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.
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.
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?
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:
> In general, globally, pre mine arrival local communities get a crapshoot.
Is your comment relating only to the exploring for minerals phase ? Or are you talking about when the mine is actually built.
Generally speaking, royalties (in the case of oil for instance) go to the federal government, still bypassing the local community.
So what is the solution: small royalties that go directly to the mining communities ? Ability for the local community to tax the company ?
> 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.
These lands are owned by the federal government and not the local community. So the local community is not "giving away" these lands to anyone. Of course, the government has a responsibility to give back a portion of the benefits that are accruing to it (via taxes on profits etc.) to the local communities that live near the mines.
> In general, globally, pre mine arrival local communities
That was poorly phrased, I wanted to distinguish between communities local to mines from before the mine was established as opposed to communities established after a mine arrives.
Long term locals can often get fully sidelined, especially indigenuous and or otherwise minority communities.
> These lands are owned by the federal government and not the local community.
Globally?
I suspect things vary in detail as you travel about the world. Still, in the case of a Federal government that represents the entire population of a country it might be asked why that body is essentially giving away a resource within the territory of the people it represents for very little in return.
Thank you that was enlightening. Yeah for some reason the US doesn't like to restrictions on so called capitalism, so corporations draining communities their resources are nothing new. That it's international is a thing, but eg Walmart sucks money out of communities in much the same way. Keeping it in country is just the way of it.
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.
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.
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.
