Report: Mine safety backlog reduction strategy working despite continued flood of appeals
Efforts to reduce the backlog of the thousands of health and safety appeals by mine operators trying to avoid tougher penalties is beginning to work, according to a new report from the Department of Labor sent to Congress last week. However, despite this progress, incentives still remain for mine operators to appeal nearly every penalty regardless of merit.
The department said that the number of pending health and safety cases dropped to 17,101 at the end of July 2011, slightly lower than the 17, 591 when extra funding was approved a year earlier and despite having to deal with a flood of 11,412 new appeals. This is the first time the backlog has gone down year to year since 2004.
The death of 29 miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in April 2010 highlighted the dangers of some mine owners who try to avoid “pattern of violation” sanctions by appealing health and safety citations seemingly regardless of merit.
Before the Upper Big Branch tragedy, Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the then chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, held a hearing into the growing backlog of mine owner appeals of health and safety citations that were delaying tougher penalties for some the country’s most dangerous mines and undermining Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA’s) efforts to protect miners. At the hearing, Miller said that “some of the largest mining operations have responded by challenging tougher sanctions at a staggering rate. As a result, miners’ lives are in the crosshairs.”
As the result of hearings into the issue and responding to the Upper Big Branch explosion, the Department of Labor and Congress stepped in to address the growing backlog. In July 2010, Congress approved an emergency $23 million so that the agencies involved could hire additional staff to keep the backlog from growing at an unsustainable rate and ensure adequate funds were available for the UBB investigation.
In addition, MSHA has proposed to eliminate some incentives mine operators have had to appeal nearly every citation regardless of merit by reducing procedural hurdles to impose pattern of violation sanctions-- mirroring some provisions of the Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act.
However, progress in keeping the backlog from growing is in jeopardy, unless additional funds are provided to the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission for judges to hear the appeals and the Department of Labor for attorneys to prosecute these cases.
To read the new report, click here.