Editorial: Mining must pay fair share

Tuesday, June 11, 2002 | 8:58 a.m.

Most businesses and taxpayers understood the need for the Nevada Task Force on Tax Policy when it began meeting in January. For several years the fastest-growing state in the country had forestalled broad-based tax increases with the inevitable result -- state budgets for transportation, education, health care and other critical services began reeling under the pressure. Growth alone isn't paying for the state's increased needs. Gov. Kenny Guinn had to conclude, after looking at the numbers, that the state would be $1 billion in the red by 2008 without a new tax structure. That's why he and the Legislature created the task force, which made only one promise -- that the constitutional ban on a state income tax would continue.

Everything else is on the table. Current taxes are subject to possible increases and every business transaction is subject to a possible new tax. Representatives of the state's largest industry -- gaming -- expressed agreement as long as they were part of a broad-based tax increase, one that affected all business. Now along comes the state's No. 2 industry -- mining -- with TV ads running in Las Vegas, Reno and Carson City, suggesting that it alone should be exempt.

Nevada is called the Silver State in honor of its rich mining history. Today it's the nation's leading producer of gold and just recently celebrated the extraction of 50 million ounces from Nevada's Carlin Trend, a feat matched in only two other places in the world. Silver continues to be mined, as well as copper and many other minerals. Mining is good for Nevada and always has been, but there are also attendant costs. There is significant pollution connected with the industry, the ever-present danger of chemical spills and there are thousands of hazardous abandoned mines in the state.

If other Nevada businesses have new taxes or increases in store for them, why shouldn't mining? No one who shares in the bounty of Nevada should be exempt from sharing in its costs.