House Passes Improvements for Miner Safety

The House has just passed the S-MINER (Supplemental Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response) Act, H.R. 2768 by a vote of 214-199. This bill builds on the MINER Act of 2006 -- providing critical mine safety reforms that were unaddressed in the 2006 legislation. It adds new safeguards for retreat mining, toughens the standards for explosion-proof seals at mines, improves the safety of conveyer belts used in mines, strengthens MSHA's enforcement hand, and strengthens miners' rights by establishing a new Miner Ombudsman. Mining fatalities occur at a rate more than seven times the average for all private industries, exceeding other dangerous occupations such as construction and trucking. Yesterday President Bush threatened to veto the bill, drawing a sharp rebuke from Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, for whom Mine Safety has been a top priority throughout this Congress:

"Congress has been forced to act to improve mine safety because of the Bush administration's total failure to work aggressively to keep miners safe on the job. The Bush administration has never made mine safety a priority, even going so far as to appoint former industry executives to key positions in the Mine Safety and Health Administration -- a clear case of the fox guarding the henhouse. The administration has weakened or rolled back a number of existing mine safety regulations. And now, the White House is offering a series of completely baseless excuses to explain its decision to threaten a veto of this urgently-needed legislation. President Bush should stop playing politics with people's lives and work with Congress to enact mine safety reforms that were left unaddressed by the MINER Act of 2006."

Read more on the bill in our current legislation section >>

Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY-28), Chairwoman of the Rules Committee, spoke in favor during debate on the rule:

Rep. Slaughter: "As a native Kentuckian, and one who remembers vividly the mines -- and particularly the whistles in the middle of the night indicating that something had gone wrong at the mine -- I was touched by that tragegy on a very personal level. It reminded me of not only the dangers of the profession, but also the important role of Congress to do all that we can to ensure their safety. I was simply shocked by some of the disturbing facts that were revealed after just brief review of the evidence. The Crandall Canyon tragedy appears to have been preventable, and the rescue effort handled by the Mine Safety and Health Administration was tragically mismanaged..."

Chairman Miller spoke against the Republican Motion to Recommit, which was defeated and demanded mandatory drug testing and blacklisting, whereas the bill in current form authorizes the government to negotiate drug testing protocol with workers and owners:

Rep. Miller: "This is a very good bill, this is a very good bill, we should not suggest for a moment, because there is no link between the tragedies of the mining accidents last year, the year before, that drugs were involved at all. We have a nutty owner in Utah, but we're not going to test him, we're not going to test that owner who is running around giving all these false reasons to these poor victims and their families as to what happened. So yes, you can talk about baseball but at the end of the day those baseball players, just as they did last season and next season, they'll be playing, and they'll get a warning, and they'll get treatment, and they'll get a second warning, and they'll get treatment. These guys, they get a test and list. It's unfair, it's outrageous, and you should not support it."