Morgantown, W.Va. – Dozens of West Virginia and Pennsylvania coal miners protested at a federal mine-safety office Tuesday, demanding stronger safety measures and better enforcement.
A day earlier, a Pennsylvania miner was killed in an explosion, bringing the number of coal-mine fatalities to 42 this year, nearly double last year’s total of 22.
The miners want Richard Stickler, the new Mine Safety and Health Administration chief, to consider 17 proposed safety regulations that were scrapped by the Bush administration in 2001, said Phil Smith, a United Mine Workers spokesman.
Unless Stickler becomes a strong safety advocate, “the deaths are going to continue,” said UMW health and safety coordinator Dennis O’Dell.
Dirk Fillpot, an agency spokesman, said Stickler already has made safety a priority.
“On his first day on the job, he began working on a policy for MSHA inspectors, to help ensure proper enforcement of flagrant violations” of the newly passed mine-safety rules, Fillpot said.
Stickler, who started work Monday, did not attend the Morgantown meeting.
President Bush appointed Stickler, a longtime mining executive, to head the agency last week while Congress was in recess. The Senate twice blocked his nomination amid union complaints that Stickler failed to show adequate concern for safety problems.
In a letter sent Monday to the U.S. Department of Labor, a bipartisan group of senators said the MHSA’s proposed regulations “do not do enough to crack down on repeat offenders, nor do they target many mines with the most dangerous working conditions.”
