In February, White House mining safety officials told leaders on the House Education and Labor Committee some startling news: There were 48 mines across the nation, they said, that would likely be subject to the “pattern of violations” standard allowing the government to shutter the projects for the sake of miner safety. But they couldn’t do so, they added, because the backlog of appeals was preventing any such action.
“We believe some operators contesting [significant and substantial] violations may be doing so because it delays the finding of a pattern, adding to the backlog and delaying MSHA from using this enhanced enforcement tool at their mines,” Joe Main, head of the Mining Safety and Health Administration, told lawmakers. “As a result, there are operations that might be on a potential pattern of violations, but the backlog has prevented their cases from becoming final orders.”
At the time, however, MSHA officials declined to release the names of those mines, even to congressional leaders.
Today that changed.
MSHA on Wednesday released the names of those 48 projects to Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel, who, citing a “deep public interest,” promptly made them public. Of note, Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine, which exploded last week, killing 29 miners, is on the list. The full list is here (PDF).
Miller’s office offers some useful background on how the mining companies have abused the appeals process to keep even unsafe mines open and operating.
Under current law, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration issues a letter to frequent violators warning them that they may be sanctioned under a so-called ‘pattern of violation’. Once a mine is notified that they may be under a pattern of violation, the mine must take immediate actions to reduce future violations – approved by federal mine safety officials – or face drastic sanctions including mine closure for any future significant and substantial violation.
The list released by the committee today are those 48 mines that would have received this notice of a potential pattern of violation sanctions in October 2009 but for contested citations that had not been resolved due to delays caused by the backlog of more than 16,000 operator appeals.
This story is long from over.