From what I understand, Hairy Reid won’t let this bill see the light of day in the Senate. He is, of course, the son of a gold miner and Nevada the biggest mining state in the country.
I never thought I’d have anything remotely good to say about Reid, but if he foils this bill, I’ll tip my hat to him......for about 5 seconds.
Tip of hat, or “flash of moon” ??
WHERE WOULD YOU BE WITHOUT MINING?
Without the hundreds of thousands of material benefits that come from the mining industry your world would be completely different from the way you now live.
Regardless of your age, eliminating the minerals and coal that are mined, processed, smelted or refined by the mining industry would mean that you would no longer be able to enjoy television, radio, or music from a CD…in fact anything that requires electricity. And children’s toys would certainly be much different without mining.
If you think about all the things that you use every day, you will discover for yourself the almost endless uses of metals and plastics and paper, all of which depend upon mining for their existence.
http://www.utahmining.org/brochure.htm
WVA mine production is twice the value of Nevada with almost twice as many mines.
In 2004 Nevada employed 11,318 in mining. As a employment comparison:
West Virginia - 27,108
Kentucky - 24,300
Virginia - 12,711
Pennsylvania - 20,521
Texas - 20,330
California - 12,840
Arizona - 11,368
2004 STATE MINING STATISTICS
http://www.nma.org/statistics/state_statistics_2004.asp#
Yes...I would be surprised if Harry Reid lets this slip through.
I have no commercial interest, but have done recreational prospecting in the past, and don’t want to see that get shut down. Plus, we need to protect our extractive industries, because without them, we have no raw materials to use for making stuff.