William Bryan: “I will correct some misimpressions that may have been unintentionally offered here on the floor of the Senate. I think…”

“I will correct some misimpressions that may have been unintentionally offered here on the floor of the Senate. I think it is helpful to put this in some context. This proposal, which has been offered by the Senator from Arkansas on previous occasions, was in my idea never a good idea, but now the timing could not be worse because the status of at least one aspect of that industry, the gold industry in my State, is facing some very critical times. The international price of gold on the markets of the world has dropped precipitously, substantially below $300 an ounce. The break-even cost in the gold industry is approximately $296, so in my own State of Nevada, which leads the Nation and is one of the largest gold-producing areas in the entire world, we have had just in the last year more than 2,000 layoffs and a substantial number of mines that have closed, and the spot price of gold has been as low as $283 an ounce. So this is a very, very difficult time for this industry. The proposal offered by the Senator from Arkansas would, indeed, have a catastrophic impact upon the industry, and it would have a serious impact upon thousands of people in my own State. About 120,000 people in America work directly in the hardrock mining industry. In the State of Nevada, more than 15,000 have been employed at the high-level mark before these layoffs occurred. These are good-paying jobs.…”