California Enacts Lithium Tax To Pay For Salton Sea Environmental Protection

Despite local employer and industry warnings about raising mining costs on lithium while the world looks to California to provide this increasingly vital resource, the State in its 2022-23 budget enacted a per ton tax on the metal that is key to battery production for vehicles and most cordless, chargeable items.

As reported by Yahoo Finance all three local providers opposed the tax as putting California and the economically struggling communities of the Salta Sea area at a cost disadvantage to Utah and other states. Local employers outlined the immediate effects as including a loss of a groundbreaking contract with General Motors and others in addition to the loss of investment capital due to the increased costs.

BOTTOM LINE

California’s regulations and private employers insure that all items produced in the state have smaller environmental impacts than goods produced nearly anywhere else globally. The Salton Sea communities have been a focus of publicly funded economic development opportunities for decades. Lithium produced in this area for use in international markets is vital to the economic future of the region and globe. Losing these market based opportunities to lower cost production elsewhere is a loss for the California’s stated economic and environmental goals.

We will continue to track this story as it develops…

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