Coal Mining Industry Ducks Punishment For Safety Sins By 'Clogging the System' With Appeals

[babylonsister]

Published on Thursday, April 8, 2010 by ABC News
Coal Mining Industry Ducks Punishment For Safety Sins By 'Clogging the System' With Appeals, Critics Say
Large Mining Firms Like Massey Energy Avoid Tough Penalties By Fighting Two Out of Three Fines

by Matthew Mosk and Brian Ross


Coal mining companies have successfully thwarted tough new safety rules that were intended to help prevent a disaster like the one that killed 25 West Virginia miners Monday, top labor and mine safety officials said, by overloading the regulatory system with appeals.

The companies, including the massive coal producer Massey Energy, which owns the Upper Big Branch mine, developed a novel strategy to respond to more aggressive safety regulations that were imposed by Congress after two deadly mining accidents in 2006, the officials say. The companies now appeal twice as many citations as they did just four years ago.

As federal safety regulators began to impose more fines, the companies responded by contesting the citations. Each challenge chewed up more time and resources. The result is an enforcement system bogged down and behind schedule, said U.S. Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat who began investigating the problem earlier this year.

As the contested cases sit and wait to be reviewed, the companies don't have to pay fines, and they don't face closer scrutiny or risk being shut down -- for having a pattern of violations that put workers in danger.

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