Lax enforcement — 04/15/08

Fri, May 16 2008

— In the aftermath of the deaths of 12 men in the Sago coal mine in West Virginia in 2006, Congress enacted a comprehensive mine safety law requiring the coal industry to install more safety equipment in underground mines.
Two years later, most underground coal mines still lack stockpiles of breathable air and communications gear for trapped workers, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accounting Office.
The report points the finger of blame at the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. Among other criticism, the GOA report claims poor leadership by MSHA has caused mine operators to miss opportunities to install better communications equipment.
The 2006 federal law mandates larger stockpiles of emergency air packs, among other measures. The law also gave MSHA until June 2009 to require wireless communications and tracking equipment underground.
The GAO found that equipment shortages have prevented many mines from placing stockpiles of breathable air underground. But it blamed MSHA for the fact that mines aren’t installing wireless communications equipment and may miss the deadline.
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., called it “outrageous” that problems highlighted by the Sago explosion have yet to be solved. “Under the Bush administration, MSHA continues to fail to act despite the many promises made to miners and their families on the lessons learned from mining tragedies over the last two years,” Miller said in a statement.
MSHA spokesman Matthew Faraci defended the agency. “The report actually noted MSHA’s work to further mine safety including as of January 2008, all underground coal mines ‘had implemented all or most components of their emergency response plans.”’
The mining industry also says there has been progress since 2006. For instance, the National Mining Association says mines have purchased 125,000 additional emergency air packs and have another 125,000 on order.
The industry has been constrained by manufacturing bottlenecks — two small companies dominate the U.S. air pack market — and by “the absence of timely guidance” by MSHA, said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based trade group. “We cannot act in advance of the guidance we get from MSHA.”
Are mines safer today than they were in 2006? Probably. There are certainly more air packs available to miners. But many aspects of the 2006 law are not being enforced, and as this newspaper has said many times, a law is only as good as its enforcement. It achieves nothing to enact a law requiring safety equipment and then ignore that law.