Doing Battle Against Mining Special Interests

Here’s the takeaway from today’s hearing down in Carson City: Mining doesn’t want to be singled out and treated special - you know, taxed differently than other Nevada businesses. If that were true, then why hasn’t mining taken themselves OUT of the Nevada Constitution - uh, where they have been treated special and differently - by their own design - for 130 years?

Today, I went down to the Nevada Legislature to offer my support to Bob Fulkerson and the folks from PLAN. I had a very short, concise statement that I wished to offer to the committee.

I’ve gotta tell you, Assemblywoman Peggy Pierce took on Goliath with AB 428, the bill that would cut the outrageous collection of deductions mining has collected over the last 130 years, which essentially enable them to pay about one-half of one percent taxes on massive amounts of gold extracted from Nevada.

The chamber was a sea of dark suits and sleek black spiked heels. White men in power suits, and youngish women in Manolo Blahniks, armed with laptops and self-assured, knowing smirks. They’d be easy to spot without all the trademarks of dress. Their blue nametags proclaim: PAID LOBBYIST.

That makes you want to throw up your hands and run right there, but that’s probably what they’re counting on. As Sen. Bernie Sanders says, the only right we don’t have as citizens is the right to give up. I kept telling myself that.

When citizens were invited to testify, first up was Hugh Jackson down in Las Vegas. Hugh - aka The Las Vegas Gleaner - has done the heavy lifting, putting together a damning set of numbers to show that, clearly, mining has been getting a free ride for many years. When times were good, nobody seemed to care that mining was treating Nevada like one of their Third World countries.

Times are hard now, and if Nevada’s future means anything at all, it’s time to care. but I digress.

Hugh began his remarks - citing chapter and verse. Then I saw how this was going to go. Assemblyman John Ellison, R- Elko, launched the first attack. In Mr. Ellison’s world, you couldn’t possibly know anything about mining or mining taxes unless you’ve actually worked in the mines - as he pointed out to Mr. Jackson.

This is a favored refrain from the Rightwing, and PR flacks these days. Most recently, BP used this canard against a well-respected scientist who studied and analyzed the faulty oil well blowout preventer. How could he possibly have any knowledge unless he’s been an oil rig worker?

Right here, I want you to bookmark a fascinating website I found the other night: The Denialist’s Deck of Cards. It’s a brilliantly straightforward playbook to Lobbyist Speak and Tactics. They were all on display during this mornings circus.

But back to Ellison (see the Newmont and Barrick constributions on his campaign C&E here). He introduced a refrain that would be later picked up by his Nevada Mining Association cronies - mainly Tim Crowley - that there are other minerals being mined in Nevada besides those HUGE amounts of gold. True. But gold is kinda the 900 lb gorilla in the room:

Newmont and Barrick produced more gold here in Nevada than in any other nation on earth. The combined net income of the two foreign mining behemoths are more than the governor’s proposed budget, dwarfing the insignificant effects of any mining tax increases.

No matter what Mr. Jackson could offer in the way of actual facts, Mr. Ellison would not be satisfied. How many times has Mr. Jackson actually been out to a Nevada mine? Again, back to proximity necessarily equaling informed opinion. We couldn’t possibly know about the sun and it’s makeup since we haven’t been there either!

Mr. Ellison went on with red herrings that would be brought up time and again: Rural Nevada counties would go broke if mining had to pay more taxes (the presumption that mining would leave), and that the sheer magnitude and complexity of mining investment and risks taken should somehow justify paying zip to the state.

But here’s a question: How many other businesses get to deduct nearly 100% of their business costs as our Canadian friends Barrick and Newmont have been doing? Hmmmm.

Finally, it was time for a few of us from the north to take to the microphone and voice our concerns. Since I knew most of the others would be talking about numbers - they had that part down pat - I thought I would talk briefly about who we’re doing business with - as in the corporate citizenship of Barrick and Newmont.

Committee Chair, Marilyn Kirkpatrick (Click here for her campaign C&E, noting mining dollars) didn’t like that, interrupting me about 20 seconds into my remarks, asking what my remarks had to do specifically to mining tax deductions. If she had allowed me to continue for another minute, I could have made that connection. Alas, it was not to be. She also stepped on the Hispanic woman that followed me. I’ll put my complete remarks at the bottom of this post.

Too bad she didn’t hold the mining industry lobbyists to the same standard. Maybe that’s the price we pay, as taxpayers, when our legislators are beholden to mining contributions.

Most of the last hour was wasted debating just what the verbiage in the bill related to ‘marketing’ meant - page 2, line 16 in AB428. Apparently ‘marketing’ in mining isn’t ‘marketing’ the way you and I and most other people think of it. It doesn’t mean advertising or promotion. It means transporting gold to the point of sale - Barbados in this case. Mining doesn’t think flying to Barbados should be tax deductible.

Sigh. This is also covered under the Denialists Deck of Cards - The Fourth Hand: Spread Confusion.

Finally, the discussion centered around ‘what are microscopic flecks of gold in the ground really worth? The premise being that they are essentially worthless until mined, processed and sold - for this mining brought in the big gun tax attorney from Jones, Vargas in Las Vegas. Instead of paying taxes to the state to save us from financial ruin, they’ve invested in high-priced lobbyists and tax attorneys.

His bottom line was that gold is simply potentially valuable. It’s all just dirt that we’re trying to tax them on. Nevada’s mining tax is simply a property tax - on the dirt.

Let me know how it works out when you have to make your next property tax payment, and tell the county that your home is unrealized potential and just dirt - and that you’ve had a lot of expenses that you’ll take deductions on dollar for dollar. Tell the assessor that you won’t be paying any property tax this year.

Let me know how that works out. It does for mining.

-maven

Oh, you should know how to work the handy dandy C&E (Contributions and Expenses) Financial Disclosure Report Search database on all the Nevada legislators at the Nevada Secretary of States office. It’s nifty - just plug in the name and pull up the report. Scan carefully on the badly handwritten ones, so you don’t miss the mining money. I noted that Ms. Kirkpatrick also took a lot from the NRA so don’t expect her to be completely impartial when it comes to gun related issues.

And for even more fun with data, check out all that Barrick, Newmont et al have given:

Click on the image to open original source

Here are the members of today’s Nevada Assembly Taxation Committee:

• Marilyn Kirkpatrick, Chair
• Harvey Munford, Vice Chair
• Elliot Anderson
• Teresa Benitez-Thompson
• Irene Bustamante
• Lucy Flores
• Dina Neal
• Peggy Pierce
• John Ellison
• Edwin Goedhart
• Pete Livermore
• Lynn Stewart
• Melissa Woodbury

Here is the statement that I would have made, had I been allowed to:

A few years ago, I was prominently involved in searching for a missing multi-millionaire aviator in the rugged Nevada wilderness.

After it was all said and done, a lot of us wondered if we were given the whole story.

Today, I’m joining thousands of fellow Nevadans searching for a little justice … from multi-billion dollar foreign mining corporations that are removing non-renewable resources at record rates and historic prices, and apparently paying almost nothing to state in return.

Looking at how much mining pays to other states, such as Wyoming, I’m wondering if we’ve been getting the whole story from mining.

During the good times, when tourists were streaming into Nevada, and the housing boom was in full swing, apparently Nevada was just fine being treated like a third world country by Foreign Mining Concerns  - happy to just ask for a modest 5%.

Yet,  Peru is talking about raising royalties beyond their current  1 to 3 %, and Chili has already introduced amendments to increase mining royalties from 5 to 14% .

You might feel some sympathy for mining, but according to MiningWatch Canada, they will continue to effectively loot countries like the Congo, for example.

Canada’s Barrick Gold is the world’s largest producer of gold. In a 2005 Human Rights Watch report entitled The Curse of Gold, Barrick Gold and other mining companies are accused of making mining agreements in 2002 with two eastern DRC militias that had control of the mines.

Both militias were also in the midst of murdering hundreds of civilians. In return for the gold mines, the militias were given housing and trucks, and more. Incredibly, as highlighted by independent journalist and Congo-expert Keith Harmon Snow, Barrick’s and one its partners, Anglo-Ashanti, even sent in lawyers to help represent leaders of the militias after some were apprehended by the DRC government.

Yes. That’s mining. Always looking out for the little people.

Unfortunately, Barrick has had tax evasion issues in other African countries – Tanzania, for example. Tanzania is now trying to raise its minerals severance tax to a modest 10%.

Barricks’  net revenues in Africa still continue to climb anyway.

These are the kind of people we want to encourage and foster closer economic relationships with right here in Nevada.

A report obtained by MiningWatch Canada reveals that Canadian mining companies are implicated in four times as many violations of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as mining companies from other countries. The report was commissioned by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) in 2009 but was never released to the public.

Yes.

As the Canadian government introduced stricter regulations for mining companies operating within Canada – their mining companies simply went on to pillage on a global scale.

They’ve found an excellent home in Nevada.

They can treat Nevada like any other third world, developing country – with impunity- and since times were good all over, it didn’t seem to matter so much.

Yet, there is only ONE Carlin Trend. It is unique in all the world. Mining has looked worldwide for other analogies and have found none.

Times have changed in Nevada. Things are tough all over.

We can continue to sit and wring our hands, and scrap our education systems … the DRC gets by without an educational system, after all.

Or we can act like a world leader and insist that since we’re all in a belt tightening mood, that Foreign Mining Concerns operating in Nevada pay their share -  lest we start looking at them as global corporate criminals and treat them accordingly.

It’s time to say YES to AB428.

Thank you.

Update on Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 21:25 by mavenandmeddler

Oh, I forgot to mention that Assemblyman Ellison took pains to remind us all that mining donates a lot of bucks to various schools and colleges around Nevada.

Before I began my testimony, I remarked: Mr. Ellison is right about the donations. I would think mining was stupid if they weren’t donating to schools, since that’s a PR rabbit they can pull out of their hat in hearing just such as this one.

That probably didn’t sit well.

But you know, this is what the Rightwing wants. Donations. The sick should beg for donations to pay their medical bills. The disadvantaged should be alms to be educated - at religious schools. Schools should be funded by voluntary donations from industries like mining.

Remember this next time you get a tax bill. Tell them you would rather donate funds - when you feel like it - just like the mining industry.