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Norwood Shuts Down Mine Safety Hearing |
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Just because the Republican leader of the House Workforce Protections subcommittee decided he’d heard enough about the deaths of 21 coal miners and the huge problems in mine safety doesn’t mean those dangerous and deadly conditions miners face are going away anytime soon.
Rep. Charles Norwood (R-Ga.), who has a long legislative history of opposing strong and stringent workplace safety laws, shut down a March 1 hearing on mine safety before committee members could finish questioning witnesses.
“The Bush administration is undermining mine safety, and Republican leaders in Congress don’t want the public to find out about it,” says Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Workforce and Education Committee.
Twenty-one coal miners have been killed on the job so far in 2006, compared to 22 in all of 2005. The explosions, fires and other accidents have focused attention on the Bush administration’s mine safety record, which includes cutting the number of mine inspectors, inconsequential fines for safety violations and appointing former high-ranking mining executives to powerful positions in the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and other mine agencies.
After witnesses from MSHA, the mining industry and the Mine Workers (UMWA Safety Director Dennis O’Dell) had testified, Norwood refused to allow Miller to continue his questioning of the witnesses.
According to House rules, Miller had allotted time for the questions and the scheduled two-hour hearing had another 30 minutes to run when Norwood shut it down.
“So far this year, 21 coal miners have died in the United States,” says Miller. “This is a crisis. Yet Republican leaders in Congress were unwilling to devote more than a mere 90 minutes to this issue of life and death. Congress has a responsibility to take action to keep more people from dying in preventable mine accidents. The Republicans showed a complete lack of concern and respect for miners and their families by shutting down this hearing before all the facts could come out.”
On March 2, UMWA President Cecil Roberts will testify before the full Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. His testimony will include recommendations regarding upgrades that would improve miner safety and health, as well as a discussion of past actions and inactions on the part of MSHA that have adversely impacted safety in America’s mines.
On Feb 28, the AFL-CIO Executive Council called on Congress and the Bush administration to improve mine safety and enforcement and restore funding. Earlier in February, surviving relatives of coal miners killed on the job testified before a special congressional forum.
Over at Confined Space, Jordan has recently posted two excellent pieces on mine safety, “Coal: An Outlaw Industry” and “U.S. Mines: Good or Bad or Who Knows?”
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