Mine Safety Legislation Needed to Help Protect Miners, Obama Administration Official Tells House Panel
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Lessons learned since the worst coal mining disaster in four decades require legislative action to close loopholes in the law in order to hold dangerous mine operators accountable for putting workers at risk, the nation’s top mine health and safety regulator said today at a congressional hearing.
“Almost one year has passed since we lost those 29 miners at Upper Big Branch. We have learned much in that time,” said Joseph A. Main, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). “To make MSHA truly effective in cracking down on serial violators who seem indifferent to miners’ health and safety, MSHA needs additional tools that only Congress can provide.”
In the year prior to the April 2010 explosion, Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine was cited 515 times and ordered to shut down operations on 52 separate occasions – an average of once per week. However, shortcomings in the law have allowed some mine operators to game the system to avoid tougher scrutiny, such as the ‘pattern of violations’ sanction. Others game the system by interfering with federal mine safety inspectors by providing unlawful advance notice before inspectors go underground.
“Miners are not simply cogs in a wheel to make the energy and metals our nation needs. They are mothers and fathers, community and church leaders, Little League coaches and youth mentors,” said U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the Workforce Protections Subcommittee. “It is our moral obligation to make sure our laws protect and value their lives.”
The committee heard emotional testimony in Beckley, West Virginia last May from miners and families of miners who died in the Upper Big Branch explosion. Miners and families described the persistent fear of speaking up on safety problems in the mine.
“The Mine Act has long sought to protect from retaliation those miners who come forward to report safety hazards. But it is clear that those protections are not sufficient, and many miners lack faith and belief in the current system,” said Main. “Legislation that creates a fairer and faster process is urgently needed.”
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat of the full committee said that problems are not isolated to Upper Big Branch, but a sign of a broken mine safety system taken advantage by a few mine owners who game the system for their economic benefit.
“This is a simple decision for Congress. Are we going to continue to empower rogue operators that endanger miners? Is Congress just going to sit here and say we are going to wait for the next accident,” said Miller. “Apparently, we can only legislate when people die.”
Legislation proposed last year by Woolsey and Miller, the Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act, would give the Mine Safety and Health Administration powerful new tools to keep miners safe and hold mine operators accountable for putting their workers in danger. Republicans voted to block passage of the bill in December.
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