Mining Policies for Australia and the USA - Essay Example

The mining industry has seen widespread changes in the manner the rules and policies determining the players in the industry will work. The mining industry all over the world faces huge deficiencies and bottlenecks in the supply chain and increase in mining exploration especially in remote areas which has affected the environment and increased issues concerning sensitivity for the local areas. Australia & United States both have huge resources and has developed ways in which minerals are extracted and have looked towards developing sustainable environment for the players to perform. The paper looks towards comparing the policies which have been implemented in both Australia & USA so that it can be identified which country has more powerful interest groups which have led towards the development of policies. It is viewed that Australia has been able to develop better sustainable policies for the mining sector and have aimed towards ensuring that that the environment is protected. Australia is better placed when it comes to the development of policies for sustainable development of the mining sector as the Australian economy has looked towards developing sustainable policies in comparison to USA who are behind it. This has helped Australia to reduce the level of risk and increase the value of the shareholder (Davis, 2010). The Australian economy policy makers have been able to understand the manner in which local economic and social constraints have an impact on the business and developing dynamics which looks at different dynamics has helped the Australian economy to look towards long term competitiveness. This has made the Australian economy develop better policies in comparison to USA and has enabled them to ensure that the contribution of the mining sector improves (Lin and Chang, 2009). The mining sector is seeing widespread growth as the demand for minerals is increasing which has made all economies look towards adopting increased mining methods to get the required minerals. This has increased the concerns towards the environment and has made the different economies to look towards developing sustainable policies so that they are able to develop an environment which will enable the business to be able to develop better policies for the mining sector (Sampat, 2003). This has made the policy makers to look at different factors and things which needs to be considered while developing a sustainable policy so that the mining industry is able to perform in a manner which will help to provide maximum opportunity to be able to grow. Different economies look towards finding out different ways through which sustainable development for the mining industry can be developed. This has resulted in developing different policies which aims at controlling carbon emission, ensure that the water conditions improve and looks towards developing policies which matches the international standards and ensures that monitoring in proper. The evaluation of the Australian and the US economy helps to bring forward different areas which will help to improve the manner in which policies are developed and will help to develop a fundamental through which the economy will be able to reap maximum benefit (Sachs & Warner, 2001). The essay thereby explores the different areas which has looked towards developing policies for the Australian and the USA economies but is limited to the fact that it explores the mechanism through which the policies are formulated by the Australian and the US economies and doesn’t take into consideration other economies which have been able to garner better policies so that the effectiveness of the mining industry improves. This thereby looks to present the manner in which both the Australian and the US economy has been able to develop policies so that they are able to revolve the manner in which the mining sector works and ensures better results and opportunities of developments are developed by the economies. The Australian mining industry has taken proactive steps by developing different internal management system and policy framework which has ensured that the practices are consistent and matches the requirements of the global standard. This has helped the Australian economy to respect the rights of the local communities and ensured that the industry codes of monitoring and auditing is carried out effectively. This has helped to bring forward clear cut focus on capacity building which has ensured that even the global bodies are able to clearly visualize the process used by Australia (Watson & Noble, 2005). USA on the other hand has also looked towards developing their internal process and policy framework and has looked at making changes in the manner the mining industry performs. This has resulted in a lack of consistency but despite it USA have been able to ensure that they are able to match the international standards (Richard, 2003). The USA economy also focuses on ensuring proper industry codes but there are certain gaps which are persistent and needs to be watched. Thus, Australia has been able to develop better internal management system and policy framework which matches the global standard and follows the industry code which has ensured better monitoring in comparison to USA. Both the Australian and the USA economy have looked towards developing a sustainable environment for the mining industry and expect that the mining companies will play a pivotal role in shaping their performance. Australia and USA have both framed rules and look towards cutting carbon emission by developing policies in the mining sector but Australia has been able to develop policies which are sounder. The Australian government expects that by 2020 the companies working in the mining industry will be able to control carbon emission by 34% in comparison to USA which forecast the cut to be around 28% (Bridge, 2004). The Australian government have moved a step ahead and ensured that a carbon tax have been implemented and even allowed the trading of carbons. This has ensured that the policies developed by the government have looked towards developing a sustainable environment and has ensured sustainable development of the resources. The government to ensure that carbon tax doesn’t result in unemployment has ensured certain incentives for the steel sector so that employment doesn’t becomes an issue and the policy developed in the direction of mining doesn’t affect their future growth potential (Davis and Tilton, 2005). USA on the other hand is just behind and needs to look towards developing a rationale so that the expected carbon reduction is put in place by having strategies developed in a manner which helps to develop the mining sector. Thus, the Australian economy has been able to develop better sustainable policies for the mining sector in comparison to the USA economy. Mining industry has a lot of relevance in ensuring proper water management system so that better policy framework can be developed for the growth of the mining industry. Australia has looked towards working in this direction as they have developed there Murray Darling Basin Plan and is continuing to work on it. Australia has looked towards framing rules and policies in this direction as they have ensured that the majority of the water designated water resources have the required license to use the water and using the water doesn’t have an effect on the ecosystem and the present users are not impacted by the changes in water supply (Dasgupta and Singh, 2006). This has helped the policies in the mining sector to be developed in such a manner that it looks towards developing better sustainable environment. The government on this front has also taken strict steps and even restricted players from conducting mining activities in those areas which have scarce water resources (Yakovleva, 2005) and using the surface and ground water will result in creating an acute shortage of water and will affect the life style of the people in the local areas (Baumgartner & Ebner, 2010). The USA government hasn’t looked towards developing any such policies in this regard which has resulted in continuous depletion of the water resources and have impacted the climate and weather conditions in some of the regions (Rae & Rouse, 2001). This requires important steps to be developed by the USA economy so that better policies in this respect is developed as Australia is better placed and are able to ensure better sustainable policies for the environment and the mining sector (Rowthorn and Ramaswamy, 1997). Thus, a comparison of the mining policies for Australia & USA shows that Australia is slightly ahead of USA as they have looked towards developing strict policies which have helped to develop a sustainable environment and is completely focused on ensuring that the policies developed by them achieve its purpose. The USA government has also looked towards developing policies but instead of being proactive has been reactive and has taken decisions only after an incident has occurred. This has created differences in the manner in which both the economy look towards developing policies and has helped Australia to be ahead of time and look into the future while developing policies for the mining sector. In addition to it the Australian policy makers have ensured that they are not influenced by the mining players and have looked towards developing sustainable policies for the mining sector. This has helped the Australian economy to be better placed in developing policies which helps to ensure that the mining sector is able to carry out its business in a normal way. References Baumgartner, R. & Ebner, D. (2010). Corporate Sustainability Strategies: Sustainability Profiles an d Maturity Levels, Sustainable Development, 18, 70-75 Bridge, G. (2004). Contested Terrain: Mining and the Environment, Annual Review of Environmental Resources: 29:205–59 Dasgupta, S. and Singh, A. (2006). Manufacturing, Services and Premature De-industrialisation in Developing Countries: A Kaldorian Empirical Analysis. Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge Working Paper 32 Davis, G. and Tilton, J. (2005).The Resource Curse. Natural Resources Forum, 29 (3), 233-42 Davis, G. (2010). United States Mineral Sector Strategic Analysis. Background Paper prepared for UNIDO Lin, J. and Chang, H. (2009). DPR Debate: Should Industrial Policy in Developing Countries Conform to Comparative Advantage or Defy it? A Debate between Justin Lin and Ha-Joon Chang. Development Policy Review, 27(5), 483-502 Rowthorn, R. and Ramaswamy, R. (1997). De-industrialisation: Causes and Implications. IMF Working Paper, 42, IMF, Washington, D.C Richard M. (2003). Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies: The Resource Curse Thesis. London: Routledge Rae, M. & Rouse, A. (2001). Mining Certification Evaluation Project: Independent Certification of Environmental and Social Performance in the Mining Sector. A WWF Australia discussion paper, Melbourne: World Wide Fund for Nature Sampat, P. (2003). Scrapping mining dependence. In Bright et al, State of the World. Washington, D.C. Worldwatch Institute Sachs J. & Warner A. (2001). The curse of natural resources, European Economic Review: (45): 827–838 Watson, T. & Noble, P. (2005). Evaluating Public Relations: A best practice guide to public relations planning, research & evaluation, Sterling, VA: Kogan Page Limited. Yakovleva, N. (2005). Corporate social responsibility in the mining industries, Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Read More