Senate Again Rejects Bush’s Nominee to Head Mine Safety Agency

by Mike Hall, Oct 2, 2006

Maybe this time, President Bush will get the message. The safety of the nation’s miners is far too important to entrust to a former coal industry insider with a “weak safety record,” says Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.).

Byrd made his comments Sept. 29 when, for the second time this year, the Senate rejected former coal industry executive Richard Stickler, Bush’s choice to run the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Said Byrd:

We’re again sending a message to the administration that America’s miners deserve better, and we hope that this time it will listen. The fact that the nomination has twice failed to receive Senate confirmation reflects a strong lack of confidence in the president’s choice for this critical position. By continuing to insist on a nominee with a weak safety record, the White House is playing political games with mine safety. We must not let them win.

After the Senate’s initial rejection of Stickler in June, Bush first quietly hired him as a consultant to MSHA, and in September, renominated him to the safety post.

The Mine Workers (UMWA) and other mine safety advocates point to Stickler’s troubling mine safety record. According to statistics assembled by the UMWA before Stickler’s appointment to head the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, the mines Stickler managed from 1989 to 1996 incurred injury rates double the national average. Says UMWA President Cecil Roberts:

When a person spends the vast majority of his career working to increase production and improve the bottom line, it follows that enforcing safety will become a secondary priority. That’s been our experience with Mr. Stickler in the past, and we have been given no reason to change our opinion.

The fight over the nomination gained attention because of the growing number of coal miners killed on the job this year. The Jan. 2 Sago Mine explosion killed 12, a deadly fire shortly after at another West Virginia mine killed two and another five more miners died in a Kentucky explosion. So far this year, 38 coal miners have been killed on the job, more than in any full year since 2001. In response Congress passed new mine safety rules in June.

Says Sen. Edward Kennedy, (D-Mass.), who, along with Byrd, has used Senate rules to block the nomination:

We are in the midst of a mine safety crisis. At this critical time, miners and their families need a strong leader at MSHA. Mr. Stickler does not have the record or the vision to meet this challenge. The president should send the Senate a new nominee who will fulfill the promise of our safety laws. 

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