{"id":521900,"date":"2010-04-09T12:46:59","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T16:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=81709"},"modified":"2010-04-09T12:46:59","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T16:46:59","slug":"does-the-federal-government-have-the-tools-to-shut-down-problem-mines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/521900","title":{"rendered":"Does the Federal Government Have the Tools to Shut Down Problem Mines?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The short answer is yes — the Mining Health and Safety Administration (a branch of the Labor Department) has the power to close mines and hike penalties if officials can identify a “pattern of violations.” Yet, as new MSHA data show (reported here<\/a> and here<\/a>), the agency never went that route with the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. — where an explosion Monday killed at least 25 miners — despite the thousands<\/a> of safety violations cited there in recent years.<\/p>\n

Why not? Well, it’s tough to say. MSHA officials insist that they did everything they could to ensure the Upper Big Branch was safe. Aside from the thousands of hours they spent inspecting the mine (2,999 hours in 2009 and 803 hours in 2010, according to<\/a> The Washington Post), they also closed down parts of the operation more than 60 times since the start of 2009, according to the Labor Department. And they’re\u00a0pushing back hard<\/a> against claims that those efforts weren’t enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We issued citations for every hazard we identified,” Greg Wagner, a top MSHA deputy, told<\/a> The Charleston Gazette yesterday. “We held the operator accountable for correcting the problems that were cited. … We can’t be in the mine all the time in every place.”<\/p>\n

Yet those 60+ closings came in the form of so-called withdrawal orders, which are temporary actions to pull miners from unsafe sections of the project until the danger is eliminated. That strategy is different from shuttering the operation for longer stretches in response to “a continuing hazard.” That move would require a judge’s approval and proof of a “pattern of violations.”<\/p>\n

And here’s where the mining companies have discovered a loophole. Knowing that MSHA can’t establish a “pattern of violations” on citations that haven’t been finalized, the companies are protesting more and more of the violations. (After all, how can you determine a pattern if hundreds of citations remain in dispute?) In 2005, mine operators protested just 6 percent of violations, a MSHA official told House lawmakers in February. In 2009, they protested 27 percent. The trend has led to an enormous backlog for the few judges examining the appeals. Indeed, as of February, the backlog consisted of 16,000 cases involving 82,000 separate violations.<\/p>\n

There are currently 10 judges wading through the appeals, with funding already allocated for four more, who are somewhere in the nomination process. Additionally, President Obama’s 2011 budget calls for another four, bringing the total to 18 (assuming Congress provides the funding). But Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, says there need to be at least 22 such judges to eliminate the backlog of appeals.<\/p>\n

A 2008 bill, passed by the House, would have altered the “pattern of violation” language in order to make it easier for MSHA officials to close mines known to be habitual offenders. Republicans at the time said it would “saddle employers with burdensome new costs that could put critical American jobs in jeopardy,” in the words<\/a> of Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio).<\/p>\n

In the wake of Monday’s blast, however, lawmakers have the appeals loophole back on their radars. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told MSNBC yesterday that it’s up to Congress to step in and close the loophole. “It’s simply playing with the lives of coal miners in a very cynical way,” he said. “And yet, it’s our fault in Congress that we have not foreseen that loophole.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The short answer is yes — the Mining Health and Safety Administration (a branch of the Labor Department) has the power to close mines and hike penalties if officials can identify a “pattern of violations.” Yet, as new MSHA data show (reported here and here), the agency never went that route with the Upper Big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}