Top Committee Democrats Question Whether Trump Administration Violated Coal Mine Safety Laws
Ranking Member Scott, Rep. Takano seek answers regarding administration’s unprecedented settlement with a serial violator of coal mine safety and health standards.
WASHINGTON – Today, Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03), the top Democrat on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Rep. Mark Takano (CA-41), the top Democrat on the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, sent a letter to Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety David Zatezalo questioning the legal basis for a decision to enter a settlement agreement that ended sanctions on a serial violator of mandatory mine safety standards.
On August 28, 2018, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) finalized an agreement with Affinity Mine – operated by Pocahontas Coal – that terminated its Pattern of Violations (POV) Notice. POV Notices are MSHA’s most powerful sanction and are reserved for mine operators who repeatedly commit significant and substantial (S&S) violations of mandatory safety and health standards. The Notice was issued to Affinity Mine in 2013 following an excessive number of high negligence safety violations and two fatalities.
The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Mine Act) states that a POV Notice can only be terminated when an inspection of the entire mine reveals no S&S violations. According to publicly available mine inspection data, that Affinity Mine has not met that condition. MSHA data indicates 33 S&S violations this year prior to the August 28 settlement.
“Despite a history of repeated S&S violations—which persisted in each and every year since the POV Notice was issued in 2013--and the Mine Act’s unambiguous requirement under Section 104(e)(3) that a mine may not be removed from a POV absent a complete MSHA inspection free from S&S violations, MSHA has inexplicably terminated the POV Notice,” the Members wrote. “For that reason, we are seeking information to better understand the legal basis for this decision and what transpired inside the Department of Labor that led MSHA to take this unprecedented action.”
The Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission accepted the arrangement between MSHA and Pocahontas Coal, but its ruling included a blistering dissent. Robert F. Cohen, Jr., whose term on the Commission recently expired, wrote that “approving the settlement only provides cover for an unlawful agreement by the current administration.”
The full text of the letter is available here.
###
Press Contact
Democratic Press Office, 202-226-0853
Next Article Previous Article