7 ms·

An antiquated law rules mining in the West

83 points by bikenaga 3y ago

ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
>uranium and other minerals belonging to all Americans out of the ground, without paying a cent in royalties. Couldn't you easily (try to) argue this for essentially any industry? The 'royalties' would be the taxes (both on the corporation and the future employees) that would be generated. As the writer noted themselves, they don't even own the land, they're essentially mining it for the US government.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  >Couldn't you easily (try to) argue this for essentially any industry? How so? Are you saying you could easily argue that the US owns the work force? Or the private land? Very few other industries take place on public land, the only other one I can think of is cattle grazing and they make a huge deal out of charging them for the use.
  - danboarder 3y ago
    I think the previous comment is saying that Tax itself is the "royalty" or cut that the government (people) get from the mining operations. If they build a successful operation they will have to pay taxes and will generate local jobs as well, all benefiting the local people and their government. I tend to agree with this, and any added "royalty" is essentially another tax or fee that will discourage investment in that local area.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      Normally they would need to buy the land, something that would cost far more than $~100 a year. Currently it seems like a subsidy for a profitable industry with a rather exploitative history.
      - tastyfreeze 3y ago
        You dont own mineral rights on your property unless it is a patented claim. However, if somebody wanted to stake a claim on your property they would need to ask permission to explore.
      - jandrewrogers 3y ago
        This can get pretty complicated. Mineral rights have priority over basic use rights (like living there), and they are often titled separately to different parties. Exploration on the property requires permission from the person with the use rights but there are ways to circumvent that (e.g. from adjacent parcels). Even if you own the mineral rights on your land, you have to actively defend them from encroachment or you can effectively lose them. In practice everyone will usually try to come to terms to avoid the legal headaches but if you don't own the mineral rights you are negotiating from weak position when this happens.
    - defrost 3y ago
      What has happened here and continues is straight forward. Somebody stakes a claim on US land and once they mine they pay a relatively small NSR fee to the government and keep everything else, less their extraction costs. If your local community has, say, $64 billion in copper within its boundaries, a Canadian or Australian company can pay 1.5% of that value to the US government and take the rest. Your local community gets nothing, save the chance to lodge an environmental or other protest. Maybe some jobs, but it's not guarenteed.
      - fragmede 3y ago
        I'm curious why the local community gets nothing. Don't they need lodging and food and amenities? And 1.5% of $64 billion is several hundred million dollars, which goes to the government who then spends it on their employees and various services, which then continue on and make up a whole economy. No?
        defrost 3y ago
        For background, I was in global geophysical exploration for decades and worked on: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/metals-mining https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/met... before it was sold on to the US Standard & Poor. In general, globally, pre mine arrival local communities get a crapshoot. They might get jobs, they'll usually get environmental issues, they often get a dedicated "company town" built, they may or may not see money from miners spill over into their community. They might see their town bulldozed and moved on, they might get flooded with "off peak" miners gambling, chasing women, starting fights. Sometimes they'll get jobs, and money - but not always. Mining companies tend to feed and house their own workers on many mining projects. 1.5% of $64 billion is not 98.5% is it? You may notice I use neutral language and the question you might like to ask yourself is why might your local community give away 98.5% of $64 billion to people who were allowed to hammer four sticks in the ground and file some paperwork. Personally I'm for it, as an Australian I have shares in various transnational proposed mining projects and will get a good return from Australian mining companies extracting resources from US soil with little return to US citizens. Rio Tinto is certainly talking up the benefits of this to local communities: https://resolutioncopper.com/cultural-heritage/ https://resolutioncopper.com/cultural-heritage/ https://resolutioncopper.com/land-exchange/ https://resolutioncopper.com/land-exchange/ and they're absolutely got a track record in respecting cultural heritage ( /s ): https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-t...
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    > the only other one I can think of is cattle grazing and they make a huge deal out of charging them for the use. Cattle grazing fees are less now than they were in 1981. Not "less after inflation", just less. It's $1.35 for 2023, while in 1981 it was $2.31. https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-getting-more-expensive-everything-but-grazing-fees https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-gettin... There are still extremists who refuse to even pay that nominal amount https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff Also harvesting trees in National Forests.
- defrost 3y ago
  The US Government would get a small NSR (Net Smelter Return) from the Canadian company listed on the Toronto TSX mineral exchange. The bulk of the extracted material (and it's monetary value) need not go to the US Government or benefit in any way other US citizens (save those that work there). With a modern mine, it could conceivably be largely tele-remote .. such as the proposed plans by Rio Tinto for the $64 billion Resolution Copper project. Very few workers on site, potentially a fully FiFo operation (Fly in | Fly out) etc.
  - landemva 3y ago
    Fly in fly out is used to bring in contractors when local staff don't have skills or don't want to work. Australian coal couldn't entice local workers, so haul trucks and locomotives were automated. Automation also reduces risk of operator injury if people are not there. But somebody fixes the machines.
    - defrost 3y ago
      Australian iron ore (and I'd assume coal) automated as the projected savings were there, pay less for on site workers, concentrate remote operators, and have less waer and tear on expensive machines (Haul trucks get banged around hard by certain groups of go hard workers). The machines get maintained and fixed, but on many Australian mine sites that's also done by FiFo workers on roster.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  > Couldn't you easily (try to) argue this for essentially any industry? Yes you can and some do. Harvest trees on national forest land? Permit required. Grazing cattle on BLM land? Gotta pay grazing fees. Of course, those fees haven't been increased in decades. In the case of grazing fees, the fee is lower than in 1981. https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-getting-more-expensive-everything-but-grazing-fees https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-gettin... I see another comment asserting that low fees ensure the system "doesn't discriminate against small businesses and even individuals", but ignores the true barriers to entry, meaning that in practice the only folks who pay these fees are companies for which the expense amounts to proverbial pocket change. Sure, I could file a mining claim for $225 and afford the $165/annually, pretty much as long as I live. Would I ever be able to do anything with my claim? Unlikely. Best I could hope for is that a global mining conglomerate would offer to buy it off me.
  - jandrewrogers 3y ago
    The limiter on those grazing fees is water availability and water rights, which are usually owned by private parties or the State. Any grazing land without water isn't worth much and leasing water rights isn't that cheap.
4RealFreedom 3y ago
The anti-mining rhetoric really needs to stop. Yes, 100 years ago miners took what they wanted and left a mess. Today, the process is much different. The mining companies rebuild everything and plant trees - you wouldn't even know there was a mine there. We need more mining in the US.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- justinator 3y ago
  "you wouldn't even know there was a mine there" https://maps.app.goo.gl/3U7pKb2oUPRnp4Qr5 https://maps.app.goo.gl/3U7pKb2oUPRnp4Qr5
  - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that the Climax Mine from the late 1800s?
    - earthscienceman 3y ago
      It is the Climax mine. No it's not from the 1800s, and it's still in operation. It has absolutely demolished that section of the mountain range.
      - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
        Then reclamation hasn't started.
        justinator 3y ago
        You're never going to reclaim it. The water that flows down from that pass will be poisoned by heavy metal indefinitely. There's a cost to mining, it's not cheap.
keepamovin 3y ago
You could argue that this is actually a good. By leveraging a small processing fee per claim (225), and a small annual maintenance fee (165), the system effectively doesn't discriminate against small businesses and even individuals who want to seek their fortune mining the land. The above fees only address the provisional stake holding, and environmental permits must be acquired before any mining commences. While the requirements to obtain EPA permission could be seen as nullifying any advantages to small business from the low prospecting fees, it's also likely that once a prospector finds minerals they could also obtain partners or funding which would help share the cost of any additional permits required. While it's true that the state does not benefit financially from mineral extraction in the form of royalties, in many cases states are able to collect taxes from the operations of businesses involved in the mining, processing and sale of minerals, as other commenters point out. It's conceivable that an additional layer of tariffs in the form of royalties may make mining operations more difficult for small businesses and individuals, undermining (pun intended) the intended benefits of the low barriers to entry for prospecting. It is also possible to make a connection with how large incumbent companies often lobby for more regulations. While a seeming paradox, this behavior actually helps protect their business by introducing additional barriers to entry that help keep out startups and smaller newcomers. These added costs, while affordable for the largest of companies, are often prohibitively expensive and burdensome for would-be competitors. This shows a paradox: regulations meant to ensure fair business and collective good can sometimes just cement monopolies.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Agreed! The article would be stronger if it didn't conflate environmental pollution issues (covered by subsequent EPA approvals) and conveniently leave out corporate taxes. If author thinks royalties should be imposed, make that point! But don't handwave at 'all the bad stuff THEY do' as justification. > Then, as now, corporations could pull unlimited quantities of minerals from their claims without paying a cent of royalties to the minerals’ actual owner — the American public. This amounts to a subsidy of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, mostly to multinational corporations.
  - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
billfor 3y ago
We need more laws that don't change fundamentally in 151 years, because they are fundamental.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  Tell me one thing that hasn’t changed in 151 years that isn’t outlined in the bill of rights.
kdamica 3y ago
This seems like a good law that encourages companies to explore for natural resources. The author of the article seems to think that companies should get environmental review before they even prospect for resources. I disagree and think that prospecting should be fairly easy for companies, with greater plans needed to actually do the extraction.
- ok_dad 3y ago
  But they take the minerals for free. Why not make them pay for the resources they’re exploiting? Instead, the American public and native reservations get nothing, except they lose access and use of that land. That should be remunerated somehow.
  - mark_up 3y ago
    [dead]
  - dogsgobork 3y ago
    I don't think the public gets nothing, we'll also get to fund cleanup and remediation once the mines are no longer profitable.
    - dclowd9901 3y ago
      You mean like the 40k+ (HARD ESTIMATE) abandoned mines are have strewn all over the US right now? The ones that pose both environmental and human health dangers every second they exist? I’m glad you’re aware, but I think few people are actually aware of just how much actual bullshit mining companies get away with. They’re basically consequence free by default.
      - landemva 3y ago
        > few people are actually aware of just how much actual bullshit mining companies get away with. They’re basically consequence free by default. Have you worked at a mine in USA in the past four decades? Pollution controls in all industries improve over time. Piston aircraft still use leaded fuel. Humanity is a process of progression and innovation.
opportune 3y ago
What would be the purpose of hiking the fees except to make it more expensive to produce things? It would make sense if the low staking fee were being abused by bad actors using it to “squat” on things they don’t use - and I bet that does occur to an extent. But it seems like anybody else interested in the land economically could have also just filed a claim? It actually seems like a good thing to keep the land in the commons and license it out. I think all land that’s not actively being used should belong to the commons instead of private individuals. To do otherwise allows land speculators and those engaging in rentiership to steal economic output from those who are actually producing value - if anybody’s going to do that, better for it to be the entity paying for roads and schools. The corporation will still pay income taxes on its labor, capital costs which are just income of some other entity, and corporate taxes - overtaxing the commons to try to shift more of the value-capture there is actually an inefficient form of double taxation that hurts international competitiveness. One thing that really bothers me about this article is the tone about “ravaging” or exploiting the land as if all mining is this terribly evil thing. I for one like having inexpensive metals and energy. Until very very recently in human history in a small set of developed countries, all mining was done by slaves or the most desperate people in a society - it still is in the vast majority of developing economies engaging in mining, and it was even in the US until about a hundred years ago. I like having a 21st century standard of living and good but not perfect environmental regulations more than I like slavery or living as if I’m in the Stone Age.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  re: squatting, that used to happen in the form of using a mining claim on government land and some theater to acquire land for non-mining purposes. They changed the laws a few decades ago to curtail that kind of abuse so it isn't really a thing anymore. Claims that you effectively abandon have a cost in that they have to be defended against encroachment or you can lose them to an encroacher.
55555 3y ago
At the bottom of the article it states there’s a 15% royalty on oil etc and that there’s 2-3 billion USD of minerals produced from federal land annually. There’s also 11.36 million acres claimed with a $165 annual maintenance fee per acre for a total gov revenue of $1.875 billion not including the higher first-year claim fees. If there were no oil/gas/coal/fuel extraction on claimed lands, the effective royalty garnered by this system would be in excess of 50% (1.875/[2 to 3 billion]). More data — specially on annual fuel extraction from federal lands — is needed, but this article as it stands makes a terribly poor argument that the current state of economic affairs is a failure. The numbers actually imply this sort of gambling system may be better for the government than a royalty system. This reminds me of how, according to my TikTok feed, Jade miners prefer to sell their extracted rocks to blind buyers for a fixed price per rock (only a few of which will be revealed to contain valuable jade once cut open) rather than cut them open themselves and only profit from the lucky few rocks. (Or maybe that’s just a small part of the business, as most other gemstone mining doesn’t seem to work that way).
- Ilverin 3y ago
  A)11.36 million acres refers to the land leased for either fuel or non-fuel minerals. So if you wanted to compare the size of the royalties to the annual fees for the land, you would need to figure out what percentage of the land was used for fuel versus non-fuel mining. B) The $165 is per 20 acres, not per acre. "In FY 2022, the BLM collected a total of almost $94 million in fees associated with nearly 489,100 active mining claims on Federal lands"
  - 55555 3y ago
    Thanks yeah I implied A in my comment. Re: B, oops! Thanks. My point is the author failed to dig up the one number needed to really see if there’s even a problem here.
davidw 3y ago
Water rights are a mess in many places too. Where I live in a fairly dry bit of Oregon, a lot of the senior water rights go to hobby farms that don't produce much, while real agriculture further downstream struggles to get enough water.
jmyeet 3y ago
Resource extraction is a wealth concentrator. it takes what is usually a public resource and converts it into wealth for very few people. Very few countries have avoided this giveaway of wealth by the state to the wealthy. Norway is one such example. We don't need to amend staking fees. We need the government to own significant equity in any resource extraction operation. Our foreign policy supports Western mining interests in the developing world. Any attempt to change this seems to result in some combination of crippling eceonomic sanctions and/or a mysterious coup by an authoritarian but US-friendly regime. Others have mentioned water rights and they're correct that this situation too is arcane and ridiculous. The "use it or lose it" water rights on the Colorado river causes us to grow water-intensive crops like alfalfa and sell them to Saudi Arabia (where growing alfalfa is illegal for this reason) and China. I'd extend this kind of public equity scheme to intellectual property too. Most drugs are developed with Federal funding and are largely just given away, again as a wealth concentrator. That fruits of Federal funding should come with public equity in commercialization.

83 points by bikenaga 3y ago

>uranium and other minerals belonging to all Americans out of the ground, without paying a cent in royalties. Couldn't you easily (try to) argue this for essentially any industry? The 'royalties' would be the taxes (both on the corporation and the future employees) that would be generated. As the writer noted themselves, they don't even own the land, they're essentially mining it for the US government.

boomboomsubban 3y ago
>Couldn't you easily (try to) argue this for essentially any industry? How so? Are you saying you could easily argue that the US owns the work force? Or the private land? Very few other industries take place on public land, the only other one I can think of is cattle grazing and they make a huge deal out of charging them for the use.
- danboarder 3y ago
  I think the previous comment is saying that Tax itself is the "royalty" or cut that the government (people) get from the mining operations. If they build a successful operation they will have to pay taxes and will generate local jobs as well, all benefiting the local people and their government. I tend to agree with this, and any added "royalty" is essentially another tax or fee that will discourage investment in that local area.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    Normally they would need to buy the land, something that would cost far more than $~100 a year. Currently it seems like a subsidy for a profitable industry with a rather exploitative history.
    - tastyfreeze 3y ago
      You dont own mineral rights on your property unless it is a patented claim. However, if somebody wanted to stake a claim on your property they would need to ask permission to explore.
    - jandrewrogers 3y ago
      This can get pretty complicated. Mineral rights have priority over basic use rights (like living there), and they are often titled separately to different parties. Exploration on the property requires permission from the person with the use rights but there are ways to circumvent that (e.g. from adjacent parcels). Even if you own the mineral rights on your land, you have to actively defend them from encroachment or you can effectively lose them. In practice everyone will usually try to come to terms to avoid the legal headaches but if you don't own the mineral rights you are negotiating from weak position when this happens.
  - defrost 3y ago
    What has happened here and continues is straight forward. Somebody stakes a claim on US land and once they mine they pay a relatively small NSR fee to the government and keep everything else, less their extraction costs. If your local community has, say, $64 billion in copper within its boundaries, a Canadian or Australian company can pay 1.5% of that value to the US government and take the rest. Your local community gets nothing, save the chance to lodge an environmental or other protest. Maybe some jobs, but it's not guarenteed.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      I'm curious why the local community gets nothing. Don't they need lodging and food and amenities? And 1.5% of $64 billion is several hundred million dollars, which goes to the government who then spends it on their employees and various services, which then continue on and make up a whole economy. No?
      - defrost 3y ago
        For background, I was in global geophysical exploration for decades and worked on: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/metals-mining https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/met... before it was sold on to the US Standard & Poor. In general, globally, pre mine arrival local communities get a crapshoot. They might get jobs, they'll usually get environmental issues, they often get a dedicated "company town" built, they may or may not see money from miners spill over into their community. They might see their town bulldozed and moved on, they might get flooded with "off peak" miners gambling, chasing women, starting fights. Sometimes they'll get jobs, and money - but not always. Mining companies tend to feed and house their own workers on many mining projects. 1.5% of $64 billion is not 98.5% is it? You may notice I use neutral language and the question you might like to ask yourself is why might your local community give away 98.5% of $64 billion to people who were allowed to hammer four sticks in the ground and file some paperwork. Personally I'm for it, as an Australian I have shares in various transnational proposed mining projects and will get a good return from Australian mining companies extracting resources from US soil with little return to US citizens. Rio Tinto is certainly talking up the benefits of this to local communities: https://resolutioncopper.com/cultural-heritage/ https://resolutioncopper.com/cultural-heritage/ https://resolutioncopper.com/land-exchange/ https://resolutioncopper.com/land-exchange/ and they're absolutely got a track record in respecting cultural heritage ( /s ): https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-t...
- cratermoon 3y ago
  > the only other one I can think of is cattle grazing and they make a huge deal out of charging them for the use. Cattle grazing fees are less now than they were in 1981. Not "less after inflation", just less. It's $1.35 for 2023, while in 1981 it was $2.31. https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-getting-more-expensive-everything-but-grazing-fees https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-gettin... There are still extremists who refuse to even pay that nominal amount https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff Also harvesting trees in National Forests.
defrost 3y ago
The US Government would get a small NSR (Net Smelter Return) from the Canadian company listed on the Toronto TSX mineral exchange. The bulk of the extracted material (and it's monetary value) need not go to the US Government or benefit in any way other US citizens (save those that work there). With a modern mine, it could conceivably be largely tele-remote .. such as the proposed plans by Rio Tinto for the $64 billion Resolution Copper project. Very few workers on site, potentially a fully FiFo operation (Fly in | Fly out) etc.
- landemva 3y ago
  Fly in fly out is used to bring in contractors when local staff don't have skills or don't want to work. Australian coal couldn't entice local workers, so haul trucks and locomotives were automated. Automation also reduces risk of operator injury if people are not there. But somebody fixes the machines.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Australian iron ore (and I'd assume coal) automated as the projected savings were there, pay less for on site workers, concentrate remote operators, and have less waer and tear on expensive machines (Haul trucks get banged around hard by certain groups of go hard workers). The machines get maintained and fixed, but on many Australian mine sites that's also done by FiFo workers on roster.
cratermoon 3y ago
> Couldn't you easily (try to) argue this for essentially any industry? Yes you can and some do. Harvest trees on national forest land? Permit required. Grazing cattle on BLM land? Gotta pay grazing fees. Of course, those fees haven't been increased in decades. In the case of grazing fees, the fee is lower than in 1981. https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-getting-more-expensive-everything-but-grazing-fees https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-whats-gettin... I see another comment asserting that low fees ensure the system "doesn't discriminate against small businesses and even individuals", but ignores the true barriers to entry, meaning that in practice the only folks who pay these fees are companies for which the expense amounts to proverbial pocket change. Sure, I could file a mining claim for $225 and afford the $165/annually, pretty much as long as I live. Would I ever be able to do anything with my claim? Unlikely. Best I could hope for is that a global mining conglomerate would offer to buy it off me.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  The limiter on those grazing fees is water availability and water rights, which are usually owned by private parties or the State. Any grazing land without water isn't worth much and leasing water rights isn't that cheap.

4RealFreedom 3y ago

The anti-mining rhetoric really needs to stop. Yes, 100 years ago miners took what they wanted and left a mess. Today, the process is much different. The mining companies rebuild everything and plant trees - you wouldn't even know there was a mine there. We need more mining in the US.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
justinator 3y ago
"you wouldn't even know there was a mine there" https://maps.app.goo.gl/3U7pKb2oUPRnp4Qr5 https://maps.app.goo.gl/3U7pKb2oUPRnp4Qr5
- 4RealFreedom 3y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that the Climax Mine from the late 1800s?
  - earthscienceman 3y ago
    It is the Climax mine. No it's not from the 1800s, and it's still in operation. It has absolutely demolished that section of the mountain range.
    - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
      Then reclamation hasn't started.
      - justinator 3y ago
        You're never going to reclaim it. The water that flows down from that pass will be poisoned by heavy metal indefinitely. There's a cost to mining, it's not cheap.

keepamovin 3y ago

You could argue that this is actually a good. By leveraging a small processing fee per claim (225), and a small annual maintenance fee (165), the system effectively doesn't discriminate against small businesses and even individuals who want to seek their fortune mining the land. The above fees only address the provisional stake holding, and environmental permits must be acquired before any mining commences. While the requirements to obtain EPA permission could be seen as nullifying any advantages to small business from the low prospecting fees, it's also likely that once a prospector finds minerals they could also obtain partners or funding which would help share the cost of any additional permits required. While it's true that the state does not benefit financially from mineral extraction in the form of royalties, in many cases states are able to collect taxes from the operations of businesses involved in the mining, processing and sale of minerals, as other commenters point out. It's conceivable that an additional layer of tariffs in the form of royalties may make mining operations more difficult for small businesses and individuals, undermining (pun intended) the intended benefits of the low barriers to entry for prospecting. It is also possible to make a connection with how large incumbent companies often lobby for more regulations. While a seeming paradox, this behavior actually helps protect their business by introducing additional barriers to entry that help keep out startups and smaller newcomers. These added costs, while affordable for the largest of companies, are often prohibitively expensive and burdensome for would-be competitors. This shows a paradox: regulations meant to ensure fair business and collective good can sometimes just cement monopolies.

ethbr1 3y ago
Agreed! The article would be stronger if it didn't conflate environmental pollution issues (covered by subsequent EPA approvals) and conveniently leave out corporate taxes. If author thinks royalties should be imposed, make that point! But don't handwave at 'all the bad stuff THEY do' as justification. > Then, as now, corporations could pull unlimited quantities of minerals from their claims without paying a cent of royalties to the minerals’ actual owner — the American public. This amounts to a subsidy of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, mostly to multinational corporations.
- 4RealFreedom 3y ago

billfor 3y ago

We need more laws that don't change fundamentally in 151 years, because they are fundamental.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dclowd9901 3y ago
Tell me one thing that hasn’t changed in 151 years that isn’t outlined in the bill of rights.

kdamica 3y ago

This seems like a good law that encourages companies to explore for natural resources. The author of the article seems to think that companies should get environmental review before they even prospect for resources. I disagree and think that prospecting should be fairly easy for companies, with greater plans needed to actually do the extraction.

ok_dad 3y ago
But they take the minerals for free. Why not make them pay for the resources they’re exploiting? Instead, the American public and native reservations get nothing, except they lose access and use of that land. That should be remunerated somehow.
- mark_up 3y ago
  [dead]
- dogsgobork 3y ago
  I don't think the public gets nothing, we'll also get to fund cleanup and remediation once the mines are no longer profitable.
  - dclowd9901 3y ago
    You mean like the 40k+ (HARD ESTIMATE) abandoned mines are have strewn all over the US right now? The ones that pose both environmental and human health dangers every second they exist? I’m glad you’re aware, but I think few people are actually aware of just how much actual bullshit mining companies get away with. They’re basically consequence free by default.
    - landemva 3y ago
      > few people are actually aware of just how much actual bullshit mining companies get away with. They’re basically consequence free by default. Have you worked at a mine in USA in the past four decades? Pollution controls in all industries improve over time. Piston aircraft still use leaded fuel. Humanity is a process of progression and innovation.

opportune 3y ago

What would be the purpose of hiking the fees except to make it more expensive to produce things? It would make sense if the low staking fee were being abused by bad actors using it to “squat” on things they don’t use - and I bet that does occur to an extent. But it seems like anybody else interested in the land economically could have also just filed a claim? It actually seems like a good thing to keep the land in the commons and license it out. I think all land that’s not actively being used should belong to the commons instead of private individuals. To do otherwise allows land speculators and those engaging in rentiership to steal economic output from those who are actually producing value - if anybody’s going to do that, better for it to be the entity paying for roads and schools. The corporation will still pay income taxes on its labor, capital costs which are just income of some other entity, and corporate taxes - overtaxing the commons to try to shift more of the value-capture there is actually an inefficient form of double taxation that hurts international competitiveness. One thing that really bothers me about this article is the tone about “ravaging” or exploiting the land as if all mining is this terribly evil thing. I for one like having inexpensive metals and energy. Until very very recently in human history in a small set of developed countries, all mining was done by slaves or the most desperate people in a society - it still is in the vast majority of developing economies engaging in mining, and it was even in the US until about a hundred years ago. I like having a 21st century standard of living and good but not perfect environmental regulations more than I like slavery or living as if I’m in the Stone Age.

jandrewrogers 3y ago
re: squatting, that used to happen in the form of using a mining claim on government land and some theater to acquire land for non-mining purposes. They changed the laws a few decades ago to curtail that kind of abuse so it isn't really a thing anymore. Claims that you effectively abandon have a cost in that they have to be defended against encroachment or you can lose them to an encroacher.

55555 3y ago

At the bottom of the article it states there’s a 15% royalty on oil etc and that there’s 2-3 billion USD of minerals produced from federal land annually. There’s also 11.36 million acres claimed with a $165 annual maintenance fee per acre for a total gov revenue of $1.875 billion not including the higher first-year claim fees. If there were no oil/gas/coal/fuel extraction on claimed lands, the effective royalty garnered by this system would be in excess of 50% (1.875/[2 to 3 billion]). More data — specially on annual fuel extraction from federal lands — is needed, but this article as it stands makes a terribly poor argument that the current state of economic affairs is a failure. The numbers actually imply this sort of gambling system may be better for the government than a royalty system. This reminds me of how, according to my TikTok feed, Jade miners prefer to sell their extracted rocks to blind buyers for a fixed price per rock (only a few of which will be revealed to contain valuable jade once cut open) rather than cut them open themselves and only profit from the lucky few rocks. (Or maybe that’s just a small part of the business, as most other gemstone mining doesn’t seem to work that way).

Ilverin 3y ago
A)11.36 million acres refers to the land leased for either fuel or non-fuel minerals. So if you wanted to compare the size of the royalties to the annual fees for the land, you would need to figure out what percentage of the land was used for fuel versus non-fuel mining. B) The $165 is per 20 acres, not per acre. "In FY 2022, the BLM collected a total of almost $94 million in fees associated with nearly 489,100 active mining claims on Federal lands"
- 55555 3y ago
  Thanks yeah I implied A in my comment. Re: B, oops! Thanks. My point is the author failed to dig up the one number needed to really see if there’s even a problem here.

davidw 3y ago

Water rights are a mess in many places too. Where I live in a fairly dry bit of Oregon, a lot of the senior water rights go to hobby farms that don't produce much, while real agriculture further downstream struggles to get enough water.

jmyeet 3y ago

Resource extraction is a wealth concentrator. it takes what is usually a public resource and converts it into wealth for very few people. Very few countries have avoided this giveaway of wealth by the state to the wealthy. Norway is one such example. We don't need to amend staking fees. We need the government to own significant equity in any resource extraction operation. Our foreign policy supports Western mining interests in the developing world. Any attempt to change this seems to result in some combination of crippling eceonomic sanctions and/or a mysterious coup by an authoritarian but US-friendly regime. Others have mentioned water rights and they're correct that this situation too is arcane and ridiculous. The "use it or lose it" water rights on the Colorado river causes us to grow water-intensive crops like alfalfa and sell them to Saudi Arabia (where growing alfalfa is illegal for this reason) and China. I'd extend this kind of public equity scheme to intellectual property too. Most drugs are developed with Federal funding and are largely just given away, again as a wealth concentrator. That fruits of Federal funding should come with public equity in commercialization.