Since before the 1865 statehood, the mining industry has ruled the state of Nevada.
Miners have held sway over every acre of the Silver State (a moniker that pays homage to the mineral in Nevada) since the early 1850's, right after gold was discovered in neighboring California.
When Nevada was granted statehood in 1865, it was the powerful Comstock miners who played a major part in writing the Nevada Constitution, going as far as embedding their (extremely low) tax rate (5% of net proceeds) into the state constitution.
Mining is the ONLY industry in the state of Nevada which gets special constitutional protection in the form of an embedded tax rate that takes two sessions of the legislature and a vote of the public to alter. With Nevada's bi-annual legislature, this process takes about 5 years start to finish.
Since 1865, this mining tax rate has been unchanged.
A local Las Vegas, Nevada based news outlet dared challenge Nevada's mining industry with an investigative effort regarding the mining industries vast power over the legislative process in Nevada.
Mining is just about every legislative pocket with political donations and a roster of lobbyists that dwarfs every other industry based in Nevada........which is odd because NOT ONE of the larger mining companies is even based in Nevada.
Since 1850 miners have dug their holes, grabbed the ore, processed that ore into precious metals and then moved on to the next find. Mining has changed over the last 150 years, gone are the days of "hard rock" mining where small groups of miners cut tunnels & shafts to follow veins of ore.......now the operations are huge, where entire mountains are taken down, massive holes (craters actually) are carved and the tiniest trace amounts of gold are leeched out with toxic chemicals.
Nevada has always been a haven for mining. Nevada is the 3rd largest gold producing jurisdiction on the planet Earth.
So with all the minerals right here in Nevada, and such a low tax rate, one might think large multi-national mining companies might be compelled to locate their corporate headquarters in Nevada?!?! But not one mining HQ is located in Nevada. Some are even based in higher taxed Canada!!
One large mining company even ships the unprocessed ore to Utah (higher taxes than Nevada) to be processed into gold.
Mining tells a big story about how much mining does for Nevada, while a little of this is true, the bottom line is this: There is only so much mineral wealth in Nevada & when that mineral wealth is tapped out, the mining industry & those high paying jobs will leave Nevada just like they have left hundreds of ghost towns & open mining shafts across the state for the better part of 120 years.
So back to the local TV news station - The station did a multi-part investigation into mining & the taxes they (don't) pay. After the series concluded, the Nevada Mining Association (NMA), the lobbying association was so upset with the truth and being exposed, the NMA decided to pull their advertising (propaganda) from the station as retaliation for the news series.
Station owner & long time Nevadan Jim Rogers had a wonderful response the the NMA's recent decision to retaliate against his TV station by pulling advertising: http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/story/Jim-Rogers-to-Nevada-Mining-Association-We-don-t/mqfTax7yoEq33cE2LnOAXA.cspx
Follow this link to the multi part expose: http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/Special/Default.aspx
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