Editorial: Unacceptable safety record

Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

The Labor Department inspector general has found that the Bush administration's lack of emphasis on worker safety has resulted in lax oversight at the nation's underground coal mines.

The inspector general's report, released Friday, says the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration doesn't have enough inspectors. Furthermore, those it does have didn't document whether "critical inspection activities" were completed in 15 percent of the nation's 731 underground coal mines.

The report includes the inspection of Utah's Crandall Canyon coal mine, where six miners remain entombed following an August cave-in. Three other miners were killed trying to rescue the six.

The report details a deplorable inspection record for MSHA during a period in which three fatal disasters occurred at underground mines. The MSHA inspection records for Crandall Canyon, for example, are dated four months before the actual inspection took place. How can we trust that inspectors have reviewed mine safety conditions in adequate detail when they don't even keep their dates straight?

In addition to the nine killed in Utah this past summer, five miners died in May 2006 in an explosion at Kentucky's Darby Mine No. 1, and 12 miners died in January 2006 in an explosion at West Virginia's Sago Mine.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, told The Washington Post it is unacceptable that the "nation's mine safety agency is failing to do its job."

Such failures have heartbreaking consequences. It is almost too hard to fathom that six Utah miners remain buried under tons of rock, their families never knowing whether they died instantly or drifted away slowly as rescuers worked frantically to retrieve them.

Crandall Canyon mine co-owner Bob Murray has been subpoenaed to testify before a Senate subcommittee Dec. 4. But, as shown by the inspector general's report, poor safety oversight could be a problem at all the nation's underground coal mines. Congress must get a handle on the scope of this problem and direct MSHA to take its job seriously and use more diligence to ensure the safety of these underground workplaces.