Promoting Prosperity: Building Public Support for Non-Ferrous Mining in Minnesota

1. Promoting Prosperity: Building Public Support for Non-Ferrous Mining in Minnesota Isaac OrrSME Duluth April 17, 2019

2. About Center of the American Experiment • Center of the American Experiment is Minnesota’s leading public policy organization. • Free-market think tank founded in 1990. • We aggressively market our materials. • We see ourselves as champions of the real economy, mining, manufacturing, and agriculture. • This means building direct public support for these industries, and also advocating for smart energy, workforce development and tax policies.

3. Who Am I? • Energy and Environmental Public Policy Expert. • UW-Eau Claire, Political Science and Geology. • Authored 14 white papers on electricity policy, mining, and oil and gas development. • Published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Minneapolis Star Tribune, New York Post, The Hill, and more.

4. Minnesotamines.com • We unapologetically promote mining around the state with: • Research; • Billboards; • Radio Ads; • TV Commercials; • Factsheets; • Pro-mining rallies.

5. If We Don’t Promote Mining, Who Else Will?

6. Why Promote Prosperity? • Because we have to. • People don’t realize how important mining is. As a result, mining opponents frame the debate. • The other side doesn’t fight fair.

7. Why Promote Prospserity?

8. Why Promote Prosperity?

9. Why Promote Prosperity?

10. Why Promote Prosperity?

11. Why Promote Prosperity

12. Marketing: Pie Chart 2018

13. Research • Our study found developing Minnesota’s world-class deposits of copper, nickel, cobalt, PGE’s and titanium would: • Add $3.7 billion to the state’s economy, according to IMPLAN. • Support nearly 8,500 jobs: • 1,902 direct jobs. • 3,181 indirect. • 3,385 induced jobs. • These figures were conservative.

14. Thinking Minnesota

15. Thinking Minnesota by the Numbers • Circulation of 72,000 households. • One of the top-five largest magazines by circulation in the state. • Provides an easy-to-digest summary of our research. • Our secret weapon: The Thinking Minnesota Poll.

16. Polling

17. Polling

18. Polling

19. TV Ads <iframe width="1366" height="768" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VHGPY4sssqc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

20. Billboards

21. Public Meetings and Appearances

22. We Play Defense: The James Stock Letter • Omitting Induced Jobs Is Intellectually Dishonest • The high wages provided by employment in the mining industry result in the creation of 1.78 induced jobs for every mining job created, as mine employees spend their paychecks in the broader economy on school supplies for their children, visits to the doctor’s office, eating at restaurants, on tourism-related activities, etc. • The Stock Report’s Assumptions for Tourism and Hospitality Decline Are Unsupported by Real-World Data • In addition to omitting important jobs numbers, the letter by Professor Stock assumes mining would result in a reversal of the projected growth in tourism in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The letter assumes tourism would decline at a rate of 1.2 percent to 2.4 percent per year, or approximately 21.5 percent to 38.5 percent over 20 years, but provides exactly zero empirical evidence to support this assumption.

23. We Play Defense: Mining Economically Unimportant • Mining is directly responsible for about 0.2 percent of Minnesota’s jobs and less than 3 percent of its economic output, according to state data.

24. Updating Our Research • Unearthing Prosperity only used resource estimate numbers from 43101’s that were available last summer. Other resource estimates have become public since then.

25. We Play Defense: Environmental Impacts

26. Going on the Offensive: If We Don’t Mine Here, then Where? • Why won’t fair trade coffee drinkers support fair trade cobalt?

27. Energy Issues • Energy mandates threaten the affordability of electricity in Minnesota. • We are the leading organization advocating for electric ratepayers in Minnesota. • Our research found a 50 percent renewable energy mandate would cost Minnesota $80.2 billion through 2050. • Result in a 40 percent increase in electricity prices. • Destroy 21,000 jobs

28. Skyrocketing Electricity Prices Threaten Mining • Iron mines and paper mills use enormous quantities of electricity. • Electricity already accounts for roughly 25 percent of the cost of iron ore produced in Minnesota. • These two industries used 4.77 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2016, which was 8 percent of the electricity used in the entire state.  • A 50 percent renewable-energy mandate would increase the cost of electricity for the mining and paper-mill industries by at least $199.2 million. • The equivalent of 2,490 high-paying mining jobs.

29. Defending Affordable Energy • Renewable-energy advocates often cite increasing demand for metals as a reason why Minnesotans on the Iron Range should support more renewable-energy mandates. These mandates would increase Minnesota's demand for these metals, but we won't be able to afford to mine them here.

30. Promoting the Future • Ongoing promotion of our mining work. • Split estate issues for the BLM and USFS and speeding up the process. • School Trust Fund report showing Twin Cities residents the importance of mining for their children. • If we did polling on this, it would likely show an increase in support for mining.