West Virginia Senate bill eliminates mine safety enforcement

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Updated @wvgazettemail story on big "mine safety" bill pending at @wvlegislature

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WV Senate bill eliminates mine safety enforcement

Ken Ward Jr., Staff Writer March 14, 2017

State safety inspectors wouldn’t inspect West Virginia’s coal mines anymore. They would conduct “compliance visits and education.” ... Violations of health and safety standards wouldn’t produce state citations and fines, either. Mine operators would receive “compliance assistance visit notices.” ... And West Virginia regulators wouldn’t have authority to write safety and health regulations. Instead, they could only “adopt policies ... {for} improving compliance assistance” in the state’s mines.

Those and other significant changes in a new industry-backed bill would produce a wholesale elimination of most enforcement of longstanding laws and rules put in place over many years — as a result of hundreds of deaths — to protect the health and safety of West Virginia’s coal miners.

Opponents are furious about the proposed changes but also fearful that backers of the bill could easily have the votes to push through any language they want. Longtime mine safety experts and advocates are shocked at the breadth of the attack on current authorities of the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training and the Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety.

“It’s breathtaking in its scope,” said mine safety expert Davitt McAteer, who ran the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration and led a team that called for strengthening — not weakening — the state’s mine safety efforts after the deaths of 29 miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine just seven years ago next month. ... Senate Bill 582 is billed as legislation “relating generally to coal mining, coal mining safety and environmental protection.”
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Reach Ken Ward Jr. at [e-mail], 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.

@Kenwardjr @wvgazettemail @wvlegislature because what could go wrong?

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