6-13-06, 10:12 am

The former coal industry executive who told the U.S. Senate the nation’s mining laws are adequate—just weeks after a series of disasters killed 15 miners—faces a critical vote Tuesday in the Senate, as the Bush administration attempts to make him the top coal mine safety cop.

While Richard Stickler’s nomination to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has been on hold by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) who opposes the nomination, 2006 coal mine deaths have climbed to 33—more than in any full year since 2001. If Senate Republican leaders win a cloture vote to end the hold, they’ll move to a confirmation vote on Stickler. Cloture requires 60 votes, but confirmation needs only a simple majority.

The Mine Workers (UMWA), the AFL-CIO and other workplace safety advocates oppose Stickler’s nomination.

UMWA President Cecil Roberts says:

Mr. Stickler spent the overwhelming part of his career as a coal mine executive….The nation’s miners cannot tolerate another mine executive running the agency responsible for protecting their health and safety. Too often these mining executives place priority on productivity, but fail to focus on miners’ health and safety. Too many times, MSHA has not done all it is charged to do to promote miners’ health and safety.…Miners need someone leading MSHA who makes their heath and safety their number one priority.

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Stickler declined to endorse new mine safety rules, such as those passed by the West Virginia Legislature in January in response to the Sago explosion that killed 12 miners and other mine deaths.

The state’s new rules mandate the development of a rapid response mine rescue system and require all miners to be equipped with tracking devices to give rescuers a better chance of finding them in a disaster. In addition, supplies of oxygen must be placed throughout the mine to supplement the one-hour supply miners now carry. Congress recently passed new federal mine safety rules that include some of the West Virginia improvements.

At recent public hearings, coal industry executives have weighed in against tougher new federal mine safety rules.

“America’s miners cannot afford yet another MSHA director who is ‘on the side of the mine, not us,’” said the AFL-CIO in a letter to the Senate urging Stickler’s rejection.

Stickler’s track record on mine safety is troubling. The mines Stickler managed from 1989 to 1996 had injury rates that were double the national average, according to government statistics the UMWA assembled before Stickler’s appointment to head the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety.

In October, when Stickler was first nominated, Jordan Barab at Confined Space quoted from a letter obtained by the The Charleston Gazette from former UMWA Safety Director Joe Main to Gov. Tom Ridge (R) expressing the union’s concern over Stickler’s safety record:

Not only has Stickler’s focus been solely on productivity and cost, but it appears that management at his mines allowed miners to be placed at a very high risk while he worked toward his focused goals.

How could such a person with this clear pattern of high violations and high accidents even be considered for such an important health and safety position?

Jordan also took a long, detailed look at Stickler’s record May 21 shortly after five Kentucky coal miners were killed in an explosion.

The Bush administration’s move to give MSHA’s reins to a coal industry insider is nothing new.

A Jan. 31 report from the House Education and Workforce Committee Democratic staff examined the adverse impact Bush’s appointees from the coal industry have had on mine safety.

“The Bush administration has stacked MSHA and the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission with mining industry insiders,” the reports says.

In the top 10 management positions at the safety agencies, the report lists eight former coal industry or coal industry association executives. The only top-level administrator in either agency with a connection to workers is a Mine Safety and Health Review commissioner who served as a UMWA attorney. She was appointed by the Clinton administration. The 10th post is vacant.

The House report shows not only are the number of major fines down by 10 percent since the Bush administration took over MSHA, but the median amount of those fines has dropped 43 percent.

Also, since the Bush administration began packing MSHA with coal industry executives, it withdrew 17 proposed new safety rules, including those addressing safety standards for the emergency oxygen devices miners carry. After reports that the devices have not worked properly in recent emergencies and MSHA ignored requests to begin inspections, the UMWA filed a suit to force MSHA to begin the oxygen pack inspections immediately.