Audit faults federal mine inspector training

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration is being faulted in a new government report for doing a shoddy job keeping its inspectors trained.

Veteran inspectors often aren't taking mandatory continuing education courses, among other things, U.S. Department of Labor auditors concluded in the report. And at least once, MSHA sent a new hire who hadn't completed mandatory training.

The agency was in the midst of a hiring blitz during the time of fiscal years 2006-2008 covered by the report. MSHA expanded its inspector ranks by 26 percent to more than 1,000 and trained 350 newcomers. But the Labor Department determined that veteran inspectors weren't kept current. MSHA is part of the Department of Labor.

"Fifty-six percent of the 102 journeyman inspectors we sampled had not completed MSHA's required periodic retraining during," the Labor Department said. "Three of these journeyman inspectors had not received retraining since the inspection of MSHA's training policy in 1998."


Read more: http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2010/april/04/audit-faults-federal-mine-inspector-training.html

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MSHA: www.msha.gov

[DavidDvorkin]

1. The mining industry and Republican administrations always hated MSHA

and OSHA.

Funding was cut as much as possible, and inspectors never got the support they needed when investigating troubled mines.

[Ian David]

2. Heckuva job, Bushies! n/t

[IndianaGreen]

4. We have been under new management for 14 months

What changes have been made in regards to mine safety?

[Old Troop]

3. And the WV mine explosion

that occurred this morning had nothing to do with this negligence, right?