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Mine Safety Agency Mismanagement: No One Left to Write the Rules |
The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA’s) foot-dragging on developing new mine safety rules mandated by the 2006 MINER Act and other legislation has caught up with it. Now, the agency is begging for help.
Already under fire for missing a Dec. 15 deadline to issue new rules for better trained mine rescue teams, MSHA has turned to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to plead for volunteers to help them meet upcoming rule-making deadlines, according to BNA’s Daily Labor Report (subscription required).
Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO Health and Safety director, says MSHA’s call for help
shows gross mismanagement at the Department of Labor. MSHA has known about this since June 2006, well over 18 months. And the mandates in the appropriations bills were on the horizon for months. None of this is new.
OSHA Director Edwin Foulke Jr. sent a memo to the agency’s national staff seeking volunteers for temporary assignment to MSHA, Seminario points out. OSHA has several important safety standards it must develop this year, including rules covering work in confined spaces and several construction safety regulations. Those could be delayed if OSHA staff is assigned to MSHA.
This is robbing OSHA to pay MSHA. Those are very important standards, too. There are a large number of health and safety professionals who have retired or left OSHA and MSHA in the past few years. They’ve made valuable contributions in the past and many would be willing to contribute to worker safety again. That’s a talent pool they should be looking at.
Along with drafting the mine rescue team rules, MSHA must finalize by the end of February a temporary emergency standard on sealing abandoned areas in mines. The explosion in the Sago Mine that blew out the seals and killed a dozen coal miners in January 2006 occurred in such an area.
By June, MSHA must propose new rules regulating belt air ventilation. The term “belt air” refers to using the same opening for the conveyer belt that carries coal to the surface to ventilate the mine. Smoke or fire along the belt can spread to the entire mine. Belt air was linked to the deaths of two miners at the Aracoma Mine in 2006. In addition, new proposed rules for rescue chambers must be ready by June. Both the belt air and rescue chamber rules must be finalized by December.
4 Comments
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Everything happens for a reason and apparently these staffers who’s appointed my this administration is just has incompetence has the leader of the administration.
Hopefully, OSHA is making rules for (RSI) repetitive strain or stress injuries in all area especially in COMPUTER.
There is equivalent “Gross Mismanagement” within the AFL-CIO.
Why don’t you print any comments that are “negative” relative to the AFL-CIO?
Peter30:
We post all comments unless they fail to adhere to the Comment Guidelines, e.g.: No invasion of privacy; no racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable language. Guildelines available on Comment page,
I agree with John Edwards that MSHA has too many close ties to the mine owners. This must change, or nothing will get better. I agree with Edwards that there are too many crony jobs within OSHA. These agencies are critical to safety and it is unacceptable to staff these positions with anyone who is not experienced and qualified. I do not believe that the average American is aware of the situation. I am glad Edwards is talking about this issue, and wish the news would show more of what he has to say. Lots of people would care if they knew the situation.