Barrasso, Wyden introduce American soda ash bill

U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced bipartisan legislation to maintain competitive royalty rates on America’s natural soda ash, which is critical in manufacturing industrial products like glass. The Soda Ash Competitiveness Act (S. 546) will set the royalty rate on sodium compounds (and related products) produced from federal land at 2 percent for five years.

Under current law, the royalty rate on sodium compounds produced from federal land is 6 percent. A lower rate of 4 percent, which Congress put in place in 2013, expired in October of 2015. As a result,...