son of a *&^%$#@ Author profile
Dorothy Kosich
@dykosich
USA
Hardrock miners get shafted in Obama budget President Obama has renewed his biennial campaign to impose gross hardrock mining royalties. Dorothy Kosich | 3 February 2015 11:04 | 1423 views
U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed FY2016 federal budget seeks to protect 100,000 coal mining workers whose pension plans aren’t adequately funded, as well as those whose health insurance claims have been denied because of bankruptcy in the bituminous coal sector.
However, Obama’s largess did not extend to the hardrock mining industry which would be subjected to a royalty of not less than 5% of gross proceeds, increases for annual claim maintenance fees, and a new mineral leasing process.
The proposed Bureau of Land Management budget also eliminates the fee exemption for miners holding 10 or fewer mining claims. “These changes will discourage speculators from holding claims that they do not intend to develop,” said the BLM. “Holders of existing mining claims for these minerals could voluntarily convert their claims to leases. The Office of Natural Resources Revenue will collect, account for, and disburse the hardrock royalty receipts.”
Legislation is planned for introduction in Congress to institute a leasing program under the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 for gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, uranium, and molybdenum, currently covered by the General Mining Law of 1872.
However, existing hardrock mining claims will be exempt from the change to a leasing system. Nevertheless, existing mining claim holders could chose to voluntarily convert their claims to leases under the proposed new system.
Half of the receipts from annual rental payments and a 5% royalty on gross proceeds would be distributed to the states where the leases are located, while the remaining portion will be deposited in the U.S. Treasury.
The President’s budget again called for proposals to address abandoned hardrock mines through a new AML fee on mining production. The legislative proposal will levy an AML fee on uranium and metal mines on both public and private lands. The fee on the production of hardrock minerals will be charged on the volume of material displaced after January 1, 2016. The receipts would be split between federal and non-federal lands.
“The proposed hardrock AML fee and reclamation program will operate in parallel with the coal AML reclamation program as part of a larger effort to ensure the nation’s most dangerous abandoned coal and hardrock AML sites are addressed by the industries that created the problem,” said the BLM.
The proposed 2016 BLM budget also includes a $45 million increase to support the workload and commitments required as implementation of the Greater Sage Grouse Conservation plans ramp up. The BLM has been focusing primarily on riving or amending 68 resources plans across 11 states to incorporate measures “to ameliorate the effects of development and other disturbances to greater sage grouse habitat as well as the threat posed by invasive species and more frequent fire cycles,” said the agency.
Of the $45 million total increase, $37 million is requested in the wildlife management sub-activity and $8 million in the newly renamed Resource Management Planning Assessment, and Monitoring sub-activity.
The potential listing of the Greater Sage Grouse as a species to be protected under the Endangered Species Act may wipe out multiple use in a hefty portion of public lands in western states including the gold mines of Nevada.
However, many miners fear the BLM’s plan revisions and amendments to promote sage grouse habitat may be just as devastating to mining as an ESA listing.
Coal jobs, health and pensions
As part of the President’s POWER+ Plan, Obama hopes to strengthen the health and retirement security of coal miners and their families whose employers no longer contribute to their plans, according to the Department of Interior’s proposed budget.
In response to assertions by coal-state lawmakers that he has declared a “war on coal,” President Obama is seeking $55 million in federal assistance for job training, job creation, economic diversification, and other programs in communities that have experience layoffs due to declining coal markets.
These investments include $20 million in job transition services and programs for coal miners or coal plant workers who have lost their jobs in recent years. Another $25 million will go toward the Appalachian Regional Commission, which seeks to improve economic development in Appalachia.
It also provides $5 million to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Program.
In a statement issued Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, declared, ““It is cold comfort for the Obama Administration to suddenly propose easing the pain they’ve helped inflict on so many Kentucky coal families, but anything aimed at aiding these communities should be seriously considered. Meanwhile, I will continue to offer ways to help Kentucky’s struggling communities under the Obama economy, particularly those in coal country. The best way to help these Kentuckians is to prevent anti-coal efforts in the first place, which is one reason I’ve joined the Senate subcommittee charged with overseeing spending at the anti-coal EPA.”
The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, said, “…One year of action cannot be substituted for years of inaction in which we saw mine after mine shuttered and more than 8,000 hard-working men and women lose their jobs.”
However, Kentucky’s Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, praised the President’s emphasis on work force training and job creation for displaced coal miners.
More money, more money
The President called for more than $1 trillion in new tax measures over the coming decade.
The budget calls for $3.99 trillion in spending for the fiscal year which begins on October 1st, a 6.4% increase from the current year.
It would pour billions of dollars into climate-change and renewable-energy technologies, and repeal nearly $50 billion in tax breaks from the coal and oil and natural industries. The President’s proposals would provide $7.4 billion for clean-energy programs within the Energy and Defense departments, a 13.8% increase.
Obama also proposed a 12.8% increase for the Interior Department to $13.2 billion including eliminating $3.1 billion in payments to coal and other mineral development, and oil and natural gas on public lands and in federal waters over the next decade.
