitutional and unenforceable.
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