{"id":526159,"date":"2010-04-13T07:53:46","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T11:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3282"},"modified":"2010-04-13T07:53:46","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T11:53:46","slug":"w-va-accident-prompts-concerns-about-mining-watchdog%e2%80%99s-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/526159","title":{"rendered":"W.Va. accident prompts concerns about mining watchdog\u2019s bite"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Greenwire<\/a>: The deadly accident last Monday at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in Montcoal, W.Va., has drawn attention to weaknesses in federal mine-safety oversight at a time when the Obama administration hopes to expand the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s<\/a> powers.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old agency can close mines that it considers unsafe or shut down repeat offenders, but it rarely takes those steps. Its fines are relatively small, and the agency often struggles for years to collect them. Federal mine-safety investigators are not formally law enforcement officers, unlike their counterparts at agencies such as U.S. EPA<\/a>, and they lack subpoena power — a basic tool afforded to many federal enforcement officials.<\/p>\n

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, whose agency oversees MSHA, said in an interview that she was concerned by the agency’s apparent weaknesses.<\/p>\n

“We know that there are some areas of the law that probably could be strengthened, and so we’re going to be reviewing those areas — for example, looking at powers to subpoena,” Solis said. “We don’t have the authority to shut down a mine as easily and as quickly as the public might think, and I think those are the loopholes that we want to close.”<\/p>\n

In response to tougher mine-safety regulations implemented in 2006, mining companies have begun contesting more of their citations. The rate of appeals has roughly tripled since then, according to a recent analysis (Greenwire<\/em><\/a>, April 7).<\/p>\n

Though MSHA warned Massey that the Upper Big Branch mine’s safety record was weak enough for the agency to declare a “pattern of violations,” the agency could not take action because Massey contested the violations. The company paid a total of $168,393 last year for violations at the Upper Big Branch mine.<\/p>\n

“Every place I’ve ever worked, safety has been a distant second to production,” said Billy Brannon, a 30-year-old Harlan, Ky., resident with nine years of mining experience. “If you take 30 minutes out of the day doing it right, that takes a lot out of the tonnage of the mine” (Cooper\/Harris\/Lipton, New York Times<\/em><\/a>, April 10). – GN<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Greenwire: The deadly accident last Monday at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in Montcoal, W.Va., has drawn attention to weaknesses in federal mine-safety oversight at a time when the Obama administration hopes to expand the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s powers. The 35-year-old agency can close mines that it considers unsafe or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526159","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\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}