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Jan 23, 2006 10:01 pm US/Eastern
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Lawmakers Critical Of MSHA
by Jon Delano
WASHINGTON (KDKA/AP) ―
Lawmakers pledged to step up federal oversight of the nation's coal mines on Monday and accused the agency that has that job with failing to prevent the deaths of 14 miners in West Virginia.
"Fourteen men in the span of three weeks. These deaths, I believe, were entirely preventable," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chaired the hearing on the accidents at the Sago and Aracoma mines. He expressed anger after the acting head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration left the roughly two-hour hearing halfway through.
"I can't recollect it ever happening before," Specter said of acting Assistant Secretary David Dye's decision to leave. Dye said he had to tend to urgent agency business.
"We'll find a way to take appropriate note of it," warned Specter, who heads the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the mine agency, part of the Labor Department.
Agency spokesman Dirk Fillpot said Dye had to deal with issues involving the West Virginia accidents among other things but that Dye appreciated the hearing's importance.
"It is very common for committees to submit follow-up questions to witnesses after they leave, rather than requiring them to stay," Fillpot said. "At the same time, two of the department's top mine safety experts stayed behind for the purpose of answering any further questions the subcommittee might have."
Specter said he would try to pass federal legislation this year that would stiffen penalties against coal operators that violate safety rules and would require that up-to-date safety equipment be placed in mines.
Specter called for an end to a practice in which coal operators can whittle down fines they receive though an appeals process. As an example, he cited the reduction of fines - from $435,000 to $3,000 - against a coal company in charge of an Alabama mine where 13 people were killed in 2001.
He also said he thinks a fee could be imposed on coal operators - to be used for new safety equipment. "The real responsibility lies with the industry as opposed to the taxpayers generally," said the Pennsylvania Republican.
Witnesses at the hearing debated the merits of new safety equipment. One device available in about a dozen mines allows people above ground to send text messages to miners below.
Dye said the devices had some "problems with reliability," but Davitt McAteer, who headed MSHA under the Clinton administration, said that's not true.
"These devices have proved to be reliable," McAteer said.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, whose father was a coal miner, said he would like to see the text-messaging device along with a tracking device underground that can locate trapped miners.
"Mr. Chairman, you hate to regulate everything, but doggone it if they won't do it we've gotta tell them to do it," Harkin said to Specter.
The West Virginia Senate and House unanimously passed legislation Monday that would require mines to use electronic devices to track trapped miners and stockpile oxygen to keep them alive until help arrives.
"Our company has worked closely with federal and state regulators to make this mine as safe as possible," said Ben Hatfield, of the International Coal Group. ""That effort helped us to dramatically reduce the injury rate at the Sago Mine by nearly 60 percent from the first half of 2005 to the second."
The one-hour oxygen packs miners currently have are "grossly inadequate," Byrd said.
Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said providing more oxygen in the event of an emergency was a top priority.
Officials have said there was evidence some of the 12 miners killed at the Sago mine did use their breathing devices, but the rescue and recovery operation took more than 40 hours.
The mine safety agency began a review of the breathing devices coal miners rely on in the late 1990s, but the agency took that item off its regulatory agenda a few years ago. The agency decided last week to reconsider that decision, and the agency is now seeking public input on the matter.
Under questioning from lawmakers, Dye could not answer why it took agency officials two hours to learn of the Sago mine explosion.
Byrd said Congress must try to "determine what is wrong with MSHA and contemplate how to make sure that the leadership of that agency does its job."
(© 2006 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)