Who Owns Vermont’s Rocks: A case for collecting economic rent to offset the depletion of nonrenewable mineral deposits Current Management Structure Act 250- Environmental Protection Permitting Process- Great for environmental concerns but does not address depletion of these non renewable resources nor any type of financial monitoring Property Rights Majority of mining occurs on privately owned property held by several mining corporations. They do as the please as long as the pass Act 250 regulations. There is no distinction between surface rights and subsurface rights. State Revenue- The only revenue is from property tax. List land values do not take into account the value of subsurface mining deposits or the value of what is extracted That’s it- There is very little management structure compared to other natural resources in the state

Vermont Mining Revenue 2005 Production/Extraction Value96,800,000 Direct Mining Earnings63,000,000 Listed Property Value132,228,257 Property Taxes ( includes state tax of 1% and, average municipal tax of 1.79%) 3,678,990 Property taxes is just on listed property value If we add in extraction value into annual land assessment then in 2005 the state received only 1.6% in property tax Is this 1.6% enough to offset the depletion of these non renewable resources? What happens when they are gone? Loss of jobs, currently 2,600. Mining companies leave a wasteland of abandoned mines – who pays the clean up? Indirect side effects? Tourism, depletion of habitat, Vermont loses a natural resource

Time to make changes National Mining Act of being changed to a royalty system – meant to pay for billions of environmental clean up – estimated at 35 billion Alaska Permanent Fund- money generated from the depletion of oil reserves put into trust fund to offset the impact and benefit current and future citizens of Alaska Other state and countries- are catching on to common ownership- we live in a different world– resources are limited Lets start a Vermont Permanent Fund!- if we collected 10% of the extraction value in 2005, Vermont would have $9.68 million to be put in trust fund to offset the depletion of non-renewable mineral resources and to help pay for environmental management. Bottom line - as mineral reserves get lower mining companies revenue rises because Vermont’s management is outdated Vermont needs to rethink how it manages its non-renewable resources. When they’re gone they’re gone Citizens of Vermont have a birthright to these natural resources Legislation needs to reclaim subsurface property rights on behalf of the citizens of Vermont