MSHA Employees Take Mine Safety Seriously

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MSHA Employees Take Mine Safety Seriously

posted on Feb 20, 2008 05:12AM

http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1261227/diligence_in_daily_work__msha_employees_take_mine_safety/

Diligence in Daily Work: MSHA Employees Take Mine Safety Seriously
Posted on: Wednesday, 20 February 2008, 00:00 CST

By Robert M. Friend

IN its recent editorial "Ruthless: Slashing Mine Safety" (Feb. 13), The Charleston Gazette has distorted the facts about the fine work done by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and maligned every dedicated career employee at MSHA.

Your editorial falsely claimed that MSHA "failed to collect millions in mandated fines intended to discourage unsafe mining." The truth is MSHA assessed fines for more than 99.6 percent of all violations since 1995. Last year, fines reached a record $74 million, up from $25 million in 2000. When we learned that a small fraction of fines had not been issued, we took immediate action to correct the problem.

The claim that the president's proposed budget for MSHA in fiscal year 2009 cuts enforcement is also false. In the FY 2008 budget, MSHA had $20 million dollars in nonrecurring, one-time expenses. This included money for overtime and travel costs so our inspectors could complete the 100 percent inspection plan in 2008, improvements at the Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beckley and other expenses. Excluding those one-time expenses, the president requested $19 million in additional funds for FY 2009 over and above the amount for FY 2008, an increase of 6 percent.

The dedicated employees of the Mine Safety and Health Administration take mine safety seriously. MSHA has implemented 2006 MINER Act requirements in record time; inspectors have written more citations every year since 2003; MSHA doubled fines against law- breaking operators last year; and MSHA recently began to use its most powerful enforcement tool under the Mine Act - pattern of violations - for the first time in the agency's history. We are pleased to see the results. Even though coal production has gone up over the last decade, injuries and fatalities continue to trend downward and have gone down by a third since the 1990s.

These accomplishments are because of the diligent work of the more than 2,100 career employees who make the safety and health of our nation's miners their daily mission. I have dedicated the past 30 years of my life to improving the safety and health of our nation's miners and am proud to work for MSHA as we continue to build a more effective agency to serve our nation's miners. The editorial's tabloid zeal to attack came at the expense of the facts and is a disservice to your readers.

Friend is deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Source: Charleston Gazette, The

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