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Just days into the latest session of Congress, the House passed a mine safety bill that has put the mining industry at odds with its workers.
The Supplemental Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response, or S-MINER, Act increases safety measures for miners and, in turn, tightens regulation of the industry.
Pushed by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), the legislation would impose restrictions on the sort of retreat mining that was being done at Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, where nine people died in August. It also improves emergency response and requires mines to install high-tech devices to keep track of miners.
A year and a half after the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response, or MINER, Act became law in response to the Sago Mine collapse in West Virginia, miners are looking for another level of protection. However, the National Mining Association fears the S-MINER bill would impede improvements provided by the original legislation.
S-MINER passed the House last month largely along party lines, 214-199, far short of the votes needed for the Democrats to override a threatened presidential veto.
As the bill awaits action in the Senate, both the mining association and the United Mine Workers of America are working to get their issues in front of members.
Mining association spokesman Luke Popovich called S-MINER “completely illogical.”
The mining industry agrees with a dozen mining engineer professors who wrote Miller and other committee members, stating that more time is needed for the safety requirements from MINER to be implemented before changes should be made, Popovich said.
In addition to the academic support, the mining association also has the backing of the ranking Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Buck McKeon of California.
Under the bill, McKeon told the committee, “we run a very real risk of derailing that progress and returning to square one on many critical mine safety issues.”
“Simply put,” he said, “the S-MINER Act abandons the mine safety momentum of the MINER Act and sends us back to the drawing board.”
The mining association agrees, Popovich said. “This would be a distraction.”
The association is banking on little support in the Senate for a proposal offered by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). But just in case, Popovich said the association has made its views known to senators, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
It is also working with state mining associations. While those are not part of the National Mining Association, they do share members, and more importantly, they share an opinion on S-MINER.
Laura Skaer, executive director of the Northwest Mining Association, said the National Mining Association also provides talking points and analysis for the state associations. While there is some overlap, the state associations play a large role in urging their extended members to contact Congress, as they did with the MINER legislation.
The mine workers are using similar tactics to get their message across.
Representing 95,000 active and retired miners, the United Mine Workers of America has an activist list of several thousand members. And it’s urging activists to prepare for the legislative fight that lies ahead, while union representatives are continuing to meet with Senate staffers.
The idea that the association feels this bill could hinder pending safety regulations “is Orwellian speaking at best,” said union spokesman Phil Smith.
“The 2006 MINER Act was all about what happens after an incident takes place in the mines,” Smith said. “What S-MINER is all about is keeping these things from happening in the first place.”
In addition to the retreat mining restrictions, the legislation also would create an ombudsman to gather safety concerns from miners, ensure steps to lower the incidence of black lung disease, allow the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration to be a more effective watchdog and make conveyor belts nonflammable.
No hearing on the legislation has been scheduled in the Senate.
With support falling along party lines, Kennedy may not have the 60 votes necessary to break a possible filibuster. And that, along with the promise of a presidential veto, places the legislation on tenuous ground.
As the mining association is quick to point out, what enthusiasm there is for the bill is not coming from states with coal mining. The union cited Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), along with Kennedy, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), among its allies. But the association points out that Byrd is not a driving force behind S-MINER.
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