For Sago’s Sake, Let’s Get This Right, The Urge to Pass Laws Quickly Often Looks Better Than It Works

AFTER terrible events such as the 2006 deaths of 12 men at the Sago mine in Upshur County, politicians naturally want to prevent such things from happening again.

The understandable impulse to act quickly may look good, but it can produce as much exasperation as progress. That may be the case with the MINER Act that Congress passed following the Sago explosion.

Congress passed the act. The Mine Safety and Health Administration took what Congress mandated and translated it into proposed rules, then took to the road to get public comment on its proposals.

At the Charleston hearing this week, rescue crews said the proposed rules go too far. Industry spokesmen said they could result in fewer rescue teams, not more. The UMW said the rules don’t go far enough.

As Ken Ward of the Gazette reported, current law requires that rescuers be able to reach underground mines within two hours. The proposed rules require response within one hour.

James Murray of Mingo Logan Coal Co.’s Mountaineer Team said response time hasn’t been the issue and the one-hour requirement shouldn’t be applied. Teams have been able to respond when notified, he said. “The issue is notification.”

Ken Perdue of Alpha Natural Resources said MSHA should exempt existing teams from the one-hour travel time requirement. Otherwise, many will have to move or open new stations, disrupting coverage that has been in place for years.

Both men said rescue crews should not be required to train at each mine they cover. Perdue said that rule could result in fewer rather than more rescue teams because it would break up existing teams and add so much training time that members might quit.

Doug Pauley of the Pocahontas Mine Rescue Association in McDowell County said the agency should change its definition of what constitutes a small mine.

These are all useful comments from people who know a great deal about the subject. MSHA officials were sympathetic, but the problematic requirements are not a matter of regulations MSHA can change, but of law, which Congress would have to change.

Members of Congress, in being so specific about issues they don’t understand, could perversely have imperiled emergency responses rather then strengthened them.

That would be a terrible thing to do to miners in the wake of Sago.

(c) 2007 Charleston Daily Mail. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.