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MINER Act Not Enough—Mine Safety Laws Must be Enforced |
Last year, while coal miners were being killed on the job at a pace that hadn’t been seen in more than a decade, Congress passed the MINER Act, the first new mine safety and health bill in 30 years. But Deborah Hamner, whose husband George Junior Hamner was one of 12 coal miners killed in a methane blast at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, says the bill isn’t enough.
I am here today to stress to you that our work is not done. It is very important that Congress oversees MSHA [Mine Safety and Health Administration] to ensure the improvements you intended with the MINER Act of 2006 are being accomplished.
Despite Congress’s good intentions, I have to wonder if little has actually changed, I fear that miners would fare no better today in an explosion than my husband and his co-workers did on Jan. 1, 2006.
Hamner, along with Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts and other witnesses, told the House Education and Labor Committee the Bush administration’s mine safety and enforcement policies, the agency’s failure to develop new safety and health standards and MSHA’s cozy relationship with the coal industry—including top former industry officials filling key MSHA posts—all contributed to the unsafe conditions that led to the deaths of 47 coal miners last year.
Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) says:
The recent record shows that the agency has not adequately fulfilled its obligations. Last year, the Democratic staff of this committee issued a report that found numerous problems with MSHA—from the way the Bush administration had stacked it with industry insiders to the agency’s failure to use its authority to collect fines from mine operators that break law.
Under the Bush administration, MSHA has rolled back safety and health rules, and has shifted its focus away from enforcing the law and so-called “voluntary compliance assistance.”
Roberts says the MINER Act is a “a good first step” to safer mining conditions:
But we can do a lot more than we are doing today to make it safer. Miners should not have to get sick, or to risk their lives just by going to work.
The sustained efforts by industry and government to erode the [1977] Mine Act has been devastating to miners. Many of the events of 2006 are rooted in regulations, policies, petitions for modifications and practices MSHA has instituted at the behest of mine operators. Many of these played a role in the mining deaths of 2006.
But he and others say little progress has been made in implementing the new rules.
MSHA has not moved aggressively to implement all the provisions of the MINER Act. MSHA is seeking to delay requiring certain improvements.…There is also resistance on the part of some segment of the industry to the implementation of new protections for miners.
Roberts notes the National Mining Association filed suit challenging the new MSHA requirements on emergency mine evacuation and additional oxygen. Hamner criticized MSHA for allowing coal companies to be considered in compliance with the new oxygen rules if they’ve ordered the new equipment, not if its been installed and available to miners. There have even been industry complaints about the new oxygen rules says Roberts:
In fact, the National Mining Association sued MSHA over the method by which it is requiring operators to provide additional oxygen in the coal mines.
In addition, Roberts says there has been “virtually no progress” in expanding the number of qualified mine rescue teams and that most mine operators have yet to complete their required emergency response plan.
Witnesses also pointed out the need for improvements beyond last year’s legislation, including better communications and emergency shelters. Chuck Knisell, a fourth generation West Virginia coal miner and member of UMWA Local 2300, says today’s technology makes emergency communications possible:
We still don’t have reliable communications in the mines in event of a disaster. Technology for tracking miners underground has been around for a long time and is used in other countries. But MSHA has never required it in the United States. Miners should not have to wait for more of us to be killed or injured for our government to demand of companies that they do whatever it takes to keep us safe.
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