KY Coal industry challenging 80% of serious mine safety violations

The Louisville Courier Journal has a stunning story by James Carroll today detailing how the coal industry in Kentucky and around the country appears to be systematically challenging federal safety violations in order to avoid or delay paying fines for serious violations.

A hearing will be held today in the US House Education and Labor Committee, whose chairman Rep. George Miller was quoted in the article saying, "These appeals are clogging the system and putting miners in danger."

According to the article:

In Kentucky, 80 percent of 536 high-dollar fines for the "significant and substantialâ€ safety violations — the most serious kind — are being contested by the mine operators, according to federal Mine Safety and Health Administration records.

The story goes on to point out that mining companies aren't just challenging the most serious cases, but are appealing less serious citations, and they are challenging repeated violations for the same offense at the same mine. While coal operators are supposed to correct violations as soon as they receive a citation, they can avoid paying financial penalties until challenges are resolved. 

The problem has grown much worse in recent years. According to the story, the industry appealed an average of 2,307 cases per year between 2000 and 2005. That number quadrupled to 9,230 last year, contributing to an agency backlog of more than 15,000 unsettled cases.

The spike in challenges to mine safety violations apparently began under the previous administration. The Courier-Journal story quotes from a letter written by Solicitor of Labor under President George Bush, Gregory Jacob, to the National Mining Association in June of 2008. He stated that there is "a concerted effort to impede the statutory enforcement and penalty assessment process.â€

The entire article is recommended reading.