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NEWS & LETTERS, February - March 2007Law shields owners, not minersDetroit--Following the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia that killed 12 miners a year ago, there was a flurry of Congressional and state legislation. Magazines and newspapers and commentators on radio and TV trumpeted the action: Mine Safety Legislation Enacted, Coal Miners to be Protected, New Laws Will Safeguard Coal Miners, Statutes Aim to Cut Coal Mine Deaths, and on and on. The thinking among the public was that Congress and state legislatures had responded to the tragedy by doing something to stop, or at least diminish, the death toll in the mines each year. The new laws called for more effective communication and wireless tracking systems to be installed, for oxygen canisters to last for two hours instead of only one, for extra canisters and emergency safety areas to be available in strategic locations throughout a mine, and for more safety training for miners. Called the broadest Congressional safety law passed in three decades and signed by President Bush in June, it looked like long-needed action had finally been taken. However, what was not in the headlines and reports is that the law will not take effect for two more years, which means that the miners in the nation’s more than 600 underground coal mines will face the same dangers that they have been exposed to for two more years--three years after the Sago disaster. This is obviously the payoff of the business-friendly Bush administration for the coal operators’ support of Bush during the last two presidential elections, without which he would not have been elected. It goes along with past actions weakening environmental laws that now permit mountain-top removal mining and enable mine operators to increase coal-burning atmospheric pollutants. Since the federal law doesn’t go into effect for two more years, mine management can avoid any responsibility for deaths resulting from such failures--and there will be many deaths in the mines due to such failures, even though all of these needed safety measures are readily available today, and despite the coal operators’ claims that they can’t meet the requirements “overnight.” If a coal operator has an order for the equipment required by law, that is considered to be in compliance. Not the delivery of the equipment, but only an order for it. Many operators will wait two years to place their orders and still be within the law, regardless of how long it will take to get delivery. And regardless of how many more miners lose their lives due to these delays. As 2007 begins we hear about two more West Virginia coal miners who were killed in a mine collapse while they were pillaring, salvaging coal from a seam about to be closed down. The law does not protect miners’ lives, but it can protect operators. --Andy Phillips |
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