House lawmakers are passing a bill that adds a severance tax on the mineral lithium.
About 50,000 acres of public land in the Black Hills are under a lithium mining claim. Most those claims are by Australian companies.
Rep. Kirk Chaffee, R-Whitewood, is the House sponsor of the bill. He said the bill is about fairness.
“Mining is a part of the Black Hills. We get that. But where’s the benefit? The benefit comes in the form of a severance tax," Chaffee said. "With lithium and the interest in lithium, the value of lithium has gone up. The demand for lithium has gone up too. So, let’s capture that.”
Chaffee’s bill adds a 4.5 percent tax on lithium profits. It splits that money with 80 percent going to county governments.
The bill now heads to the Senate. Chaffee declined to comment on strategy for getting the bill passed in that chamber. The prime sponsor there is Senator Julie Frye Mueller, who was just suspended from the state Senate.
