UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
                              
            MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
                              
       
       
       
       
       Public Meeting:
       
       Mine Safety and Health 
       Administration
       
       
       
       
       
                 
       
         
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       Pages:  1 through 160
       
       Place:  Portland, Oregon
       
       Date:   December 15, 1998             UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
                             
           MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
                             
       
       
       
       
       Public Meeting:
       
       Mine Safety and Health 
       Administration
       
       
       
       
                                     Tuesday,
                                     December 15, 1998
       
                                     Embassy Suites
                                     Oak Room
                                     7900 N.E. 2nd Ave.
                                     Portland, Oregon
       
       
       
       
       
                 The above-entitled matter began at 8:05 p.m.
       
       pursuant to notice.
       
       
       
                 MEMBERS OF THE MSHA PANEL:
       
                 KATHY ALEJANDRO, Chairperson
                 ROSLYN FONTAINE
                 KEVIN BURNS
                 ROD BRELAND                         I N D E X
                             
       
       
       PRESENTERS:                                            PAGE:
       
       RICH ANGSTROM                                             8
       
       STEVE MOATS                                              20
       
       BOB POTTS                                                63
       
       PETE ZAGAR                                               85
       
       DAVID GRIFFIN                                            88
       
       ED SINNER                                               112
       
       MIKE FALLON                                             121
       
       JOCK DALTON                                             135
       
       DAVID CHAVEZ                                            142                   P R O C E E D I N G S
                                                 8:05 a.m.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  My name is Kathy Alejandro, and I
       am with metal and nonmetal mine safety and health with the
       Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department
       of Labor, and on behalf of the Mine Safety and Health
       Administration, I would like to welcome you to the fourth of
       seven public meetings on regulations for miner safety and
       health training.  These meetings are intended to give
       individuals and organizations, including miners and their
       representatives and mine operators, both large and small, an
       opportunity to present their views on the types of
       requirements that will result in the most effective miner
       safety and health training.  These regulations would apply
       at those nonmetal surface mines where MSHA currently cannot
       enforce existing training requirements.
                 I would like to take this opportunity to introduce
       the members of the MSHA panel who are here with me this
       morning.  To my left is Rosalyn Fontaine of the office of
       standards, regulation and variances with MSHA.  To my
       immediate right is Kevin Burns, who is also with metal and
       nonmetal mine safety and health.  To my far right is Rod
       Breland who is the western operations manager of the newly
       formed educational field services with MSHA.  
                 Since 1979 MSHA has been guided by a rider to its
       appropriations.  The restriction currently states:  "none of
       the funds appropriate shall be obligated or expended to
       carry out section 115 of the Federal Mine Safety and Health
       Act of 1977 or to carry out that portion of section
       104(g)(1) of such Act relating to the enforcement of any
       training requirements, with respect to shell dredging, or
       with respect to any sand, gravel, surface stone, surface,
       clay, colloidal phosphate, or surface limestone mine."
                 In the Omnibus Budget passed by Congress on
       October 21, 1998, MSHA was directed to:  "work with the
       affected industries, mine operators, workers, labor
       organizations, and other affected and interested parties to
       promulgate final training regulations for the affected
       industries by September 30, 1999.  It is understood that
       these regulations are to be based on a draft submitted to
       MSHA by the Coalition for Effective Miner Training no later
       than February 1, 1999."
                 MSHA expects to publish a proposed regulation in
       the Federal Register sometime in the early spring of 1999.
                 The regulations that MSHA will be developing must
       include the minimum requirements in section 115 of the
       Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977.  To summarize
       those requirements:  Section 115 provides that every mine
       operator shall have a health and safety training program
       that is approved by the Secretary of Labor and that complies
       with certain requirements.  Section 115 specifies that
       surface miners are to receive no less than 24 hours of new
       miner training, no less than eight hours of refresher
       training annually, and task training for new work
       assignments.  Section 115 also requires that the training
       cover specific subject areas; provides the training is to be
       conducted during normal work hours at normal rates of pay;
       requires that miners be reimbursed for additional costs they
       incur incidental to this training; and provides that mine
       operators must maintain miners' training certificates and
       furnish such records to the miners.
                 In addition, MSHA is looking for suggestions and
       comments as to how best to achieve effective miner safety
       and health training consistent with the Mine Act, including
       any additional requirements that should be included in the
       proposed rule, and most importantly, why.
                 Three public meetings were held last week on this
       subject in Northbrook, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; and
       Albany, New York.  Other public meetings have been scheduled
       in three other locations in the coming weeks, including
       Ontario, California, later this week; and Dallas, Texas, and
       Atlanta, Georgia, after Christmas.  These meetings are
       intended to give as many individuals as possible and
       organizations an opportunity to present their views.  
                 This meeting will be conducted in an informal
       manner, and a court reporter is making a verbatim transcript
       of the proceedings.  Anyone who has not signed up in advance
       to speak at the meeting and who wishes to do so should sign
       up on the speakers' list, which is currently located on this
       table, but I'll be asking if there's anyone here who wishes
       to speak who has not signed up.  We also ask that everyone
       who is here today, whether or not you wish to speak, to sign
       the attendance sheet which I believe is now back on the
       little table in the back of the room.  
                 Anyone who wishes may also submit written
       statements and information to us during the course of this
       meeting, and we will include this as part of the record when
       a proposed rule is developed.  You may also send us written
       comments after the meeting has concluded if you wish. 
       Although there is no formal deadline for these written
       submissions, I would encourage you to submit anything that
       you wish to be considered on or before February 1st of 1999
       to insure that your opinions are taken into account as we
       develop the proposed rule.  Although we are most interested
       in what you have to say to us, we will also attempt to
       answer any questions you may have to clarify the process and
       the purpose of this meeting.  
                 We are specifically interested in comments on
       certain issues and certain areas, although we certainly
       encourage you to comment on any issue related to miner
       safety and health training at currently exempt mines.  These
       issues were outlined in the November 3rd Federal Register
       notice that announced the schedule of public meetings, and
       I'm going to summarize these issues briefly for you now.
                 Should certain terms, including "new miner" and
       "experienced miner" be defined?  Which subjects should be
       taught before a new miner is assigned work, even if the work
       is done under close supervision?  Should training for
       inexperienced miners be given all at once or over a period
       of time, such as several weeks or months?  Should
       supervisors be subject to the same training requirements as
       miners?  Should task training be required whenever a miner
       receives a work assignment that involves new and unfamiliar
       tasks?  Should specific subject areas be covered during
       annual refresher training?  If so, what subject areas should
       be included?  Can the eight hours of annual refresher
       training required by the Mine Act be completed in segments
       of training lasting less than 30 minutes?  Should the
       records of training be kept by the mine operator at the mine
       site, or can they be kept at other locations?  Finally,
       should there be minimum qualifications for persons who
       conduct miner training?  If so, what minimum qualifications
       are appropriate?
                 I would now like to introduce the first speaker
       this morning.  We ask that all speakers state and spell
       their names for the court reporter before beginning their
       presentation.  Thank you very much. 
                 We have one speaker signed up this morning,
       although I certainly hope that others of you in the audience
       will choose to participate.  Mr. Rick Angstrom from OCAPA
       has signed up to speak.  Mr. Angstrom, could you -- I mean,
       you can either work at the podium or if you'd prefer to sit
       down and -- okay, great.
                       RICH ANGSTROM
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Good morning.  My name is Rich
       Angstrom.  I'm the managing director for the Oregon Concrete
       Aggregate Producers Association, and with me is Steve Moats. 
       He works for Morris Brothers, and he'll be here helping out
       in answering any questions that you might have during the
       course of the discussion.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Great.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  OCAPA is the local trade
       association that deals with the sand and gravel industries. 
       We work with the legislature and the different government
       agencies in promoting our industry and working with them on
       regulations, et cetera, as they come down, and obviously,
       we're also an association that does an awful lot of training
       for the membership.
                 Safety, obviously, is one of the most important
       aspects of life in general but certainly for the miners and
       mining industry.  Nobody -- as I've gone around and talked
       to folks and have attended various meetings with MSHA,
       education or, excuse me, safety has always been a primary
       focus for our membership here.  Unfortunately, we've had a
       few deaths within Oregon over a period of years, one not too
       long ago that happened to one of our members, and these are
       things that we want to avoid happening and have appreciated
       working with MSHA and some of the training activities that
       we have to effectuate that.
                 One of the things I did want to say to this group,
       Oregon, we've kind of done -- we've been working with MSHA
       in providing an annual training course for the members. 
       Last year we did one that had about 250 attendees in it, and
       it covered a range of topics that MSHA and OCAPA and our
       membership put together and thought was important.  One of
       the things that we want to make sure that happens, as you
       folks look at the rule -- and I've read through the rule,
       and I think it allows for this, as you define operator, and
       it would include associations for training -- is to allow
       the Oregon model to continue to happen.  
                 For the annual refresher course, it's actually
       been a pretty good tool.  We work with the MSHA folks, and
       we set up training seminars around the state, so the
       operators don't have to travel very far, and it's more
       accommodating to them.  We don't do it as a profit or as a
       profit center for the association.  We do it to basically
       cover costs, and it's a service to our members, and that's
       because of our commitment to the safety of the mine workers
       out there.  So to recap that point, it's important that as
       you guys develop the rule that you leave it open enough for
       different associations and different folks to be able to do
       training.  
                 I understand that there's no question that the
       initial training for the employee really needs to be at the
       site.  He really needs to be out there and have the walk
       around and have the hands on at the particular location. 
       The benefit for the different state associations or, for
       that matter, maybe even some states may choose to hire --
       you know, have a private -- one of the educational services
       out there do the training, but in the initial phase, we all
       agree that the miner needs to be out there walking around
       the site and see what the hazards are and have the pointed
       out to him and have those kinds of orientations done.
                 I think it would be very helpful, as I've thought
       about this topic, to have -- and one of the things that
       hopefully you can get some funding for as you develop this
       is have a videotape or something like that put together for
       the miners out there to go through certain hazards that they
       need to look for.  You know, it doesn't need to be an eight-
       hour videotape, but certainly a videotape that the different
       employers can show their new miners to help in the
       orientation process.
                 I think one of the difficult challenges that you
       folks have is you have mines of all different sizes, and you
       have the really small ones, and I mean literally we have
       some folks here that are one or two or three mine operators
       that are members of ours.  They're sitting right here.  And
       then we have operators that are the biggest in the state and
       growing, and it creates a particular challenge for you guys
       in devising a set of rules that's fair.
                 When you think about the small folks that are out
       there, when you require an eight-hour annual training, you
       essentially shut down that operation for a day, and that's
       pretty expensive, and we're a margin business obviously. 
       It's something that you folks need to balance out when you
       come up with these rules and be sensitive to the fact that
       some folks can absorb that a lot easier.  Others it's a
       little more challenging and be patient in working with
       folks.
                 I wanted to say one thing is I've been a
       prosecutor for the last eight years, and I have a very rich
       experience in enforcement, and when you start talking about
       enforcement, there's many ways of approaching enforcement,
       and I can tell you as a young DA, boy, I went by the book. 
       I actually have the experience of being a forest practices
       officer, so I actually was kind of in the police officer's
       role for a while, also, but, you know, I just went by the
       book, and I hammered everybody as they came in, and it was
       pretty blind to where people were at and their condition.  I
       think as I matured and moved up the ladder -- I ended up
       being a senior prosecutor, and I've handled everything from
       aggravated murder cases all the way on down -- is you get a
       little different sense for people's perspectives of where
       they're at in life, and not every enforcement -- it doesn't
       always have to be -- it can be tailor made for the
       individual.  
                 When we're talking about training and especially
       when you start talking about enforcement of training, which
       is what this is going to ultimately lead to, we only have
       some general comments on the actual proposals, but obviously
       if our folks don't comply with those rules, there's going to
       be enforcement aspects of it that come from it.  My concern
       is what I've been seeing in this particular state is a less
       desire to work with the membership or the miners and help
       improve mine conditions and more just slap down any citation
       no matter how trivial it is.  You know, in a sense, I'm
       worried that we're going to see that with the training end
       of it, too, and I would hope that there would be some
       direction or guidance from Washington down to the local
       folks that you really do need to decide when there is a
       really significant violation.  I know substantial and --
       significant and substantial is the criteria, but it appears
       to me that one of the things, if you're really trying to
       promote safety and trying to work with folks to promote
       safety -- and what we're talking about here is saving lives
       -- that if there are small violations out there that folks
       have a period of time to correct them before they come back
       and are rechecked, and if they haven't fixed those minor
       violations, then they get the citation.
                 Obviously if somebody has a significant and
       substantial safety violation that they should know, there
       should be no excuse, but I've seen citations coming in and
       members talking about that for things that have been
       overlooked in the past for years, and all of a sudden we're
       having folks getting cited with 144 citations for not having
       covers on light bulbs that are, you know, 40 feet in the air
       in the shops and things like that.  What it's doing is it's
       creating a very harsh atmosphere.  It's starting to become 
       -- instead of a cooperative effort in promoting safety, it's
       becoming us versus them a little bit, and we want to move
       away from that and back to the more partnership type of
       issue or type of relationship.
                 I know when you wear all hats, when you're the
       enforcement agency and you're the regulator, it's very, very
       difficult to do that.  As a matter of fact, in this state we
       tend to have separated out some of that.  We have examples
       where that's not the case.  Like DEQ, they wear both those
       hats, but, for instance, in the fish and wildlife area, we
       have the enforcement provision, and then we have the
       regulatory provision, and they keep them separate, because
       it's hard for a regulator to wear that hat and develop the
       relationships and to help improve safety out there when they
       come in and they wear that OSP or that cop hat at the same
       time, and our folks know that.
                 So I know that this again is coming back -- at
       some point it's going to come back to enforcement, lifting
       that and making sure people do the training, and I think
       that's appropriate, but I think that you need to engage
       common sense and understand you have big operators, you have
       small operators, you have new miners, you have people that
       hold hats, and that the enforcement person needs to have a
       little bit of perspective and discretion out there in
       looking at where things are at.  There are some things that
       you have to be very consistent on, and obviously,
       significant and substantial violations are things that need
       consistency.
                 As far as the rules themselves, I've had a chance
       to read through them, and I think they actually are very
       good.  It sounds like you guys have done a lot of work
       talking with folks in the mining industry to make sure that
       the proposed rules for training are well thought out and
       many sides taken into account, and I can tell some of that
       appears to have already been done.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Are you talking about the draft?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  The draft rules.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  That's the earlier draft
       from the Coalition.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I'm talking -- oh, is that -- okay.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  We haven't actually -- MSHA
       has not developed anything, but there have been a couple of
       drafts from the Coalition, which is the organization that is
       going to be submitting their final draft proposed rule to us
       before February 1st.  So I mean, we're, you know, charged by
       Congress to use that as a basis for the proposed rule that
       we come up with, but we did not actually -- MSHA did not
       develop what you've got.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Right.  I had -- was it a
       resolution from Congress that's in the back here?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Okay.  Yes.  I read that, and I
       thought that this was something put together.  As a matter
       of fact, I thought it had some language in there that it was
       supposed to be done -- the second sentence, "The conferees
       are pleased that the industry, the Coalition for Effective
       Minor Training, MSHA, both acknowledge that the current
       training regulations do not address" -- I'm not sure exactly
       where it's at.  I thought this was a more of a joint -- some
       kind of joint --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  No, no.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Joint document.  Well, it's a good
       starting place.  Let me just say that.  Thank you for that
       clarification.
                 One of the things, as I've talked to our
       membership, that we want to make sure happens, and that is
       the paperwork issue.  We spend a lot of time filling out
       paperwork for all sorts of agencies, and what we don't need
       is a whole bunch more paperwork to fill out, but what we do
       need is we need some consistency in the paperwork.  So when
       Dalton Sand & Gravel that's right over here fills out the
       form, it's the same form that Morris Brothers fills out
       that's sitting next to me, and that's going from your small
       to your big, and I think that's going to be -- one, it's
       fair to all the folks.  
                 One of the things from the business side that's
       very important is we like to know what's expected of us and
       to have all the rules kind of laid out, so there's no
       ambiguity in those kinds of things.  
                 So the comment that I've been hearing is at least
       that the paperwork needs to be consistent among the
       operators and that it would be best -- and I don't know if
       this is something -- how you guys would do this, but we
       think it would be something that you folks would put
       together since you're going to be developing the rules.  The
       paperwork to report at the same time should be developed at
       the same -- along at the same time.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Are you talking about the actual
       forms?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yeah, that the folks would be
       filing and putting in the employee file.  As I read through
       this at least -- and I'm going from this --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  -- is where my comments were based. 
       There's lot of requirements that paperwork be filled out for
       this activity or this training or that training, and
       frankly, if you think about it, if you're going to come in
       and you're going to enforce some kind of training rule,
       there's got to be some way to be able to do that, right? 
       And what needs to be done there is consistency, and
       hopefully you guys would do that, so you don't have a bunch
       of forms.  
                 What you'll find is you'll have some folks that
       will have real elaborate forms and some folks that will just
       fill something out handwritten on a scrap piece of paper and
       throw it in the file some place, and I think that would be 
       -- I think that would lead to some enforcement problems as
       well as some consistency problems in making sure training is
       done uniformly around the state.  
                 The one thing is on the -- referring to this
       again, that there be compliance within 60 days -- let's see,
       the 24 hours would be -- 24-hour training would be done
       within 60 days, and the first eight hours would be done
       before the person is put out on the site, and the remaining
       16 would be done sometime in that 60-day period.  
                 The comments I've heard on that issue -- and you
       think kind of wearing your employer hat, and I came out kind
       on the government side, and we had our probation period for
       six -- you know, it was kind of that six-month period.  You
       didn't know if you were going to be on or be off, and people
       during that probation period tend to -- when the probation
       period is up, usually you have a good sense of who is going
       to stay and who is not, and that tends to be the time where
       people are let go.  Sometimes, you know, it's not going to
       work out earlier than that.
                 It would be an expense, and it seems to me that
       the best approach to that would be within the reasonable
       probation period.  I know some people have a year.  I don't
       know if that's reasonable, but I certainly think six months
       to get that other 24 hours or 16 hours of training in so the
       employer knows that he's going to actually keep that person
       on board.  Now, he can do it sooner than that if he knows
       this is a good employee.
                 What you do, do by doing that, you may have kind
       of a collateral effect of having an employer making a
       determination, well, you know, I'm going to waste two more
       days and pay this guy for nothing, and instead of working
       with the guy, you know, the new employee and trying to, you
       know, see if it's just kind of a new -- you know, he's new
       to the mining industry and it's taking him a while to get
       on, they may make some decisions earlier.  They may not be
       as fair to the new employee himself.  So it appears to me
       that a probation period, it needs to kind of match that
       probation period, and 60 days, that seems kind of arbitrary
       and odd.  I don't know what your guys' thoughts were on
       that.  That might be useful for the folks here to know what
       the thought process was on that.
                 The other thing on that is that the timing of this
       rule is fairly important, and to take someone out for two
       days during June when the construction season is booming is
       one thing to finish off the training.  It's another thing to
       do it in January and February when the rains come and we're
       all kind of sitting a little bit idle, and frankly, that's
       how we try to do our programs here at OCAPA is during that
       idle time, so we're not disruptive in the mining process. 
       When this rule comes into effect in September, all of a
       sudden you're going to find that folks are going to have to
       start complying within 60 days getting those 24 hours in
       right in the -- that really is the heat.  I mean, you know,
       usually you got all of those construction projects getting
       backed right up into September, October, November.  You
       know, everything gets kind of mad in the construction
       industry right around that period of time, and then to pull
       somebody, you know, basically -- and I got to say this, too. 
       When you pull someone out, give them training, you know, it
       may six people to run a crew for a mining operation.  You
       pull a person out to do that, you shut that operation down,
       or you're going to have to do, you know, some other -- find
       some other alternative to that, but there is that kind of
       collateral consequence, and folks just don't have extra
       people hanging around to come in for someone, you know, for
       the training period.  
                 Let's see, I think I covered my points.  I wanted
       for just a second just to ask Steve Moats sitting next to me
       if I've left out anything or if he's had any comments.
                        STEVE MOATS
                 MR. MOATS:  The only -- speak down here?  My
       comment would be in that new miner training would task
       training be in addition to the 24 hours of new miner
       training?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I mean, I think that that's
       generally the way that we've looked at it traditionally, I
       mean in part 48, is that there's specific requirements for
       initial training, 24 hours, eight hours of annual refresher
       and then task training on top of that for new tasks.  So I
       think that, you know -- I mean, we can talk about it, but I
       mean, I certainly have been thinking this task training is
       something that's separate and apart from annual refresher
       retraining.
                 MR. MOATS:  Okay.  Are you going to get the rest
       of these, certification of trainer?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Go ahead.
                 MR. MOATS:  The other question that comes to mind
       is certifying our trainees.  If we truly go site specific --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. MOATS:  -- obviously we have to have what you
       bring up, competent trainers --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. MOATS:  -- and would that be training sessions
       through your people through your training education that
       you're going to bring into Oregon?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Well, I mean, that's wide open, I
       mean, because the Act itself does not have minimum
       requirements for qualifications for people who provide
       training.
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  So as far as, you know, when we're
       talking about this rule, I mean, we've got a lot of
       flexibility, and I can tell you -- I mean, in the three
       meetings that we've had up till now, I mean, we've had a
       pretty wide range of comments.  Some people believe that the
       model ought to be what's done under part 48 right now, which
       is, you know, formal approval, instructor approval process. 
       I mean, other people have been very strong in saying that
       they think that the best training is going to be given by
       those people who are on site who are familiar with the
       operation, and then if you impose too many requirements on
       people, you know, in those categories, then you're going to
       make it very hard for them to give effective training.  And
       I mean essentially -- I mean, you're saying -- you know, you
       could say that it's a competent person, and there's no
       formal approval process.
                 MR. MOATS:  Right.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  So I mean, it's really been all
       over the map.  So I mean, you know, we would appreciate you
       addressing that issue.
                 MR. MOATS:  One of the things that we've done --
       and I can't speak for everybody in here, but we went through
       supervisor training with your people in early nineties, and
       we have been putting on this function since '90, and your
       people have signed -- we have two basically qualified
       trainers in our company that have been signed off by your
       people, and our question is obviously if we go to each site
       and we got to incremental training, that's a full-time job
       for one or two trainers for as many sites as we have.  So,
       you know, if you compound that in 30-minute increments over
       a course of the year for refresher training course, you
       know, times that by 16, like I said, that is going to be
       very difficult.  
                 So I would encourage MSHA to put on a certificate
       of training course for the supervisors so that we can do --
       so we are qualified and competent in task training and
       documentation and be more site specific if that's the way
       that we choose to do this.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  All right.  Do you have
       anything else?  I've got a couple questions actually if you
       have nothing further.  
                 MS. ANGSTROM:  I'm done with my list.  
                 MR. MOATS:  Go ahead with --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Excuse me? 
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  You had a question?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Oh, okay.  Mr. Angstrom, you said
       that your organization provides annual training for your
       members?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Right.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Is it annual refresher training
       for miners?  Is that what you're talking about?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  What we did last year, because of a
       couple of deaths that happened and I think a request from
       our members, is we put on a training course in combination
       with MSHA that lasted a day throughout various parts of the
       state, and total there was 250 miners that attended it, and
       it was a good way of dealing with -- from our perspective, a
       good way of dealing with the annual requirement that MSHA or
       under -- that's in the rules themselves.  I know they're not
       being enforced, but it's within the rule, and my point was
       that what we didn't want is for you to adopt a rule that
       would prevent that kind of thing.
                 It's easy for the state association, who
       represents a broad spectrum -- and we have like 95 percent
       of the folks within our association -- to hit a broad -- you
       know, hit a broad number, a broad -- we could have a broad
       coverage working with MSHA and the state association, and we
       bring in speakers and do all of those kinds of things to
       cover certain topics that are worked out, whether it's
       through a committee or with MSHA themselves.  We sit down
       and talk with the different operators what seems to be of
       issue.
                 For instance, I think I brought a copy of it. 
       It's probably sitting back there, but I actually brought a
       copy of the agenda from our last -- let me just, if I might,
       hand you guys a copy of this.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Sure, yes.  We'll put it in the
       record.  
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I only have four copies.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  That's all right.  
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  And, you know, these topics would
       change obviously from year to year, you know, whatever seems
       to be the hot issues around the country.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  But it's a good way of just
       covering -- you know, getting to a whole bunch of folks, and
       this was the first year we did it, and we had 250.  I'm sure
       -- and we're going to continue.  As a matter of fact, we've
       got other programs scheduled that start, I think, in
       February, either in January or February.  You know, we're
       starting do other mine safety programs, the next year
       series, and what we do is we tour around the state, so we
       don't just do it in one isolated location, and we go to
       different places so it's convenient for the folks to come
       in, and, you know, they're close to home.  They don't have a
       lot of travel time and expenses renting hotel rooms and
       things of that nature.  It's working out very well.  What we
       don't want is something -- for some rule to prevent that.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I guess that was my next
       question.  Just out of curiosity, I mean, what kind of
       requirement were you thinking might preclude that?  I mean 
       --
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Well, I noticed in here that it
       doesn't seem -- it seems like when you talk about parties
       eligible to conduct training, you've included associations
       of mine operations within that.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  And I think we're covered, but, you
       know, that's draft.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  So you're basically saying
       -- I mean, to the extent that the rule lists out who is
       eligible to provide training that you don't want it to be so
       restrictive to make it impossible for you to do the kinds of
       things that you've already done?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  You know, there's lots of
       collateral benefits when the state associations work with
       MSHA.  That's kind of that partnering, you know --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  -- and just kind of pulling in the
       same direction, and it's a lot better than head butting, and
       it just creates a better atmosphere for the miners in
       general.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  I had a couple of other
       questions, and I'm sure that other people on the panel have
       a couple questions.  You indicated that you believe that the
       initial training -- and I guess you're talking about the 24
       hours of initial new miner --
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Right.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  -- training -- was best provided
       at the mine site.  I mean, are you saying all of it should
       be provided at the mine site, I mean some component of it
       should be, or I mean, are you saying the classroom training
       is not an important part of the initial miner training?  I
       guess I'm just looking for you to -- 
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  No, no.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Can you expand on that?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  We're not -- this is just -- I'm
       speaking from my perspective and after visiting with folks,
       and I'm sure there's lots of different perspectives out
       there.  What I'm saying is that a large component of that
       initial 24-month or 24-hour training component needs to be
       at the site.  The person really needs to be out there
       walking around looking at stuff, having the hazards pointed
       out to them, sitting down meeting, you know, who the staff
       are and who folks are and what's, you know, the command
       system for that particular company.  
                 Some things like if it's the first aid training
       and those kinds of things could be done elsewhere --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  -- within that 24 months, but, you
       know, we're all sensitive to the fact that if you're going
       to -- if you're really talking about saving lives and
       preventing injury, it needs to be out there where the person
       can kind of see what's up and have that kind of hands on
       with the staff at the mine itself.  
                 On that question, do you have any --?
                 MR. MOATS:  I'd just like to add one thing for the
       small miners is for our staffing, we have a training
       education department corporately, and it's easy for us to go
       through the orientation and documentation process for the
       initial eight hours, and after that, it's more of a
       supervised, hands-on training at the site.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. MOATS:  You know, pertains to their job, and,
       you know, talking with some of the smaller operators, they
       don't have anything.  So, you know, this is why Rich is
       asking on behalf of all of us miners here in Oregon that we
       have consistent, formal documentation that we can all fill
       out that your inspectors, when they come on site and they
       want to see our paperwork, we're all on the same page.  So I
       would hope that we would do that.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  Actually, my next question
       is on that issue.  I mean, you seem to be saying, you know,
       you want a standard form so everybody knows what the
       requirements are and there's no uncertainty and its
       consistent.  I mean, there are others who would argue that
       they want the flexibility, you know, to come up with their
       own method of keeping records, and just so long as it's got
       the minimum information that the rule might require, it
       doesn't really matter.  They like to have, you know, the
       ability to keep their records the way they choose.  I mean,
       do you have any comments on that?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  It can be both.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  You know, obviously somebody -- if
       you guys devise a form to have folks fill out that covers
       all of those particular criteria --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  So you're looking for us maybe to
       give you all a form that you can choose to use if you want
       to but you don't have to?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  If the operator chooses not to, he
       still has to comply with the requirements.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  And that doesn't mean that forms
       aren't evolutionary, and you wouldn't take comments and
       maybe see a way of reducing paperwork that the operators
       over time would come up with.  I mean, that's good
       government from our perspective, but, you know, so if the
       company is large enough and doesn't like the type of bond
       that you put your form on that they could choose to do it
       differently as long as they cover all of the criteria that
       are listed in the rule, but I think where I'm really getting
       at is I don't think you're going to -- the big operators
       like maybe Morris Brothers, who has a training person, may
       do that, but I can't tell you Dalton Rock would use your
       form.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I can tell you a lot of the smaller
       folks would use your form because they know it's safe.  They
       know if they fill it out, they're going to be protected.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right, right.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  You know, they're digging rock. 
       You know, the smaller guys are out -- they're the miners. 
       They're the owner, operator and miner all at the same time. 
       It's a little different in the bigger companies.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I have one more question, and
       there may be others from the panel.  You touched on the
       issue of, you know, once the rule is published and our
       deadline is September 30, 1999, then, you know, there's
       going to be some time for the industry to come into
       compliance, and that is one of the issues that has come up
       at some of our earlier meetings, how long beyond the date of
       the publication in the Federal Register of a final rule
       should we allow for the industry to come into compliance
       with whatever rules we come up with.  Now, obviously, that's
       going to depend to a certain extent on what these final
       rules look like, but I mean, just as a general matter, I
       mean, do you have any sense for what an appropriate time
       period compliance deadline would be for these training
       rules?
                 (Pause.)
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yes.  We kibitzed on that issue. 
       It seems to me -- because the discussion I talked about
       earlier about the timing of September 1st or 30th or
       whatever it was --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  The 30th, yes.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  -- is not great timing from the
       industry's perspective --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  -- but the 1st of March would be an
       appropriate time.  It would give the folks at least the
       winter, and really it should be done, you know, the end of
       December, January, February time frame.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  So you're talking at least six
       months past or about six months past the date of
       publication?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay, all right.  I don't have
       any.  Do you?
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes, a couple.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay, Kevin.
                 MR. BURNS:  I guess a couple things.  I looked
       through your seminar format, and I think it looks pretty
       good, and I certainly think we don't want to discourage this
       sort of training.  As a matter of fact, I think we want --
       most people would want to encourage this sort of training. 
       Now, Rod can probably address this better because he's going
       to be in charge of the education field service group for
       MSHA.
                 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE:  We're having an awful hard
       time hearing.  
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.  Real tough?  Okay.  And I'm
       sure Rod would -- like I said, he can address that, but I
       would envision this as the sort of thing that Rod's group
       wants to do.  Is that correct?
                 MR. BRELAND:  Yes, that's right.  
                 MR. BURNS:  So we're certainly not going to
       preclude that, because this is really something that I think
       -- if this went on everywhere, I think we would be very
       happy, so I like that format, and whoever participated in
       putting that together, you know, I commend them, because I
       think it looks very good.
                 The issue of the new miner training and occurring
       at the mine site, I think we would certainly encourage that,
       and that was pretty much envisioned in the Mine Act, also,
       if you look at the discussion.  They talked about the
       importance of training the miners in the environment in
       which they're going to work, and I agree with you there are
       certain things that can be done in the classroom and maybe
       better in the classroom like first aid or things like that. 
       Certainly miners' rights can be done in the classroom, but
       in reality, almost everything can be done at the mine site
       and done effectively.  So we're not going to discourage
       that, and I think in a lot of cases that's the most
       appropriate place to do it.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Well, I want to -- can I make a
       comment on that?
                 MR. BURNS:  Sure.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I'll probably get in trouble from
       some folks over this comment, but there's a difference in
       learning abstract and hands on, concrete, concrete learning. 
                 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE:  Very quiet.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Okay.  I'm sorry.  I'll yell.  I'm
       trying not to get myself in trouble, so I tone down.  
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes, there you go.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  You won't get yourself in trouble.
                 MR. BURNS:  I worked for an association, too, so I
       understand where you're coming from.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Many of the miners are -- you know,
       they're not -- how do I want to say it?  They're not the
       most sophisticated folks in the world, and they're not
       abstract thinkers from my hands-on dealing with a lot of
       them, and I'm not talking about necessarily the owners, but
       the guys that are actually out there, and that hands-on
       learning is going to be the most effective way of teaching
       them that, teaching them the material that they need to know
       to protect themselves.  It's one thing to learn in a
       classroom, but as we all know -- I don't know if this is on. 
       This is as loud as I can talk.  
                 As we all know, you know, the problem with
       classroom learning is folks' attention span and how long you
       can put them in a room, in a closed room and show them
       things where they're going to really learn the material and
       be able to apply it.  That's one way of learning, you know,
       and I'm not very good that way, frankly.  The best way for
       me to learn is to see someone do it and get out there with
       my hands and do it, and, you know, the classroom thing, you
       know, you got to cover that stuff, but I can tell you the
       retention of that is the first ten minutes, and people
       really wane after that.
                 MR. BURNS:  I agree.  I mean, you can talk about
       blind spots as much as you want in a classroom, but it seems
       to me if you take someone and put them in a haul truck or in
       some sort of loader and let them actually see what that
       person can see, even if that takes five minutes, that's much
       more effective than talking about it for an hour for most
       people.  It would be for me.  So I agree with that.
                 I guess -- and I think Kathy covered most of what
       I wanted to talk about.  I guess one of the things I'm
       hearing is that you would recommend that the proposed rule
       include the records -- the format for the records that will
       be required so that people can comment on that.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yes.
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.  And naturally, I personally
       don't see anything why we couldn't put a form in there that
       someone can fill out if they wish, you know, with a pen or a
       format that someone can put in some sort of data base system
       on their computer, and it would spit out the same
       information.  So I think that's also what you were
       suggesting, and that would also allow one operator to know
       what -- you know, if they're hiring somebody that works
       somewhere else, they have a better idea of what that person
       actually had versus right now they really don't know.  I
       imagine some people retrain miners just because they're not
       really confident what that person had in the first place.  
                 As far as the effective date, I guess there's a
       number of effective dates that I would envision through this
       final rule.  One would be, you know, when would you have to
       have a plan and instructors and something put together, and
       then there would be an effective date to have the eight
       hours completed, and it seems to me that we couldn't say you
       don't have to train new miners for a year.  I mean, I just
       don't imagine that we could say that.  I don't think -- I
       don't necessarily think that's what people were suggesting. 
       Is that accurate?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yes, that's accurate.  It would be
       -- you couldn't -- when somebody comes on as a new miner,
       they need that initial training right up-front.
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.  I just wanted to clear that up. 
       It is a -- I mean, it is a broader issue than just saying
       six months, because there's all kinds of other elements
       involved at least the way I see it.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  One of the things that -- I'm glad
       you said that, because, you know, I hadn't quite separated
       out in my mind that there's all the different effective
       dates, too, and there are.
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  And one of them that Steve was
       telling me about on the way down here is well, when this
       goes into effect, when do you have to get that annual
       renewal in.  Do you got until next September 1 before you --
       or September 30th before you have to get that done, or do
       you have to get it done within, you know, that short time
       period after the law goes into effect?  That annual
       refresher course, you know, when is the time for folks to
       get that done?  Do they have a year from that point to get
       that in for the experienced miner?  I don't know.  I mean,
       we would think it would be a year.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I mean, obviously, that
       would be something that would have to be specified, you
       know, made pretty clear in the rule as far as, you know,
       what point do these requirements kick in and what, you know,
       time frame are you talking about, so that needs to be
       addressed.
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes, and we've asked that at some of
       the other hearings.  I think, you know, we want to try to
       share what we heard at the other hearings, too, or at the
       other meetings.  Sorry.  But we asked the question of some
       of the state grants people, and they indicated that they
       really could not do -- some of the states grants people
       indicated that they could not do the annual refresher
       training in 90 days for everybody in the state, so we're not
       looking to overburden the system, and I don't want to -- I
       wouldn't envision having an effective date for the various
       things that would make it more difficult to do the new miner
       training for the new miners, because I think that's the most
       important.  So I think based upon what we hear, we're going
       to have come up with a good logical reasoning, you know,
       behind these effective dates.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  One of the things I think that will
       help -- one of the things that I think will help facilitate
       that is while you're in the development phase of this that
       the field folks at MSHA are out there working with folks and
       looking at the training programs that they have -- some of
       the folks have in place, and, you know, you can start that
       transition.  It doesn't have to be September 30th.  It could
       be in the interim here from February 1 on, and I think the
       folks at MSHA, the field folks out there or their
       supervisors, should be open to looking at different training
       programs that some of the members do have and see if that
       would be -- if they would comply with the rules that are
       being proposed, because that certainly gives those operators
       that are already having training programs in place a chance
       to change those and get them into compliance with what the
       rule will be way beforehand.  
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.  I think that's a good comment,
       and I think we ought to do that, and I think Rod is probably
       going to be doing that.  I hate to speak for Rod, and I
       don't want to plan out his next year's work.
                 I just wanted to answer one of your questions.  As
       far as, you know, where did the 60 days come from, you know,
       for the final 16, when part 48 was proposed, it was proposed
       to require 24 hours before they started work, and the 60
       days -- the best -- I could not find any real, you know,
       rational reason why that 60 days came up, but it was
       suggested in the comments or in that rule making that
       perhaps 60 days should be allowed to finish the following
       16.  I'm reasonably certain that it's not based upon any
       sort of research or anything like that.  It was a number
       that some group came up with, and it was agreed upon in part
       48, but originally part 48 as proposed did not allow any --
       it required the 24 right up-front.  I don't know if that
       helps you out.  That is where it came from.  It came from
       the part 48 rule making.  
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I kind of suspected it might have
       been some kind of compromise discussion, because I would
       envision that folks would want the 24 hours, you know, right
       up-front, and it just appeared that 60 days was arbitrary
       and probably was a compromise from what would have made
       sense.  I mean, what makes sense to me is you either do it
       up-front or you do it within the probation period.  Both of
       those have rational explanations for them. 
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Sixty days doesn't.
                 MR. BURNS:  If I remember correctly, the
       probationary period and turnover was part of the rationale
       for that 60 days.  I can pull out the record and send that
       to you if you want, but I'm pretty sure that that was what
       was discussed in the rule making, that that 60 days was
       needed because, you know, the person may not even work for
       more than a week, and you shouldn't be training somebody for
       three days when they might not make it through the week, and
       that was part of the record I'm fairly certain.
                 I guess your suggestion is that 60 days doesn't --
       maybe that was true 20 years ago, but today it's more -- the
       probationary periods are more like six months.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yes.  I mean, you know, labor law
       is such that people have a reasonable period of time, and
       the employer should have a reasonable time to work with the
       individual to see if he's going to be somebody he's going to
       keep before he makes a bigger step and investment.
                 You know, some folks say -- I think it's
       interesting to listen to the discussion.  Some folks thing
       24 hours is not a lot of hours, and then there's other folks
       -- and I tend to fall in that camp -- that aren't so far
       from college who remember having three-hour courses through
       the whole semester where I didn't put 24 hours into them,
       and they were pretty intensive, and actually 24 hours of
       course work is hard.  The hard part of making it all up-
       front, I think, from the learning perspective is if you make
       it all up-front and you crowd it in too much, you reduce the
       person's ability to learn it, and sometimes hour blocks are
       a lot more effective training, and that's why we -- you
       know, that's why we train people on hour blocks than having
       24 hours, three days -- you know, the first three days kind
       of thing.  
                 In this kind of scenario, if you stretch it out,
       you could -- the person could do it in -- or the company
       could do those 24 hours over that six-month block and put
       them into those hour kinds of segments where they can work
       it into their schedule a little bit better and actually have
       a lot more effective training.  I mean, nothing is worse
       than sitting at a three-day seminar and hoping that the
       coffee pot is full, and I noticed you guys didn't have any
       back there.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  No.  We don't have the budget for
       it.  
                 MR. BURNS:  We weren't planning on this lasting 24
       hours.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes, that's right.
                 MR. BURNS:  If it does, we'll have to get some
       coffee.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. BURNS:  I guess on that matter, if Morris
       Brothers or someone through your association -- if you have
       some sort of outline on new miners' training, how it could
       be spread out over that period of time, I think that would
       help if you submitted that to the record rather than just,
       you know, discussing this in the abstract.  I think that
       would be very helpful, and it should help us in formatting
       the proposed rule.  
                 MR. MOATS:  Kevin, we have always encouraged MSHA
       to participate in helping us put together these annual
       refresher training courses.  We have a full-fledged video
       department.  You know, I recommended to John Widows the
       other day that if it -- we were talking about this
       documentation, and if they needed assistance that we would
       help provide that if needed, because we do clearly want
       everybody to be on the same level of enforcement as us folks
       but on the same -- like I said before with the small miners,
       it's very difficult.  A lot of the small miners are owner-
       operators, so it is tough for them.  
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I think I said 24 month again, and
       I meant hour.
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  We understand.  Yes, we
       understand.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I said it a couple times.
                 MR. BURNS:  That's all right.  I've done that
       myself.  Once you start making a mistake like that, it just
       keeps coming back up.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  It keeps coming.
                 MR. BURNS:  I'll turn it over to Rod.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Yes, I have a few things I'd
       like to follow up on.  One, you mentioned, Mr. Angstrom,
       early that you were suggesting we might follow the Oregon
       model.  Is that a -- do you have a formal model that you're
       talking about, or is that --
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Well, it's not a -- I don't know if
       I would call it a formal model, but I think it's a good
       recipe of how MSHA and industry can work in a cooperative
       fashion, and I think that's a model.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I think anytime you have a public-
       private partnership that's effective and it's training 250
       people its first time out in a cooperative effort, you have
       a recipe for a good model.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay, thank you.  Was this the
       February session was the first time that you had a joint
       effort between MSHA and industry?  
                 MR. MOATS:  No.  We've done it for three years.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  First time I'm aware of it.
                 MR. BRELAND:  I'm sorry.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  You have that history.
                 MR. MOATS:  We've been actually doing joint
       ventures with MSHA for, I'm going to recollect, clear back
       five, six years ago.  At first we did it in-house with our
       own people and you folks, and then we opened it up the last
       two years to all the miners.  We were somewhat criticized
       even in-house from our people for allowing other operators
       being that we were the ones putting on the training session
       with MSHA.  So actually the history behind this is we've
       always asked MSHA to participate in our training seminars
       but not be the trainers.  In the last three years we have
       asked them to put on a portion of the training, and I'd like
       to clear that up, but last year was the first year that we
       partnered with OCAPA and MSHA only that put on four
       different seminars last year throughout the state.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  You did four of them last
       year.  I see this list.  I agree with Kevin Burns that this,
       you know, looks like a good agenda, and it looks -- I
       recognize some names, and some I don't, so does that mean
       there was a mixture of industry and MSHA personnel
       instructing here at the presentation?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yes, there was.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay, that's good.  Also, I remember
       from a visit out here a few years back that Morris Sand &
       Gravel did have some training programs that were pretty
       advanced, I thought, for what I'd seen around the country in
       some areas, but you also had a mentoring program if I
       recall.  Is that how you foresee tying in the spreading out
       of some of this training, the 24-hour training?
                 MR. MOATS:  As a mater of fact, we just had a
       discussion last week at our managers' meeting that we have a
       mentor driver, top drum program that is through our ready-
       mix department.  We are truly going to expand that into our
       crushing facilities, our mine properties.  It's just a
       start.  It's not that we have been lax in our training at
       our company, but we want to take it to the next step.  We
       want to get videos, do more site specific and more emergency
       response type actions that we haven't really done a lot in
       the past.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Do you presently do tracking
       or documentation of the training that people receive and
       keep a record of it?
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes, we do.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  I'm just kind of following my
       notes along as this discussion came out.  One of the things
       that came up some was on the enforcement issue, and, of
       course, my particular group would not be in enforcement,
       this educational field service group, but the issue you
       brought up about some discretion and some guidance, do you
       have some suggestions that you're talking about from an
       enforcement perspective that you're proposing to make?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Enforcement tends to be -- how it's
       applied tends to be an individual -- tends to be tied more
       to the individual than one might think.  There's no question
       that the laws are such -- and they're probably shades of
       gray within them and interpretations within them, but really
       from my experience in enforcement, what I've seen is that
       every officer that's out there doing enforcement handles
       situations differently.  Some are very command and control,
       and some are very compassionate in how they deal with
       things, and I'm not saying one way is right or one way is
       wrong.  
                 I will say that if you take a posture that you're
       going to make an us-versus-them kind of situation, you're
       going to -- it's going to be a lot tougher to achieve your
       goal, and hopefully the goal is to improve safety and
       protect lives out in the mine, and, you know, there's the
       old analogy, it's easier to draw a bee to honey than it is
       to vinegar, and I can tell you that this is a group of folks
       that perceive those kinds of -- that kind of mentality and
       enforcement as a challenge, and they get very defensive and
       loggerheads, you know, with the agency, and those things
       spill over into all the other activities.  That relationship
       spills over everywhere.  It will spill over into education. 
       It spills over to the regulatory folks, and it's not a very
       good way of partnering with an agency that should -- it's
       chief role should be regulatory and achieving the results,
       you know, the result of getting folks trained and help with
       -- improve safety out there.
                 Let me say this, because I think this will be a
       little clearer if I say it this direction.  There are
       probably about 80 percent of the people will do what's right
       because it's the right thing to do.  There's going to be
       always 10 or 15 percent are going to do what's right because
       there's a law that says you have to do it.  There's always 
       -- no matter what you do, there's always going to be 5
       percent of the folks that you're going to have take
       enforcement.  Enforcement is a very important component of
       any regulatory scheme.  It's just the way human nature is.
                 I spent the last eight years dealing with the 5
       percent, so, you know, it seems like -- at that point it
       seemed like that was the majority of it from my perspective,
       but I know in reality that's not the case.  
                 If the agency takes a perspective that 100 percent
       of the population out there requires enforcement, they're
       going to create a problem for themselves as well as really
       not achieving the message and achieving the goals that
       should be priority to them, and so the enforcement person
       that's out there in the field needs to understand that and
       needs to understand when it's time to come down on somebody
       that needs to be come down on and when it's time to say,
       hey, listen, we've got two weeks, get this fixed, I'm going
       to be back, and if it's not fixed, you're going to get a
       citation, you know, something of that nature.  Still you're
       doing your job but achieving the safety perspective that you
       need, and then everybody walks away from that feeling good. 
       We've achieved the goal of putting that cover over that
       light bulb, and we did it without having to do an
       enforcement action with whatever -- I know it's not court
       time, but court time, you know, with all of those collateral
       expenses that go along with it, and the partnering that you
       do with the operator is tremendous.  You'll get a lot more
       from him in the long term as far as cooperation and help
       than if you take that necessarily strict enforcement
       perspective.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Well, just to follow up on it
       a little bit.  I wasn't really addressing some of the safety
       issues that you might have been issued citations on.  You
       think maybe we're a little too restrictive.  We're looking
       at this rule as trying to make it as performance oriented as
       possible allowing flexibility.  That makes a lot of areas
       subjective, and that if we get into an issue of compliance,
       if you have thoughts on that like certain subjects may be
       not acceptable not to have been done, certain subjects we
       could allow more time that would carry a lesser kind of
       violation or there's a difference in say issuing an order
       for somebody on training for an issue that's not maybe 
       safety related but part of the required subject, if you have
       thoughts on that, you should put that in, you know, and
       submit that.  That's what I was talking about.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I would, and I'll do that, but I
       think I'm going to wait till you guys actually have your
       draft rule --
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  -- and then I'll make those
       comments, because then I can actually sit down and say, you
       know, here's going to be your gray area where people are
       going to get into a rub, and you need to think of how you're
       going to handle that from an enforcement perspective.  Since
       this is not your draft rule, it would be premature to
       comment.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Another issue that you didn't
       bring up was on training plans and any submissions or not
       you had about the paperwork issue on being consistent.  Do
       you have thoughts on training plans being at the mine sites
       submitted, not submitted or what?
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I'm going to turn it -- do you have
       thoughts on that, Steve?
                 MR. MOATS:  Rod, could you clarify that?  I don't
       quite understand what you're --
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, presently under part 48 there
       is a requirement to submit training plans for approval and
       that you train in accordance to those.  Any training program
       would have to have some sort of outline.  I assume you have
       an outline.  You have subjects that you cover that go even
       beyond the requirements of the Act or present part 48.  So I
       guess the issue I'm asking is that do you have an idea what
       you would do about submitting your training outline, plan,
       whatever you would want to call it?
                 MR. MOATS:  You know, once, again, we're working
       with the MSHA folks.  We at least at Morris Brothers have
       always asked for their assistance, because who makes better
       trainers than the people that are enforcing the regulations,
       so that helps us.  It also brings the awareness up of what's
       out there, what are some of the hot topics that are
       happening not only in Oregon but through the nation.  So I
       think we have been the front runners asking for approval, is
       this good enough, is this good enough, and the response that
       we get back is that we don't have any formal training
       outlines, guidelines, you read the book as well as I read
       the book, but surely we definitely would like to help
       develop a training program that would satisfy your needs and
       our needs.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  There's an opportunity there again
       for you folks to -- as you put together all of this stuff,
       to kind of come up with what maybe you think might be the
       model training plan, something fairly simple to give the
       smaller operator something to go from.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I mean, there is a -- I
       think Rod is trying -- well, I may be mistaken, but I mean,
       there is the issue of MSHA approval.  I mean, the Act
       provides that the program, the training plan shall be
       approved by the Secretary of Labor, and so there's an issue
       there, well, what exactly should that look like.  I mean,
       we've heard people say they have no problem with submitting
       a plan for approval to MSHA, to the district manager up-
       front.  Other people seem comfortable with the idea of, you
       know, putting in what you need to put in, in your program,
       and then when the mine inspector comes to the mine site, I
       mean, he could take a look at the plan at that point and
       make a determination as to whether it looks like it fits the
       bill or not.  I mean, obviously, other people are
       uncomfortable with the idea of, you know, different
       inspectors at different times coming in and making a
       subjective determination.  So I don't know whether that was
       --
                 MR. BRELAND:  Yes, that's where I was head.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  And one thing and some suggestions
       have been that we might provide say a generic outline or
       guide --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. BRELAND:  -- for you to follow where you
       augment that with more site specific needs whether it be the
       task training or some other site specific kind of issues. 
       So you should be considering that when you're looking at
       trying to reduce paperwork or make things consistent and
       avoid too much objectivity with somebody else that comes
       along, so that's why I was bringing it up.  
                 MR. MOATS:  I'd like to add one more suggestion is
       definitely from our standpoint at Morris Brothers we would
       not like to have it be Oregon MSHA/Morris Brothers' plan. 
       We would like to incorporate all the miners that wanted to
       participate in a formal training program that would -- I
       mean, I don't know these folks out here, but there's a lot
       of other people that are doing training, too, so it's not
       just to exclusively have us help MSHA in any program.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  And then another issue on the
       paperwork where you talked about the guidelines -- and I
       think Kathy addressed it pretty well on the flexibility. 
       We've had some people suggest that they could E-mail or fax. 
       The fact is we are in the process of developing an
       electronic training plan that will be available on the
       Internet, available with inspectors probably, certainly with
       our educational field people, where they could help a small
       operator, you know, fill in a plan that could be submitted
       and copied for them and that type of thing, but that whole
       issue needs to be thought about what goes back and forth and
       whether it should be deemed approved if you're following
       generally the guidelines, you know, so that's an issue you
       have to consider.
                 One other thing on the delay or what we call the
       8-16 split that we presently have now for the 60 days to
       complete the 24 hour.  I did hear you say that eight hours
       up-front would seem reasonable.  Are you talking about if
       that's at the site actually assigning?  Typically an
       individual would be under close supervision the first eight
       hours.  Some minimum things that they had to be covered? 
       I'm not sure I understood what you meant.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Go ahead.
                 MR. MOATS:  I can only speak for our company, but
       the first eight hours of training is basically a supervised
       -- I mean, this individual doesn't even lift a finger that
       day, so it is solely eight hours of training to fulfill all
       the requirements under part 48, which they are now.  Also,
       my understanding is that part 48 is going to be altered --
       the alteration is going to be under part 46 now.  Is that --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  The intention is -- I mean,
       we're not taking part 48 and amending it.  I mean, we're
       starting a whole new part, separate part for the exempt
       industries, I mean, and it's going to be separate and apart
       from part 48.  I mean, we have been getting some suggestions
       from some people saying there are certain things in part 48
       that they like and they want us to carry over, but, you
       know, aside from the minimum requirements in section 115, I
       mean, we're pretty much starting from scratch as far as what
       goes in there.
                 MR. MOATS:  The only other comment I'd like to
       make, Rod, is eight hours in even one setting in a new
       miner, it goes right over the top of his head.  It's more --
       even though you have initial eight hours of training, the
       next 16 hours is refreshing his memory of what you just
       trained him in eight hours, plus the individual job duty and
       responsibility that that individual is going to have.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, yes.  I want to make it clear
       that we're up here being objective about it.  We're not
       saying it should be eight hours.  We're asking what you
       think because you had talked about an initial eight hours
       seemed reasonable, but I wasn't sure what you meant.  Is
       half of that going to be site specific?  Is there going to
       be some formal subjects covered like classroom type and then
       some field or at the mine?  You know, that would be
       something that the industry as a whole would need some
       flexibility on, but it would have to be addressed.  I mean,
       the small two-man sand and gravel that's hiring a seasonal
       employee may have to treat that different than a large
       company with a fairly formal program.
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  So that's what I was getting at.
                 MR. MOATS:  I personally like the flexibility of
       the incremental training.  I would hate to cut that out and
       the remaining 16 hours, but if it was for the full 24 hours
       in a given period of time, we're definitely open for that. 
       We probably -- the only way we would change our policy is if
       it was mandated by law.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  I'll try to pin you down one
       more time.  Are you saying that you don't propose any set
       hours prior to actually going to the mine site for training?
                 MR. MOATS:  I say -- I personally would speak for
       our company.  I would say, yes, you have to have a certain
       amount of set hours, especially for a new miner.  In our
       opinion, it's --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Well, how much would that be?  I
       mean, and just to put this in context, I mean, at some of
       the other meetings, I mean, we have people coming up and
       saying there isn't that much to our operation.  I mean, you
       know, eight hours before you get started working, I mean,
       that's, you know, too much for our particular operation.
                 MR. MOATS:  For the things that we cover outside
       of -- I would say we need a minimum of four hours for our
       group to go through our orientation, and then the rest of
       that is -- you know, it's location, you know, site specific,
       just hop in the pickup, these are the boundaries, but, yeah,
       as far as our classroom, it's a four hour.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. BURNS:  I guess I didn't want to -- if other
       people here, you know, have an opinion on this, because I
       think this has been an issue that's been discussed quite a
       bit at the other meetings, and just following what's under
       part 48 now, it says provided eight hours of training, shall
       in all cases be given the new miners before they are
       assigned work duties, and then it states, the following
       portion shall be included in the eight hours of training,
       introduction to work environment, hazard recognition, safety
       and health aspects of the tasks to be assigned.  Okay.
                 Now, what was suggested at some of the other
       meetings was that -- you know, particularly a real small
       sand and gravel operation that what's stated in here for
       eight hours in their particular operation may only take two
       hours to do it effectively, and so we really haven't heard
       enough, I believe, from the really small operations.  So I
       would really like to hear from some of the small operators
       here how -- you know, what they feel is appropriate to do
       effective training versus -- because what we would like in
       the end is that the compliance training is the same as the
       effective miner training, and in order to do that, I think
       we really do need to hear from the smaller operators.  I can
       only try to envision what it's like working with my three
       brothers and figuring out how I'm going to train them, but
       it would be helpful if we hear from those people with that
       in mind, that if you're going to have someone sit in the
       classroom for eight hours -- I mean, if that's the way rule
       came out and they're just all glassy-eyed after two hours, I
       don't think we've achieved anything except for compliance
       training.  
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes.  Kevin, I might add one more
       thing to the draft that I seen, and I would agree with that,
       that first aid, I think, should be pulled out of that,
       because it is a lengthy training class, and for new miners,
       you know, we have people on board.  I think we all have
       people on board that are first aid trained, CPR trained.  I
       agree with that.
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  You mean as part of the initial
       training that's given before they can start work or just as
       part of the initial miner training at all?
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes.  I'd like to pull it from the
       initial training --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes, because I'm thinking that
       that's one of the -- that's in the Act.  I mean that first
       aid --
                 MR. MOATS:  Okay.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  -- is one of the subjects that's
       in the Act, and I don't -- you know, I mean, if it's in
       there, I'm pretty sure it's --
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes, it is.
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes, it is.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  You know, we are in a position
       where we would need to include it, because I mean, it's in
       the statute.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  In the -- I got the statute in
       front of me, and it talks about the 24 hours of training and
       includes the first aid.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  I don't know if folks actually --
       how many folks have gone through the first aid training. 
       I've done it several times.  It's a big course.  
                 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE:  It's eight hours.
                 MR. ANGSTROM:  Yes.  It takes a day.
                 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE:  But that's a third of the
       component if you're going to do it right.  
                 MR. MOATS:  For the first go around.
                 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE:  That's right.
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes.
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.  And I guess along what you
       suggested, it was suggested at some of the other meetings
       that that first aid not be required before they start work,
       but it could be better if they wait till there's a scheduled
       class where there's a lot of miners from various mines that
       can attend that and get that first aid training from someone
       that's really qualified to do the first aid training rather
       than just get it from whoever is the best person at the mine
       who may not be that good as a trainer on that particular
       subject.
                 MR. MOATS:  Right.
                 MR. BURNS:  Is that what you're suggesting, too?
                 MR. MOATS:  Yes, and first aid training is
       required under part 56 but not for every miner.  So maybe a
       company chooses not to train everybody that works on the
       mine property.
                 MR. BRELAND:  One of the things you might consider
       in the comment period is -- as Kathy's pointed out, that's
       in the Act, and we would be obligated to pay attention to
       what's in the Act, but you could say what you would think
       would be an appropriate amount of the kind -- even if it's
       an introduction into first aid, as a part of that initial
       session, and it might be an overview of what they ought to
       be planning to take, and these are just things you've got to
       consider, because we can't choose to ignore requirements in
       the Act when we're developing the rule, but that would be
       helpful if you have some ideas on it.  
                 There are some short versions.  I mean, Red Cross
       does a two-hour course, I think.  There are some shorter
       versions, and it might be something to consider and just
       think about that.
                 One other thing on the issue of the 8-16 split is
       the turnover issue with a lot of seasonal operations, and I
       think you've hit on that a little bit where you have your
       down period of time in the winter months.  Do you have a
       feel for your industry or at least your company?  What kind
       of turnover do you have?  Do these people work year round,
       most of your employees, or do you have some that typically
       come every season, or do you have a kind of regular turnover
       percentage that are new to the company ever year?
                 MR. MOATS:  At least speaking for Morris Brothers,
       we have only a few operations that shut down seasonally six
       to eight weeks, but outside of that, I can't speak for these
       people.
                 MR. BRELAND:  So you're pretty steady.  That's
       fine.  You only can just what you know.
                 And then one other thing on the competent person. 
       You talked about you have presently two within your own
       company that are certified or approved MSHA instructors, I
       assume.  Were you proposing that based on somebody's job as
       say a site foreman or superintendent or whatever you call
       your person-in-charge at the mine that they be designated
       competent or defined to do instruction?
                 MR. MOATS:  I'm going to let Rich here define
       "competent," but if you tag the responsibility to a
       supervisor, that supervisor may have only been with you a
       short period of time, and that's difficult for him to be
       specific to our operation.  So we -- well, I mean, we don't
       have a whole lot of turnover, but I can see that if we just
       tag a foreman, supervisor, superintendent or location
       manager -- but "competent" has been a very loose term even
       from your enforcement people.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, what have you -- I mean, when
       I say "competent," have you got an idea how you would want
       to select or qualifications you would expect for somebody to
       be able to do the instruction?  I might have been misleading
       you when I said a superintendent.  That's kind of what a lot
       of people tend to go to, but if you are to select somebody
       at a site as a person that the operator would consider
       competent to teach these subjects or maybe they have some
       portions they can do and others, would you have some way of
       expecting that they demonstrate that they can teach?  A lot
       of times a very experienced equipment operator is not a good
       instructor.  On the other hand, lesser experienced might be
       a very good instructor, so that's what I'm getting at.  
                 MR. MOATS:  For the industry, "competent" works
       well for us, because -- but if it's -- but from a practical
       standpoint, MSHA used to put on a supervisors' training
       course that -- there are probably people in here that have
       attended that, and it wasn't a certification training, but
       they actually put on a supervisors' training course that
       helped describe some of the areas and responsibilities of
       the supervisor, and that's becoming more of a fear in our
       people.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  And then just one other
       thing.  You said that you thought we should help with a
       supervisory type course, and I guess that follows up on
       that, but just to clarify, you know, we think that we should
       be helpful, and especially this educational field service
       group will be out there, but we're going to be a small
       group, and there's no way that we're going to be able to
       provide all the training.  We would hope to provide a lot of
       guidance, but we wouldn't be able to replace and do the
       training that everybody is going to need, but providing
       guidance is something we'd like to do.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay, thank you very much.
                 Is there anyone here who would like to speak? 
       Okay.  I think what we're going to do is take a 15-minute
       break before we -- and when we come back, you know, think
       about maybe things that you would like to comment on.  We'll
       give you a short summary of the other issues that have come
       up at the other meetings, and also, if you have not signed
       the attendance sheet in the back, I would ask you to do so,
       and I will also bring the speaker sheet back if you decide
       you want to sign up and speak.  
                 (Short recess.)
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Back on the record.
                 The next speaker who is signed up is Bob Potts of
       Welson Construction.  Mr. Potts, when you come up, could you
       spell your name for the court reporter?
                 (Pause.)
                 I guess there has been at least one person who has
       asked for the address where to send in written comments, and
       we can give -- if you need the address -- if you've got a
       copy of the Notice of Hearing or Notice of Meeting -- and I
       believe there were a couple copies back there, but maybe
       they're gone.  The Office of Standards, Regulations and
       Variances at MSHA in Arlington, the address is given there,
       and that is the address to send it to, but if you don't have
       a copy of that notice or you don't know the address, I mean,
       just feel free to come up to the -- you know, whatever this
       is, this table, at a break or at the end of the meeting and
       we'll give that information to you.
                 Mr. Potts?
                         BOB POTTS
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.  My name is Bob Potts, B-o-b 
       P-o-t-t-s.  
                 I just had a couple of short questions about the
       training rider.  One is I'm not a very eloquent speaker. 
       I'm a crusher hand.  I don't --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  That's okay.
                 MR. POTTS:  I don't talk very well in front of
       people, but, for instance, we're a highway contractor
       running two portable rock crushers.  Be doing, for instance,
       a seven-mile highway job, the rock crushing would be the
       mining, actual mining of the aggregates, the production of
       the aggregate makes up 30 percent of the job.  
                 The way I understand the rider, for instance, a
       theoretical situation, a loader operator, my stockpile
       operator doesn't show up that day, I could not go over to
       another part of the operation and pull an untrained loader
       operator and mine trained loader operator off that operation
       and bring him into the crusher without having at least a
       prior eight-hour training course with him, mining training
       course.  Is that correct?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I would say no.  I mean, at this
       point no, because the question that we're going to need to
       answer as we develop the rule that would apply to that
       operation is we've got -- I mean, 24 hours of initial miner
       training has got to be given to your miners.  I mean, that's
       something that has got to be in the rule because that's
       something that's in the Mine Act, but how many -- one of the
       issues that we need to address is how much training -- you
       know, I mean, whether it's an hour's or subject area, if
       any, needs to be given to a miner before he actually starts
       working an operation.  So I mean, the Mine Act doesn't set
       any minimums for that, but part 48 currently requires eight
       hours of training before a miner can start work, and one of
       the questions we have to answer here is, do we, you know, go
       along with that eight hours that's in part 48, or is there,
       you know, a lesser number of hours that we're going to
       require, or maybe we just, you know, forget about hours
       altogether and, you know, talk about, you know, covering
       certain subject areas.  So I guess -- you know, I don't know
       whether that answers your question, but that's sort of where
       we are right now.
                 MR. POTTS:  I feel those are questions that need
       to be addressed, and --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Do you have any -- I mean, do you
       have any particular opinions on that?
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes, I do.  Most reputable highway
       contracting companies that I worked with -- I've been in the
       industry for approximately 20 years now -- will not take an
       incompetent person and trust them with a half a million
       dollar machine such as a loader, dozer.  So normally those
       people have training on the equipment before they ever step
       on a mine site, or maybe they got the training at a mine
       site.  I know our company is very -- we're very safety
       orientated, a safety program already in place with half hour
       toolbox safety meetings roughly given by a competent person. 
       Would that act as part of the 24-hour training if it could
       be given in a year's period?  
                 We have the problem with turnover, as you guys
       were stating earlier, where one of our next jobs will be on
       the Utah border from Idaho to Utah.  The nearest cities are
       Salt Lake and Portland, basically, Salt Lake and Twin Falls. 
       To go onto -- for instance, we're on a portable plant.  We
       don't always know for sure what each operation, mining
       operation is going to entail until we are there.  For one
       instance -- for one source and instance, we may use one
       loader operator.  For the next source, it may be six truck
       drivers, so a company such as ours, I foresee you have to
       have trained a large amount of people for the versatility to
       go to different areas and different sources.  We'll move a
       plant nine times, ten times a year.
                 I can understand the eight hours training. 
       Personally, I'd like to see it approximately two to three
       hours of a classroom type setting and then close supervised
       work for the next five hours with some record taking of that
       to where -- that's more task specific, and then the next 16
       hours being covered in a safety meeting type situation where
       you are covering the broad band of topics, the miners'
       rights, and it could be an ongoing thing.  One person that
       may be on the site may not get his full 24 hours in a year
       because he may only be on site two months; for instance, a
       truck driver that going to stockpile, we may use him for two
       months in that operation.  Then he may be on a highway crew
       for nine months hauling dirt to a fill site. 
                 Short of training everybody in the company with 24
       hours of MSHA training, shutting down and giving them 24
       hours up-front, I don't see the feasibility of being able to
       not have an ongoing training program such as a half hour
       safety meeting given by a competent person.  
                 I know in our operation now I'm the supervisor for
       them.  I have to have eight hours OSHA competency course,
       16-hour crane certification, about 16 hours a year first
       aid.  So basically in a year's time I have about a week and
       a half of training through different organizations, so I can
       work, and a confined spaces course given by OSHA.  
                 I feel personally that MSHA -- maybe the competent
       person should have an eight-hour course or something to say
       these are the topics that need to be discussed, so that us
       being as a competent person knows what the topics are.  
                 As somebody brought up earlier, I see a lot of
       enforcement personnel from MSHA.  There's a large varying
       degree of what is and isn't right.  So if something is
       mandated, it needs to be black and white, this is what you
       need to do.  I've looked up on your Internet site your first
       aid, for example.  If you look at that on the Internet site,
       it says you'll learn how to bandage and access your
       emergency response systems and et cetera, et cetera, et
       cetera, and this is what you'll be taught in your first aid
       course to be certifiable for first aid.  If this is
       mandated, this is what I feel we need.  We need to know what
       needs to be there for us.
                 There's safety, and for what I see, safety in a
       mine situation varies greatly from one mine could be water
       problems.  You'd have to address water.  There's maybe high
       walls.  Portable plant, we get to see a lot of different
       things in different areas, and each side is site specific,
       and it's usually up to the competent person during a safety
       meeting or during the time you're there, as they see
       problems arise that have to be addressed, they should be
       pulling the crew in on their weekly safety meeting and
       saying, hey, you know, these high walls have to keep it berm
       or the life vests are by the ponds, wear them.  Whatever
       needs to be addressed at a certain mine, I think that
       training is more important than pulling a miner in or an
       operator into a meeting and saying, here's your 24 hours
       training, now go to it.  To me, it's far more important to
       be on the site and say, you know, there's a high wall, if
       you don't keep a berm up, you're going to fall asleep and
       back off of it and die.  That, to me, is more important than
       being able to show somebody videos, and they're going to
       sleep through half of it and say I got 24 hours and good-
       bye.  
                 That's about all I had.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Mr. Potts, I've got a couple
       questions.  You didn't raise this issue when you were
       talking about your site, but it's an issue that's been
       raised by other people in some of the other meetings.  Do
       the people who are -- some or all of the people who work for
       you, do they get training required by OSHA regulations?
                 MR. POTTS:  The OSHA regulation, as far as I know,
       is that there shall be a competent person, OSHA-competent
       person on site.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. POTTS:  On all job sites.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  All right.
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes, our company has an OSHA competent
       person on all job sites.  I'm one of them.  I probably go on
       an OSHA -- take care of an OSHA job site once a year, but,
       yes, I am card carrying, and yeah, that's the way our
       company feels.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  But the employees don't get OSHA
       required training?
                 MR. POTTS:  They get safety meetings weekly.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  How long are those usually?
                 MR. POTTS:  Usually last a half hour.  Some show
       videos.  We tried to put together in our job site books a
       52-week program, basically 52 topics, because I know as a
       supervisor in the field, sometimes you can only talk about
       fire extinguishers so long, and so we have some tools that
       have been put out -- I don't even know where we got them --
       that help give these half-hour meetings.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I mean, do your employees
       typically, I mean, you know, spend time on mine sites and
       also spend time on, you know, construction sites, OSHA
       regulated construction sites?  Do you have a lot of
       intermixing?
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes, we do.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. POTTS:  And that's where I see our biggest
       problem coming in.  For instance, as I came off a job and we
       moved to a new site, instead of using one loader to
       stockpile off a crusher, I'm now using six truck drivers. 
       Well, truck drivers are a pretty round and round bunch
       anyway.  They don't -- they move around a lot, and so it
       would put a certain group of people out of work basically
       because they do not have their mine training.  I would have
       to go down the list and say, yes, you can work here, no, you
       can't.  
                 It would be a very big managerial headache as far
       as -- for instance, like I say, you're out in a remote area. 
       You've got your crew trained, and they have their 24-hour
       training.  Well, I need another loader operator for a day to
       help out here.  I can't move you on site even though you've
       run loader for 25 years, a very competent loader operator,
       but you're not MSHA -- you have not had your mine safety
       training.  To me, that's a big managerial headache.  It's
       just one more check you have to have against the name to go
       to a site to work, and yet that person could have attended
       safety meetings that covers a lot of the same things MSHA
       covers.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  Those would be the OSHA
       safety talks?
                 MR. POTTS:  Just safety talks, safety glasses,
       fire extinguishers, seat belts.  I mean, these are things
       that you will cover in an OSHA meeting, too.  They're
       required by both of us, but I guess the labeling of the
       meeting would have to maybe company-wide cover -- I don't
       know how to address all that totally, but I think it does
       need addressed.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  I have one other question,
       and some of the other people on the panel may have a
       question, and I just want to clarify something that you
       said.  You said that the individuals who provide training
       should have like an eight-hour course.  I mean, is what
       you're saying, I mean, people who are going to be giving
       this training to miners that you think it's appropriate to
       have them have some kind of training in how to give
       training?  I'm not quite sure what you meant by that.
                 MR. POTTS:  I guess to me the person giving the
       training should know what they -- an agenda that they need
       to know what they are training.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  You mean as far as as the
       subject?
                 MR. POTTS:  As far as a subject matter.  They need
       some training, and myself included.  I've read most of the
       rules that pertain to me, I hope.  Usually the inspectors
       can tell me which ones I missed.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. POTTS:  But there are a lot of rules there
       that the person on site addressing the safety meeting should
       be a competent person, and I feel that there's probably some
       training or some type of -- and eight hours to me seems like
       a lot, but some type of training for that person, and I
       really feel personally that it should be given by MSHA to
       where -- and made at the local offices to where it's
       available without a lot of cost.  If you're going to do the
       -- I don't know.  There's a lot of different ways to look at
       it --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. POTTS:  -- but the person doing the training
       should be competent in the field well enough to train.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I mean, we've had some
       people say that the rule should be flexible enough to let
       people who are good or, you know, knowledgeable and have
       experience in certain areas give training on that particular
       subject, you know, period.  Other people have said, you
       know, you need to use that experience, but in order to make
       sure that people know how to give training, they need to
       get, you know, some kind of a short course on how to make a
       presentation and, you know, how to get a point across, I
       guess, to an audience.  And then there are other people, you
       know, on the other end who think that, you know, there needs
       to be a formal MSHA approval for instructors like there is
       under part 48, so it's all over the map right now.  Okay.
                 Do you have any questions?
                 MR. BRELAND:  Just a couple things.  I assume when
       you said that you might get another loader operator that
       would be like out of a batch plant or hot mix plant or
       something?
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  That also works for you?
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  And then you've already made
       a determination on the qualification of this equipment
       operator, I assume, when you hired them, and that's what
       you're talking about now.  You just want to cross lines,
       basically still doing the same work, just in a different
       location.
                 MR. POTTS:  That's correct.  That's where I see a
       big problem.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Also, you talked about the truck
       drivers, when you use them, that they might only be there a
       couple of months, and I guess the question would be -- a
       significant number of our (Indiscernible) fatalities are
       contract truck drivers that come on mine sites and one thing
       or another happens to them.  How would you propose that we
       would try to get training to those people?  Assume they
       don't work for you.  You hire them as a subcontractor.
                 MR. POTTS:  No, that's not true.
                 MR. BRELAND:  They do work for you?
                 MR. POTTS:  No.  We have -- for instance, we have
       26 trucks, 20, 30 trucks in the fleet.  One job may not
       require any haulage to pile other than a loader going to
       stockpile.  The next job may require I take five trucks out
       of the fleet, and I'll use those five trucks to haul to a
       pile.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, was your understanding then
       that maybe they'd have to have 24 hours of each mine site
       they go to?
                 MR. POTTS:  No.  It would be my understanding to
       work for the company at my mine site, at any mine site, they
       would have to have 24 hours training.  That truck driver may
       not work -- truck drivers are seasonal in Idaho.  I'm from
       Idaho.  We work seasonally.  It seems like the older truck
       drivers are out doing other things, hauling to a roadway if
       you're building a highway, for instance, a fill, whatever,
       on a highway job, hauling from stockpile to a job site, but
       I'll take five of these truck drivers and haul to a
       stockpile site.  Now, I can't do that -- even though they're
       competent truck drivers, they may have worked for us the
       previous seven months hauling to different sites, but then I
       have to have MSHA training on these five truck drivers,
       whether it be a three hour plus the five hours of supervised
       watching them, which I wouldn't have a problem doing that
       site specific, but --.
                 MR. BRELAND:  You're saying that they actually
       work permanently for the company --
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  -- but you only use them as you need
       to based on weather or whatever seasonal --
                 MR. POTTS:  For the crusher part of it.
                 MR. BRELAND:  For the crushing part.
                 MR. POTTS:  The crushing, mining operations you
       only need the truck drivers -- use them as you need them.
                 MR. BRELAND:  If they had their 24 hours of
       training, if they went to a mine site, you would only see
       them needing a site specific.  You talked about the
       different kinds of hazard, whether it be water or high walls
       and what have you.  So I guess that would be -- you know,
       we'd have some concerns if we had people that essentially
       never got trained.  That's what you said.  You might have
       them two months, and they may never have a reason to get the
       24 hours.  You mean in the year or in --
                 MR. POTTS:  That's what I'm asking.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.
                 MR. POTTS:  You know, do we take every --
       basically 80 percent of our employees, even though 50
       percent of them -- out of 150 to 200 people, I may use 40
       people a year.  How many of the employees we hire every year
       do I need to give 24-hour training to?  I may -- you know, I
       understand the core group will get it, you know, your
       operators on the job site that would stay with the plants
       all the time, but the support personnel that come in and out
       a lot --
                 MR. BRELAND:  Did you say you had about 25 truck
       drivers all the time?
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  And is there a percentage of those
       that turnover that changes every year?
                 MR. POTTS:  Oh, I'm sure in our business we have
       probably a 30 percent turnover a year.
                 MR. BRELAND:  So it would be the 30 percent that
       you'd be needing to deal with to get the 24 hours every
       year.
                 MR. POTTS:  Every year.
                 MR. BRELAND:  There would be some new group of
       people that would need it if --
                 MR. POTTS:  Every year.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  I'm just trying --
                 MR. POTTS:  I mean, there again, I'm wondering is
       if our OSHA safety meetings, MSHA safety meetings -- if our
       safety meetings that we have throughout the company every
       week would suffice to cover part of this 24-hour training.
                 MR. BRELAND:  That's been brought up at least one
       other time --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  -- that I'm aware of where they want
       some --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Kind of, you know --
                 MR. BRELAND:  --reprocipocal type of agreement --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. BRELAND:  -- where we would accept their
       training and they accept our MSHA required training and
       OSHA, and that's what, I guess, you're proposing.
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  If you're doing OSHA's required
       subject training or meetings, could that be part of that.
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.
                 MR. POTTS:  And I don't know if it's a true OSHA
       requirement.  I know our company just does it, and I'm just
       wondering if that would suffice to cover a large part of
       this MSHA training.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  Well, I mean, that's
       something that has been brought up a couple of times, and,
       you know, people are training to satisfy OSHA requirements
       and, you know, whether it would be possible for the rule to
       be flexible enough to, you know, have that training, OSHA
       training counted to satisfy the MSHA requirements, so we'll,
       you know --
                 MR. BURNS:  I think we'll have to look at that. 
       The OSHA rule is set up -- I mean, OSHA is set up somewhat
       differently than MSHA.  They don't have a part 48.  The
       individual OSHA standards require training, you know, on say
       guarding and things like that, and it doesn't specify time,
       but OSHA also has another requirement that the supervisor,
       you know, go through -- you know, have a ten-hour part, so
       it's more geared towards having a supervisor that's trained
       under the OSHA requirements, and then also that they train
       the individuals as they come into contact with hazards or
       before they come into certain hazards.  
                 But my experience with the OSHA training is there
       an awful lot of crossover between hazards.  So what you're
       suggesting, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done
       that way, because you're going to give your people at the
       OSHA plant the fall protection just like you will the
       miners, so there's certain types of training that I would
       certainly see there should be some crossover, so I can't
       give you an answer to the question you're raising, because
       it is somewhat of a tight issue, but we will try to figure
       that out, because I think it's important.  It's obvious to
       me that you want to train these people properly, but you
       don't want to be put in a position where you're do an awful
       lot of training that's not -- that you don't feel is
       necessary and won't have any end result except the fact that
       you had to train people.
                 MR. POTTS:  Well, that and I don't want to be in a
       position if an inspector showed up and said who do you have
       working here and who is trained not be able to make the two
       lists match, and I just -- I've been through haz training
       courses, first aid training courses, and all these courses
       take a certain amount of time, and personally, as a person
       in these training courses, you spend about 80 percent of it
       sleeping because you just sit there and drug on and drug on
       and drug on.  Forty-hour haz training course could be done
       in about 15 hours if it was just done, and I've been in that
       position, and it's just -- I have nothing against training
       people, but I feel that they have to be on site part of the
       time at least to see what the hazards are.  Some sites -- a
       high wall to a lot of sites may not have any meaning at all
       to some people.  To where on other sites a high wall is a
       very, very big part of their job they have to worry about.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Just one other follow up on the
       loader operator.  Again, because you move so much, that nine
       or ten times a year, which is pretty often, would it be just
       about every time that you move that there would be some
       occasion you need to crossover somebody for fill in, for
       help?
                 MR. POTTS:  Virtually every time I move, I will
       probably crossover on each plant three people if I were to
       take an average, yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Like what kind of three besides a
       loader operator?
                 MR. POTTS:  For instance, one source you may use
       one D-9 end dozer.  Another source you may use two.  When I
       bring in the second one, whoever is running it on the job,
       they'll come with their dozer.  Well, in this instance, if
       they don't have the MSHA training, obviously their dozer
       can't go with them or they can't come with it.
                 MR. BRELAND:  It's almost always a mobile
       equipment operator of some sort?
                 MR. POTTS:  Mobile equipment operator.  Normally
       speaking, my plant operator, my plant personnel are with the
       plant, and they would through safety meetings -- and I would
       hope we could grandfather in some of these people a little
       bit.  I don't know how you take a guy that's been through 20
       years of running a rock crusher and then all of a sudden say
       you need eight hours training to -- I think they need -- you
       know, the eight hours training doesn't hurt anybody, but
       they've heard most of it before.
                 MR. BURNS:  I think the training plan that has
       been put together by the industry group that was mentioned
       before, that does talk about grandfathering, you know,
       current mine employees, and then they require, you know, the
       eight hours annual refresher within a certain period of
       time.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do about this
       crossover, and you're always -- because of the turnover
       issue, you're always going to have a certain number of
       people that don't have that 24 hours of training, and what
       you're proposing is that they get some sort of new amount of
       training up-front, they get supervised work, and then the
       rest is filled in through the safety talks.
                 MR. POTTS:  That would be my proposal. 
                 MR. BURNS:  And certainly the task training would
       fill in for any new tasks or new hazards they'd be exposed
       to?
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.
                 MR. POTTS:  I think that's very important on any
       mine site, especially a new one.  You have new hazards and
       new tasks on a lot of sites, and I mean, if you go from an
       alluvial gravel pit, for instance, to a quarry source,
       you're put in a job that you haven't run, a jaw operator,
       there's a lot of task training involved with that that a
       person may not have been around before, but there's --
       that's my biggest concern is moving from site to site on a
       portable plant is keeping people there trained without
       having to have a full-time trainer somewhere to train them. 
       We're a small company.  I mean, that's hard to justify a
       full-time trainer on staff.  
                 MR. BRELAND:  Thank you, Mr. Potts.
                 MR. BURNS:  You know, like I said, we will try to
       address this, and the proposed rule will probably be put out
       in the spring, and I hope -- you know, we'll try to make
       sure we send you a copy.  Did your company receive a letter
       concerning these public meetings?
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes, I did.  That's why I'm here. 
       Yes, I get one or two of them.  We have two portable plants.
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.  Because I'm curious about that,
       because you know how mailing lists are.  They're constant
       work to keep them updated, but I would be interested in your
       input on this issue once the proposal comes out or if you
       have any thoughts on it before the proposal comes out, if
       you would like to either submit them directly to us or
       through an association also.
                 MR. POTTS:  Well, and then real quickly on the
       same token -- I realize MSHA's budget restrictions.  You're
       always short handed like all of us, and I know in our field
       office, for instance, they didn't even know anything about
       the meeting.  I was asking some guys, some of our field
       office people if they were going and don't even know nothing
       about it, but for training, I hear some of these guys
       talking about training in conjunction with their MSHA
       people.  As far as I know, that's never been offered in our
       area, and I've talked to them about it on more than one
       occasion.  
                 We've had, as mandated, I think, the last two
       years due to fatalities, a short 15-minute talk by an
       inspector at different times, twice in the last two years,
       show up just one day and give a short lunch break talk about
       the fatalities and things, but as far as any formal training
       given by MSHA, we've not had any.  I would be interested in
       that.
                 MR. BURNS:  Is there a period in the year when
       that would be most effective from the standpoint that people
       would be more available?
                 MR. POTTS:  January, February, just like the rest
       of the world here, I imagine.
                 MR. BRELAND:  I was just going to add.  You said
       you're from Idaho, and a little bit of background on what my
       role will be as western operations manager, we are in the
       process of -- we've done a lot of selections, and we are
       going to place a training specialist in Boise, in the Boise
       field office.  I don't know if that's close to where you're
       at.
                 MR. POTTS:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  That person will be assigned to try
       to assist as much -- we want to get to mine sites as much as
       we can.  We're going to put one in Bellevue, Washington, as
       well, one in Arizona, one in Southern California.  So we are
       trying to spread these people out some to help provide some
       assistance and on-site assistance and not just the walk-and-
       talk type stuff.  We'll be not in an enforcement mode but in
       a training and safety program assistance kind of mode.
                 MR. POTTS:  Well, I think as far as fatalities and
       the work in the mine, I feel that training and the -- good
       training would save more fatalities than enforcement ever
       does, because I know me as a -- myself as a mine operator, I
       try to practice good safety practices, and you get an
       enforcer out there that can be very, very petty and give you
       two citations -- just as I heard earlier, a light bulb 40
       feet in the air that's unguarded or something.  You know, I
       would lot rather see somebody coming in willing to work with
       us and say, here's your problems, site-specific problems,
       and, you know, obviously you've not addressed them at all,
       have some enforcement, but if you've tried to address all
       your problems, maybe educate us a little more on what needs
       to be addressed.  We can all read the rule book, and we try
       to cover all the rules, but there's a lot of them there. 
       For myself anyway, that's the way I feel.  
                 MR. BURNS:  Any other?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  Are there any other
       questions?  Thank you very much, Mr. Potts.
                 The next speakers that we have signed up -- I
       believe they're coming up together -- Pete -- and I
       apologize for the pronunciation.  Pete Zagar and Dave
       Griffin from Eugene Sand & Gravel.  
                 (Pause.)
                 If you could, spell your name for the court
       reporter.
                        PETE ZAGAR
                 MR. ZAGAR:  My name is Pete Zagar, Z-a-g-a-r, and
       this is David Griffin, spelled G-r-i-f-f-i-n, and I'm the
       production superintendent at Eugene Sand & Gravel in Eugene,
       Oregon, and David is our safety director, and we'd like to
       kind of present what we're doing right now, and I'm also the
       environmental chair for OCAPA.
                 So what I'd like to describe briefly -- and then
       I'll turn it over to Dave -- is what we're doing, and I'd
       like to say a couple of things.  One of the things that I've
       recognized out there in Oregon -- and I can only speak for
       Oregon, but we have several -- more than several companies
       that already have very good training modules in place that
       follow 48, and we believe ours is one of them.  One of the
       things that I'm going to propose that I would like to see
       done -- and I don't know if it's feasible or not -- is for
       the larger companies to make these boilerplate plans, if you
       will, available to the smaller operators.  We're perfectly
       willing to loan a copy of ours out to anybody who wants to
       review it as a boilerplate, assuming that what we have is
       acceptable MSHA.
                 Actually, what we have here is acceptable to MSHA. 
       Back in 1996 we submitted a copy of our plan to the Albany
       field office, and in turn, that copy was submitted to
       Vacaville and although at that time they don't have the
       funding to officially approve it, they did review it, and
       they gave it their blessing.  So it has been endorsed, and
       actually, the gentleman who endorsed that was Leo Hayden
       down there in Vacaville.  So he has reviewed our plan, and
       he says our components that we've listed complies with part
       48.  So I just wanted to make that available to anybody in
       here who would like to review that through OCAPA and through
       Eugene Sand & Gravel.
                 Additionally, a couple of things that we have -- a
       couple of resources that we have used is OSHA, Oregon OSHA
       specifically, and Oregon OSHA has a real wonderful
       consultation division where they will come in free of charge
       if you have a specific issue.  
                 In our plant we have kind of an overlapping
       OSHA/MSHA jurisdiction.  We have an asphalt plant that is
       adjacent to our crushing operation, and actually, there's
       some conveyors that, kind of depending upon who wants to
       inspect them, could be inspected by both, and OSHA has come
       in on several occasions and done free consultive services
       for confined space issues, for respiratory issues.  So
       there's a little overlap there that may be something -- and
       we already talked about that earlier about maybe looking at
       the OSHA training that some people do and maybe seeing if
       there's something that can be done there.
                 The other thing that we do that's unique, we do a
       lot of team building with our crew.  I have about 26
       individuals that would fall under MSHA that work for us, and
       one of the things we do is whenever we have a safety issue 
       -- and I'll give a specific example.  We had a double
       overtime for a couple years trying to get these guys to
       understand what proper lockout/tagout procedures were, and
       our philosophy is that we go to them, and we present the
       problem, and we let them brainstorm on what would be the
       most effective way in-house to comply and make it easier for
       them to understand how to comply with the lockout/tagout or
       fall protection or whatever it might be.  We get our
       employees involved in the decision making process, and it's
       proved to be invaluable, because they really become part of
       the decision making process, and they feel by doing that
       that they've endorsed the solution, and they become more
       infinitely aware of what the particular standard is
       addressing.  In this case, in terms of lockout/tagout, they
       finally came up with what we feel is a pretty darn good
       solution.  
                 So those are just some of the issues that I'd like
       to -- some of the things I'd like to bring to your
       attention, and I'll turn it over to Dave.
                       DAVID GRIFFIN
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Thank you.  I guess I look at this
       issue more from a perspective of someone that's going to
       have to put the plan together to satisfy your requirements. 
                 A couple of questions I have.  You indicated that
       this was not going to be a reworked part 48 format.  Can you
       give me some idea of what you are going to do?  Are you
       going to use some of the components of part 48 or -- because
       part 48 was quite clear in its approach to surface mining,
       which is what sand and gravel falls under, and what is the
       proposal going to look at?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I think actually it's a little bit
       too early for us to be real specific about what's going to
       be in the proposal.  I mean, obviously we've got to hit the
       minimum requirements that are in section 115 of the Act.  I
       mean, that's the floor -- the level which we cannot fall. 
       What gets included on top of that, I mean whether we include
       some, you know, concepts that are similar to what's in part
       48, I mean, I really do think that it's too early to tell,
       and that's really why we're here is to get some sense from
       you all -- I mean, if there's things in part 48 that you
       like, I mean, that are -- you know, you think kind of
       clarify things and you think that you, you know, would like
       to recommend that we incorporate them in some fashion, then,
       you know, if you're not prepared to do that today but you've
       got some areas that you'd like to touch on in writing, I
       mean, I encourage you to submit stuff to us before, you
       know, February 1st.
                 Obviously, I mean, Congress has indicated that
       we're supposed to use as a basis for any proposal the final
       draft proposed rule that we get from the Coalition for
       Effective Miner Training, and some people who have been up
       here have already, you know, referred to earlier drafts of
       that.  So if you don't have a copy of the latest draft, we
       can probably get you a copy, so you can see what the
       association is recommending.  I mean, it goes beyond what's
       in the Act, but, you know -- well, I don't know if there's
       anything more I can say about it, but --
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  So there is a draft in existence
       now?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right, but it's not the final
       draft.  I mean, we are being provided with working copies,
       and, again, you know, to make sure that no one is confused,
       I mean, that's not MSHA's draft.  We're being provided
       copies, you know, as they work through it, and, you know,
       it's changed somewhat, and I anticipate that what we get as
       the final draft on or before February 1st is going to be
       somewhat different from the draft, the latest draft we have
       now, but at least that will give you some idea of what, you
       know, the Coalition is thinking about, and then may provide
       some basis for additional comments that you may want to make
       in writing for us to consider.  So if you want, I mean,
       anyone who -- I mean, you know, come up and we can get you
       copies of the latest Coalition draft.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes, I'd like to get a copy of that.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  So just, you know, come up
       and let us know.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  A few more comments that I'd like to
       make regarding -- and I have to use the part 48 as a basis,
       because that's basically what we're operating under now.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Certainly.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  One provision that I really like and
       I would like to see included in the final standard, there's
       a provision in there to withdraw a miner from his duties and
       retrain him, and basically, I think that's a really good
       thing.  It's kind of a quality assurance, let's say, that if
       your training appears to be inadequate or the miner is not
       receptive, it gives you an avenue to retrain that miner.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  That actually -- I'm not exactly
       sure what provision you're addressing, but that may also be
       based on section 104(g)(1) of the Act, which provides that
       inadequately trained miners are to be withdrawn.  So I mean,
       that would be something that would be required to include as
       well, I would imagine.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Another issue that would affect us,
       as well as any company that has multiple sites or, for
       instance, a portable operation where they've got an office
       at one locality and they may be anywhere in the state, is
       the records.  We have two -- actually four locations, and
       from time to time an inspector may visit one of those
       locations where our records are not routinely kept.  I think
       there should be a provision made for that.  In other words,
       does the records for 12 men at a remote site need to be kept
       on that site, and I would propose that as long as it was in
       the office where it was made available to the inspector that
       should be adequate.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  We've gotten comments on
       that, too.  There's a lot of people who have recommended,
       you know, some kind of centralization recognizing the
       increasing, you know, computerization and centralization of
       records in business operations.  One thing that some people
       recommended was to, you know, provide some basis for
       effective enforcement is that a reference -- when an
       inspector comes in and requests them, if they're not at the
       mine site, that they may be made available within some
       period of time.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  And I don't know, you know, what
       that might be or, you know, how we're going to handle that,
       but we have gotten comments on that particular issue.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  I believe one of the other speakers
       spoke to this as well.  We have areas of our operation that
       are regulated by OSHA and areas by MSHA, and again, the idea
       of training begins to be a problem.  For instance, in our
       operation our haul truck operators are not always the same
       people.  We may from time to time draw out of our
       transportation department, which is under OSHA jurisdiction.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes, yes.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  My thoughts on this would be that
       rather than put these people through the entire training,
       train them only for the specific tasks that they would be
       required to perform unless, of course, they would be
       actually moved into the department as a permanent miner.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Well, I mean, do those people come
       in to, you know, mine sites sort of as pinch hitters, I mean
       to fill in and substitute, or is that a regular part of
       their job?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Not so much as a substitute but as a
       very limited function.  In other words, a haul truck driver
       --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Would come and load and then move
       on?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.  That's all he would do would
       be to drive the truck, and if the training were specific to
       that task rather than the overall miner training curriculum,
       why to me that would make more sense.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes, and that's another issue
       we've gotten comments on is, you know, who is a new miner,
       who is an experienced miner, I mean different categories of
       employees with different functions and what type of training
       is appropriate depending on what they actually do, so that's
       something that we'll have to take a look at.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  This also was addressed, and I'd
       like to clarify it a little bit.  It doesn't apply so much
       to our operation, but in a sense, I think this would be a
       big help to smaller operators, and I really am sensitive to
       their needs because that was kind of my background was a
       small portable operation.  If they were to keep an accurate
       text and attendance record of their safety meetings, could
       this be accepted as certificate of training?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  And that, again, is something that
       we've got a lot of comments on.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  We've had a lot of people come in
       and say that they think, you know, short periods of training
       over the course of a year is more effective than giving it
       all at once, and, you know, a lot of companies have got
       these regular safety talks, and so the question is, you
       know, should we accept that as satisfying the refresher
       training or, I guess, as the 24 hours of initial training,
       and the one thing that we keep in mind on that is that the
       Act does require that records be kept of the training that's
       given, and obviously if you're giving training in shorter
       increments, then the record keeping part is going to
       increase, but I mean, I guess that could be a decision that
       an operator might choose to make, and that is something that
       we're also giving serious consideration to is how to handle
       that. 
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Well, and I think also that -- this
       also was addressed.  The scope of the operation, in other
       words, do you have some sort of plan for determining the
       extent of training depending on the size of the operation?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  You mean as far as the amount?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  The amount or -- in other words,
       like, for instance, a three or four man operation, obviously
       their training needs wouldn't be nearly as extensive as say
       a large portable or, pardon me, a large stationary plant
       with say 100 employees.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  And I can't say that I necessarily
       disagree with that.  However, you know, I was talking about
       the floor that the Act gives us as far as requirements, and
       we cannot -- I mean, we have got to require in our rule a
       minimum of eight hours of annual refresher training --
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  -- and a minimum of 24 hours of
       initial new miner training.  So I mean, even if we were to
       conclude that it might be appropriate to handle it
       differently, I mean, that's the minimum that we're dealing
       with.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  As long as it meets the requirements
       of the Act.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right, right.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Okay.  
                 MR. BURNS:  And we really -- you know, as Kathy
       stated, we do recognize what you're saying, and what we hope
       to do is address that through, you know, more flexibility to
       address the various size operations and their needs and the
       needs of -- I mean, it's the size of the operation and the
       new miners you get.  I mean, all new miners aren't the same,
       you know.  You might have to train me more than you'd have
       to train Rod, you know.  Everybody is different, so I think
       -- we try -- we want to try to address that through
       flexibility, but along the same lines of what Kathy stated,
       the Act requires certain things and that's our mandate.  We
       have to comply with the Act.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Okay.  One other question I've got
       is -- and this has to do with the trainer certification.
       When an operator submits a training plan, if they furnish
       evidence in the form of a resume or a narrative that a
       foreman or an individual either by education or experience
       is qualified to be as a trainer, to be a qualified trainer,
       is that going to -- is that going to be sufficient to have
       them certified? 
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Well, as I think I said earlier,
       the Act doesn't set any minimum requirements for people who
       provide training.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Okay.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I mean, it's wide open, and I
       mean, that's going to be a big issue here is what kind of
       qualifications should we impose for people who provide
       training, and a lot of people have come in and said, you
       know, the people with the experience at the mine site are
       going to give you the best training.  Other people are kind
       of in the middle where, you know, you got to use the people
       with the experience, but they also need some kind of
       training in how to provide training, and then on the other
       hand, you know, there's people who advocate, you know,
       getting some kind of a formal approval in order to be able
       to do that.  So I mean, if you've got specific
       recommendations for how we ought to handle that, you know --
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Okay.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  -- if you're not prepared to do
       that today, I mean, you could give us something in writing
       as far as how you think it would be appropriate and how we
       should handle that.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Okay.  Also, when a plan is
       submitted for approval, is it going to be looked at on its
       own merits, or is it -- or is there going to be more or less
       just certain standards that have to be present in the plan
       for approval?  In other words, if an individual operator can
       craft a plan that fits their operation and still meets,
       let's say, the requirements of the Act, is that going to be
       the basis on which you would approve?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I think it's probably a little bit
       too early to talk specifically about how MSHA is going to go
       about approving, and that, again, is an issue.  I mean, the
       Act requires that the training plan be approved by the
       Secretary of Labor, which means MSHA, you know, how should
       that process work.  I mean, you all -- would you be
       comfortable with, you know, a process by which plans get
       sent into a central location or to the district and get
       evaluated, you know, or is it, you know, having the mine
       inspector make that kind of determination when he shows up
       to do his inspection?  I mean, there's a variety of ways
       that we could go about handling that.
                 Now, as far as, you know, how the plans are going
       to be evaluated is going to depend to a large extent on what
       we decide to put into the rule, I mean, as far as, you know,
       a program should meet these minimum requirements, it's got
       to have boom, boom, boom.  Anyone who is going around to
       approve it is probably going to be looking at, you know,
       whatever the rule says that a plan has got to have and, you
       know, what's included in there.  I mean, there are some
       minimum requirements in the Act, but I think there's a lot
       of flexibility as far as how we approach that, and, again,
       you know, if you've got specific recommendations, we'd love
       to hear from you.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes, and I think what we intend to
       do is take the time that we have left to us before the
       comment period expires, and we do want to, you know, put
       some thought into --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Sure.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  -- our comments.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  We would appreciate it, and I'll
       give you all a short summary of what the process is beyond
       here, and you're going to have a couple different bites of
       the apple, and then when we come out with the proposed rule,
       there's a comment period after that where you'll be able --
       I mean, it won't be quite so wide open, obviously.  I mean,
       we're going to have a proposed rule for you to look at
       specifically, and, you know, you'll have the opportunity to
       send in comments in writing, and also there will be several
       public hearings at different locations.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  One other thing -- I keep thinking
       of one other thing, you know.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  No, that's fine.  That's
       what it's all about.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  How likely -- well, let me ask it
       this way.  The consultative problem bothers me.  Why don't
       you have consultative services available?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  You mean right now?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I can't really answer that.  You
       mean as far as assisting mine operators in developing
       training?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I'm really not qualified to answer
       that.  I don't know whether Rod has some opinion.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, again, our reorganization, the
       educational field service group is going to try to the
       extent possible provide consultation services, recognizing
       we have about 50 specialists scattered throughout the United
       States, a good part of them in the eastern part right now. 
       As I was talking about earlier, we're going to -- 11 of the
       recent 12 vacancies for specialists have been located in our
       western area, if you will, Midwest, mostly in the far west,
       so we expect to be able to have people like Mr. Hayden that
       you dealt with before scattered out more, and we want them
       at mine sites as much as possible, but given that there's
       some 10,000 mine operations in the metal and nonmetal that
       are presently in these exempt categories, it's obvious that
       they won't be able to make it to all sites.  I think we are
       headed that direction to the limit that we'll have
       resources.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Thanks.  
                 MR. BURNS:  And when you talk about the
       consultative services, you're talking about similar to what
       OSHA does?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MR. ZAGAR:  That's correct.
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.  I'm somewhat familiar with that,
       and I mean, that is set up different than anything MSHA has,
       because they're really not -- it's an OSHA program, but
       they're not really working for OSHA.  They come in, and it's
       confidential type evaluation, and as long as they don't see
       some imminent danger that the operator is not going to
       correct, that's the only time they break that confidential
       relationship.  We don't have anything similar to that.  I
       guess the only thing I could see maybe something, you know,
       help through the state grants with that sort of -- because
       that's a different expertise you're talking about.  That's
       not just training.  You're talking about some technical
       expertise and help.  Is that correct?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  That's true, but I guess what
       prompts my concern is that, you know, this is bringing this
       industry in under the training requirements is a pretty big
       step for some of these people, and it's not realistic to
       expect them to do that by themselves, and that's why I think
       that somehow -- and I know that this is all tied to funding. 
       Somehow -- you know, Oregon OSHA can afford this.  That
       money came from someplace, and I just feel like that MSHA
       needs to put some money into that service.  After all, we're
       talking about safety here.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Presently we're funded in about $6
       million of the $10 million that's supposed to be available
       for state grants, and that is an area that Mr. McIntyre
       (phonetic) is looking at and trying to see if we can get
       some congressional support for additional funding there. 
       That would help.
                 We're going to try to encourage state grants, as
       Kevin pointed out, who are already active to become more
       active, and those that haven't been as active to try to
       steer a lot of their activities towards again assisting in
       their more regionalized areas to provide some help.
                 MR. ZAGAR:  Let me say one thing about that.  In
       fairness to our local field office, we have actually had
       them come out several times on their own to consult about a
       specific issue at our plant site, so they do -- they will do
       that if they have the time, but usually they don't have the
       time, but they have made themselves available on several
       occasions, and I think it depends on the field office and
       who is managing the field office and that situation.  This
       particular field office here in Albany, Oregon, is pretty
       good about that actually in my experience with them.
                 One thing I'd like to talk about a little bit real
       briefly and kind of just express it, I'm comfortable or more
       comfortable with the required components of part 48
       specifically.  In addition, some of the other issues that we
       have ongoing training being conducted is fall protection. 
       We have a very -- a lot of confined space issues that both
       OSHA and MSHA would be concerned about.  In addition to
       that, we do an oxygen and acetylene training module, which
       is very valuable, because that is a very big area of concern
       for us, especially with new miners who may not have that
       welding experience or oxyacetylene experience.  So those are
       a couple of other areas that I think you might want to take
       a look at, including in the standard or the new standard,
       because there are a lot of accidents in those areas if you
       read the statistics.
                 But as far as the rest of the requirements -- and
       I'll just go down -- I've got our plan right here, and I'll
       just go down for everybody's benefit what we include in our
       plan that was approved or at least accepted unconditionally. 
       They couldn't accept it, but they said it would meet the
       standard.
                 We've broken the 24 hours down into kind of hourly
       or hour and a half components that an inexperienced miner
       would have to be trained in, and it kind of goes like this: 
       statutory rights of miner, that would be an hour and a half
       presentation, and all of these would be either somewhat
       formal lecture and videos and that type of thing.  Self
       rescue and respiratory devices, hour and a half;
       transportation controls and communication systems, an hour
       and a half; introduction to the work environment, which is a
       walk around, taken by the hand, show them the plant site,
       show them the dos and don'ts, maybe show them a laborer
       shoveling out a tail pulley when it's locked out, not when
       it's running, those kinds of things.  Escape, evacuation
       plans, fire fighting, fire warning, just site specific for
       the plant, ground control, an hour and a half; health
       module, just a basic PPE, hour and a half; hazard
       recognition, an hour and a half; electrical hazards, an hour
       and a half, which also includes lockout/tagout; first aid,
       which is eight hours -- most of your standard courses are
       eight hours -- and then health and safety aspects of
       assigned tasks that they're going to be assigned to.  You go
       over what those health and safety issues are based on that
       task or those tasks that that new employee is going to be
       doing.  That's how we kind of have ours set up and that's
       what was tentatively approved, so I just wanted to share
       that for the benefit of everybody in here on kind of how you
       could compile those 24 hours and conduct the training.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Actually, I have a question on the
       issue of first aid, which has been raised before.  I mean,
       as the situation with first aid, you say that it's going to
       be a minimum of eight hours.  Do you bring someone in from
       the outside to give that and that's the shortest course
       that's offered on first aid?
                 MR. ZAGAR:  Generally, yes.  We have -- we do
       American Red Cross, and they come in, and it's usually an
       eight-hour session, right.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I see, okay.  If you could, Mr.
       Zagar, could you just give us a short description of your
       operation, the size and locations and just for the record so
       we know where you're coming from?
                 MR. ZAGAR:  We have four operations.  We have two
       in Eugene.  We have a base rock operation, and it's about a
       600,000 ton per year operation, and then we have our main
       plant, which is mining concrete and asphalt and aggregates,
       and that's about pretty close to the same, about 600,000
       tons per year.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. ZAGAR:  And so between the two there, we'll a
       little over a million tons per year.  We have 24 employees
       in our department, including two foremen, and we have four
       haulage vehicles, two at each pit, and our extraction is
       through truck excavating, and pretty straightforward.  One
       of our pits -- probably the most unique thing about our pits
       is we're right along the Willamette River, so we have to
       pump a lot of water, and we mine dry, but we do -- the other
       issue that we've -- based on last year's concerns about
       haulage accidents, we really do a lot of training on our
       haul truck drivers and task training with them, and I think
       we do a pretty good job of that.  We take that very
       seriously, and they do, too, and so we review that on a
       quarterly basis, and we're always looking to make sure the
       roads are bermed and the roads -- we have a grader on the
       roads at all times when they're hauling to maintain the --
       make sure the roads are graded properly and that kind of
       thing.
                 Our other operation is at Corvallis, Oregon.  It's
       about a 500,000 ton per year operation.  It's also cab truck
       haulage with an excavator, and we have 14 employees that are
       under MSHA there, and then we have another operation down in
       Southern California (sic) by Azalea area, and that is also
       about -- and that's probably about a 700,000 ton per year
       operation.  We have, I believe, 16 employees at that
       operation, and that's also a base rock and finish concrete
       and asphalt and aggregate producing operation.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Thank you.  Anymore questions?  
                 MR. BRELAND:  Just a couple.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. BRELAND:  When you talked about the
       documentation, you know, an accurate text of what the
       subject was and as one proposal, one of the provisions is a
       miner -- and which a lot of them do in the industry, they
       move onto other job sites and what have you, but they're
       able to take a record with them.  Had you considered how you
       would provide that for them?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  We use your standard -- I think it's
       5300.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Form 5023?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, you were talking about, I
       thought, though, in a proposal of just keeping a text and a
       sign-in sheet or a list of who attended.  So you would do a
       summary of that and give that to somebody if they were going
       --
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Actually, I hadn't thought of that,
       but --
                 MR. BRELAND:  You might consider that as one of
       the things that --
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  It would have to be addressed.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Another thing, just to clarify in
       the plan, Mr. Zagar, you talked about your generic or your
       plan that was submitted, but, Mr. Griffin, you said
       something about them being site specific, that training
       plans should be more site specific.  Did I misunderstand
       what you were --
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Well, I think that's the danger of a
       boilerplate plan and just filling in the blanks is it's
       pretty generic, and I think that each side is going to have
       characteristics that need to be addressed in the training
       plan.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, so are you suggesting maybe
       part of it should be boilerplate and then others -- there
       should be some addendum to that that's more site specific?
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes.  I think as you indicated, it
       has to meet the minimum standards of the Act, but I think
       looking at an overall operation is what are your areas of
       concern and are you addressing them is basically the
       question that a training plan needs to answer.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  If you've demonstrated in your plan,
       in the narrative of your plan, that you've addressed any
       characteristics that may be peculiar to your operation.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Just as a -- you know, you might
       consider that when you're making comments how you would want
       -- propose to address that.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes, and I think that is one of our
       concerns.
                 MR. BRELAND:  And then the one other thing on the
       certification of your instructor, I'm not sure I understood
       what you meant or what you were proposing out how you would
       select --
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Well, what my idea is to furnish a
       resume, and I think that practical experience needs to count
       for a large portion of that.  We've got people that actually
       train -- do task training that -- you know, they've got a
       lot of years in this business, and that to me qualifies them
       as a trainer, and I guess my concern would be that you look
       at that experience level as adequate qualification to train.
                 MR. BRELAND:  I would think that that's probably,
       you know, going to be well received comments, but the one
       concern that others would have is what if you have a well
       qualified on paper person who is not demonstrating that
       they're either instructing what they should or they, in
       fact, aren't good instructors.  Is there -- you know, there
       might be some concern about what would be the way to deal
       with that, remedial training, go through an instructor
       course itself.  When you're considering your comments, you
       might think of that as well, and that would be an issue how
       do you address the proposal if somebody has got all this
       paperwork or background but, in fact, are not good.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Right.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.
                 MR. GRIFFIN:  Yes, okay.  
                 MR. ZAGAR:  Regarding the comment you made a
       minute ago about making the training specific to the site, I
       use the example of our lockout/tagout and how we solved that
       issue with our employees.  We had some unique situations
       there that we had to address, and they were pretty much
       based on some areas that were remote or they were outside of
       the motor control center, and they had the ability when they
       working in the proximity of this equipment to lock it out. 
       So we basically put lockout stations -- and actually what we
       ultimately did was we welded the locks to the breaker so
       that the locks are always there, and then we have a system
       where they actually take the key from that lock and put it
       in the lockout box and put their personal lock on the
       outside of the lockout box, and now it's pretty failsafe.  I
       mean, they all seem to -- and it was their idea, because a
       lot of times guys before, they'd forget to bring their lock
       with them, and we have to work on something, and there was a
       lot of wasted time.  We stress in our -- everybody knows in
       this business that time is money, and a big part of that is
       being efficient with your safety protocols and your safety
       procedures, and if you can do that, it goes hand in hand
       with the productivity of your operation, and I can't stress
       that enough.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Do you have anymore?
                 MR. BURNS:  No.  I mean, I did notice in your
       training plan you don't address explosives, so I'm assuming
       you don't use explosives at your mine, and that's why -- 
                 MR. ZAGAR:  Right.
                 MR. BURNS:  And then you -- it seems to me that
       you add to that with the confined space training and the
       oxygen and acetylene training and welding, and I envision --
       we do want to -- we do have to address the minimum
       requirements, but I also recognize -- and I believe in my
       own opinion that it's important that if you have someone
       that's doing maintenance work -- and that's an area where we
       have a lot of concerns, and I think everybody in the
       industry has a lot of concerns.  You need to be able to
       train them on the issues that affect them.  I mean, you
       could have -- I mean, the most important training could be
       the acetylene and oxygen training and confined spaces.  I
       mean, that's -- if they're in there doing some welding in a
       confined area, that's a tough job, and they need more help
       in that area than they do, you know, necessarily in, you
       know, working on a high wall or something like that.  
                 So we do want to form a rule to allow that person
       to get more of that type training than the person running
       the crusher, because it's not going to do him as much good.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Anything else?
                 MR. BURNS:  No.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I believe Ros has got a couple
       questions.
                 MS. FONTAINE:  Yes.  Mr. Zagar, the agency is
       responsible for developing a regulatory flexibility analysis
       to determine the cost of benefits for proposed rules.  Based
       on your experience, could you give me an estimate of what it
       costs your company to train your employees on an annual
       basis?
                 MR. ZAGAR:  Yes.  Right now I would say, including
       Dave's salary here and all of the components that we've put
       together -- of course, a lot of the stuff we have in place 
       -- and it's taken us a couple years to accumulate it.  So I
       think from this point on, we're going to be adding new
       videos and new training -- you know, just new information. 
       You constantly want to try to refresh, but I'd say probably
       right now for us it's probably in the neighborhood -- just
       for our department alone, probably in the neighborhood of
       $50,000 a year if not a little bit more than that.  It could
       be upwards to $75,000.
                 Dave is also responsible -- because we have OSHA
       as well for our mixer fleet and our dump fleet and whatnot,
       he's also responsible to take care of that training, so it's
       kind of a mixed bag.  If you took it overall, the whole
       thing is well over $100,000 a year.
                 MS. FONTAINE:  Okay, thank you.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.
                 The next speaker on our list is Ed Sinner -- and,
       again, I apologize if I'm mispronouncing this -- from Oregon
       Mine Safety and Health Training Program.
                         ED SINNER
                 MR. SINNER:  My name is Ed Sinner, and that's E-d
       S-i-n-n-e-r, just like it sounds.
                 The first thing I'm going to do is plug my
       program, the Oregon Mine Safety and Health Training Program. 
       I am funded through MSHA, Department of Labor as a resource
       for mine operators to comply with part 48 training
       requirements, and a lot of sand and gravel people don't know
       about me.  I hit mainly -- well, the people that I do hit
       are the ones that have to have the training.
                 Up to now everything I've done for my clients has
       been done free of charge.  Recently, because the way the
       budgets tends to go, I have been pretty much forced to start
       charging people that don't have mine ID numbers for at least
       my travel expenses, but everything else I do for training
       required operations is soaked up by the grant.  I work out
       of Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande, Oregon, spend a
       lot of time over here.
                 I did want to mention that as usual, the people in
       this room are the ones probably doing the job, the ones
       doing the training and whatnot.  I have been involved with
       the Morris Brothers/MSHA training seminars.  Actually the
       MSHA part has been going on for -- I've been in it three
       different years.  I've probably got about a dozen different
       sessions under the belt, and it's a really good working
       model on the way the two groups can work together.
                 I'd say the only limitations that I've seen out of
       that group are it doesn't get a very big audience.  The
       Morris Brothers gentlemen were saying they might hit 250
       people, and really it's been opened up just the last year or
       so.  There tends to be a little bit of competition among
       operators, and it's gotten down to the point where people
       don't want to give up trade secrets and that kind of stuff. 
       Well, training doesn't necessarily have to be like that. 
       You can do safety training without competing, and so the
       Morris Brothers/MSHA model does work.  If we could get more
       people in it, it would work even better.
                 I have -- just listening to what's been going on
       so far, I have more comments than questions probably at this
       point.  One is you brought up the grandfathering issue, and
       that is -- part 48, when it was put in, took for granted
       that people knew certain things.  They'd been mining for
       years, and the grandfathering was addressed, and basically I
       just want to make sure that whatever new regulations come in
       for the part 46, if that's going to be the name, do have at
       least the potential for grandfathering experienced people
       in.
                 Let's see, there has also been a -- I guess it's
       an implied exemption that on very small operations it has
       been possible at least on past training where if there's
       only two or three people at an operation, it gets to the
       point where is who is going to do the training, you train
       me, I train you, and that is an issue, and there has been
       the ability in the past to get an exemption from task
       training requirements based on if everybody at the site
       knows the jobs, everybody knows the jobs, and that won't
       really apply to new miner stuff, but at least maybe that's
       something else that should be addressed in the standard.
                 One comment I had was I don't think it's
       productive to lock supervisors into being your trainers.  I
       spent nine years supervising an underground or actually a
       couple of different underground mines.  I can say that
       supervisors are not necessarily the ones that are best to
       look out for safety.  Supervisors tend to be the ones that 
       -- and this is not the ideal world where a supervisor will
       know all and do whatnot, but if it comes down to putting out
       rock and putting on an eight-hour training session, the
       supervisor is going to be the one that is probably going to
       put out the rock and just don't lock into the idea of
       supervisors doing the work.
                 The fairly recent change in requiring a first aid
       person, competent first aid person, at sand and gravel type
       operations instead of a supervisor being trained in first
       aid is kind of an example of where the competent person
       might be better than a supervisor per se.
                 There's also a new rule -- different subject. 
       There's a new rule that's recently come out relating to
       experienced miners, and the rule is basically designed to
       address a lot of the same issues that we've been hearing
       this morning, and that is you get people that tend to move
       around, maybe you lapse a little bit.  You go 14 months
       instead of 12 months without getting a new miner training or
       annual refresher training, and according to the law, you had
       to go back and get new miner training.  Well, at an
       underground operation it's 40 hours, guys, so, you know,
       that's a big chunk of time and money.  
                 The new standard that has been out since September
       or October talks about keeping an experienced miner an
       experienced miner for a given period of time, and I would
       hope that that issue would also fall over into whatever part
       46 training requirements there are, because I have seen a
       lot where you do end up hiring people -- well, ideally not
       out of a tavern, but if you need somebody to run a truck or
       run a loader and you're working out of Bly, Oregon, or
       wherever, there's two buildings in town, a post office and a
       tavern, and you're probably not going to get a new employee
       in the post office.  So if they can keep a record of
       training that says, yeah, I was trained two years ago as a
       new miner or as an experienced miner, I would hope that some
       of that training would flop over.
                 One other thing that I have noticed.  I have been
       doing my job for four years now.  I do tend to not exactly,
       always end up in the best training locations, and I would
       suggest that for at least part of the training time that
       you're doing, a mine site is definitely not always the best
       place that you can do training.  I've done training almost
       in the back of a pickup truck before.  You get five people
       in the little back room or storeroom in a shop or something
       like that, and it's not something where anybody is going to
       be able to sit down and concentrate on the message that
       you're trying to get across in a safety presentation.  So
       realizing we need to keep things mine specific, don't get
       too locked into the idea of requiring everything has to be
       done on a mine site.
                 Another issue that I've jotted down here is I
       believe the task training should be included as part of
       training because that is the site specific stuff that really
       is going to make or break it.  If you've got three different
       people working an operation, you've got a loader, a truck
       and -- well, maybe a crusher, not guaranteed, by the time
       you go through the equipment that's there, that's a lot of
       the training that you need to cover, so task training should
       be credited as part of the new miner training.
                 One other question for MSHA basically is if -- and
       I don't know if this is a can of worms or what.  I'm going
       to try and keep it really short.  These people have been
       operating under an exemption from Congress for --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes, since --
                 MR. SINNER:  -- a long time, since 1980.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right.
                 MR. SINNER:  And I'm wondering -- we keep going
       back to the idea that the Act says that they are required to
       have 24 hours new miner training, eight hours any refresher
       in the Act.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Right, right.
                 MR. SINNER:  I'm wondering if there is any
       possibility or leeway in addressing an exemption for that
       time requirement of 24 hours as an exemption to the Act like
       this group has had since 1980 for training in general.  It
       is a different group than a big surface mine in a lot of
       cases, and potentially, you know, like we've discussed quite
       a bit this morning, maybe 16 hours for the whole year is
       more reasonable than requiring 32 between the 24-hour
       initial and the eight-hour annual refresher.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I would say, I mean, for us to be
       able to do that, Congress would need to amend the minimum
       requirements in the Act, and I don't think that that's
       probably likely --
                 MR. SINNER:  Okay.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  -- in the foreseeable future.  So
       I think that realistically, I mean, we're going to have to
       work with the 24 hours, and I don't know that there's, you
       know, any basis for us giving any kind of an exemption from
       that.
                 MR. SINNER:  Okay.  Well, that was the question.  
                 MR. BURNS:  Looking at the history of the rider,
       there were efforts to amend the Mine Act that were never
       acted upon or were not successful, and that's what really
       resulted in the rider, but we don't have that discretion. 
       It does take an act of Congress to change those numbers.  We
       have to apply those numbers as written in the Act until
       Congress changes it.
                 MR. SINNER:  Okay.  I had, I think, one last
       comment about first aid training, and there is a difference
       in first aid as far as this group.  The requirements for
       this group, meaning the exempt operations -- actually, what
       this group has been required to have is a competent person
       on site trained in first aid basically in every work area. 
       It used to say a supervisor had to be trained, and now it is
       just a first aid competent person.  
                 The first aid training that is specified in part
       48, it does not have a time requirement on it.  It does not
       say that it has to be a National Safety Council or a medic
       first aid, first aid class.  It says when you do annual
       refresher training, when you do new miner training, you will
       do a first aid course that is approved by MSHA, and that's
       where if an operator has their own idea on something they
       want to do, you know, you can get a good, sound class in two
       hours.  You include it in your training plan.  It's approved
       by MSHA as part of the training plan, and you've got that
       issue covered.  But the first aid issue is a two-part thing.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Is that typically, I mean, how it
       is addressed in the plans that you're familiar with, that
       it's not an eight-hour course?  I mean, it's something less
       than that?
                 MR. SINNER:  The training plans that I have had
       experience with helping operators create them, I basically
       end up being the trainer, and the class that I bring into at
       least in annual refresher training is I cover what to do
       until the ambulance gets there more than anything else.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. SINNER:  To keep it site specific, sure, if
       they're way the heck out and they need more, we do that, but
       by individual training plan, it doesn't have to be an eight-
       hour or four-hour class.  It just has to be -- you know, we
       include the outline of what I would talk about, and it's
       worked so far.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. SINNER:  I think that's it for comments.  I
       blasted a bunch of stuff out.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I don't have any questions.  Rod,
       do you have any?
                 MR. BRELAND:  I'm not sure I understood what you
       meant on the experienced miner.  You're wanting anybody
       that's experienced before a new rule would be proposed or
       final would be deemed as experienced if they were working?
                 MR. SINNER:  Well, if you're working on a mine
       site and you've been doing the job, I think that it's
       reasonable to think that if you have been doing it, there
       should be some credit, be a grandfathering or whatever, for
       the experience that you've already got on the job.  I
       hopefully or I wouldn't think that you would require
       everybody starting out on October 1, 1999, to have new miner
       training, and I just -- there should be a grandfathering
       idea built into the system, and I'm just -- I was just
       trying to address getting it in there.
                 MR. BRELAND:  That's all I have.
                 MR. BURNS:  No, that's all.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much, Mr. Sinner.
                 MR. SINNER:  That was easy.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  The next speaker that we have is
       Mike Fallon of Wilder Construction.
                        MIKE FALLON
                 MR. FALLON:  Good morning.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Good morning.
                 MR. FALLON:  I'm not going to be as polished and
       as streamlined as some of the earlier speakers that have
       been prepared.  I've just made some comments as I sat here
       and listened, but I've been employed with a general
       contractor, too, for the past 21 years and as a result of
       some of our activities would come under MSHA jurisdiction. 
       It was 20 years ago that I went through the cooperative --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Mr. Fallon, can you hear?
                 (Negative responses from the audience.)
                 Could you maybe pull the mike a little bit closer? 
       Yes.
                 MR. FALLON:  Okay.  Is this any better, or do you
       want the other mike?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  No.  Actually I think the thin one
       that you --
                 MR. FALLON:  This is the one.  Just talk down low?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  
                 MR. FALLON:  Okay.  Usually I don't have a problem
       with voice control.  They usually throw vegetables at me.
                 At any rate, 20 years ago I went through the
       cooperative instructor training program, but because of the
       exemption, we never used it, and then I -- the company I was
       with, we got into open pit precious metal mining, and from a
       period of '86 through '92 had to contend with these training
       requirements.  Now I'm with an employer that doesn't do any
       precious metal.  We just have some sand and gravel
       activities incidental to our bread and butter line of work.
                 So a couple of the comments that I would offer for
       your consideration have to do, one, with the instructor
       certifications.  As I mentioned, 20 years ago I went through
       the cooperative program, which was, if memory serves me
       best, basically how to be a teacher type course of
       instruction with nothing on content.  In the years following
       that, one person can't do it for a company with operations
       subject to MSHA from Alaska down to Florida and California
       over to West Virginia, so we sent selected superintendents,
       project managers to instructor training sessions typically
       two and a half days, and these were done through Nevada. 
       Once again, the focus was primarily on how to be a teacher
       with nothing on content.  
                 In addition, I've written letters asking to have
       competency or acceptance of some of my people based on their
       experience primarily and their proven track record, so
       that's one form of qualification.
                 I guess I would hope that MSHA as the agency puts
       together a program whereby the various operators of all
       different sizes can send the people for a couple day
       investment and have them walk away as qualified instructors
       with the content being both a combination of how to be a
       teacher but also content that MSHA expects us to put out at
       these sessions.
                 I keep mentioning content.  I know that was one of
       the hardest things for me to do with some of the smaller
       scaled operations we had was to try and come up with stuff
       that would fill eight hours worth of annual refresher.  When
       you go through and you nix off the self rescue devices and
       explosives that have no part in your operation, it's a
       little hard to come up with the eight hours and have it be a
       meaningful experience.  My view of first aid is that's
       something that's done after the fact.  This is supposed to
       be safety training, which is things done before the fact,
       training to prevent accidents and incidents in the
       workplace, but as required, you include training.  I
       attempted to de-emphasize that as the major component of the
       training.  So I'd really like to see the agency come up with
       what they think is appropriate content.
                 Training materials, during this time period of '84
       through '92 I accessed many of the materials available from
       MSHA, and some were fairly apropos and meaningful and
       effective in my view, but many were not, and once again, the
       independent operator or contractor is left to try and
       develop his own meaningful, effective training materials.  
                 I've been to the academy at MSHA or the MSHA
       academy in West Virginia and leave with mixed feelings about
       the content of the materials that I received.  I've accessed
       much of their training materials, and some of it's right on
       target, but some of it is very dated and stale.
                 When you go through the plan approval, being a
       contractor that was national in scope of operations, we had
       to submit the training plan at a number of different
       district offices, and I'm going on memory, but it doesn't
       seem to me that it was a very much scrutinized training
       program, that the boilerplate was readily accepted with nary
       a comment or two along the way.  I think if you're going to
       require the industry to, you know, try and achieve the goal
       of preventing these injuries, then we ought to be able to
       have some constructive evaluations of these training
       programs. 
                 I would hope that the training programs are
       portable.  We have some small operations.  I have two fixed
       locations and three to five portable plants, depending upon
       configuration, and I'd hate to have to do a separate plan
       every time we go in and move up, set up in a pit for
       crushing rock for a highway job.  I'd like to have a plan
       that is perhaps in the name of the company accepted as
       opposed to the name of a location or a portable plant.  I
       recognize that there are differences within the work
       environment from one location to the next, but if you look,
       a lot of the criteria is spelled out in part 48, it's the
       same from one location to the next.
                 Definitions, when I'd submit my training plan to
       the training officers, I'd always put in my two cents, which
       was my previous understanding and acceptance of newly
       employed but experienced miner, which meant that somebody
       has been in the industry and working with this piece of
       machinery or this type of equipment could be considered
       experienced.  I don't think that we're much different than
       many others.  We try to hire people that are experienced
       that have some knowledge of what it is we expect them to do
       out there.  It makes them a more productive employee for us,
       not trying to satisfy a particular MSHA requirement but rare
       is the time where we hire somebody fresh out of high school
       and put them into the workplace.  We have a pretty stable
       work force in this company, but in my past life, we were
       around the country, and we did have to hire locally, and as
       a result, we had a lot of newly employed people.  So we were
       left with a decision, are these people experienced or not,
       and a bulldozer operator working on a highway job for 20
       years could come to what is a mine site and be considered a
       new employee.  That never did seem right, so I always wrote
       that clarification that because of their prior experience, I
       viewed them as an experienced miner.
                 Annual refresher, one of our mine sites was at
       high altitude and snowbound six months a year, and we
       consequently had a six-month season at that mine site, and
       we were deemed on the annual refresher, or lack of training,
       as you mentioned earlier, is an immediate withdrawal, which
       basically shuts down the operation until you get the members
       of the crew taken care of.  We were dinged because we didn't
       have the documentation or training requirements, and at a
       six-month-a-year operation, I'd like to see some
       clarification of this annual refresher.  Are we talking 12
       months of continuous employment, or are we talking calendar
       year basis?  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  You mean -- I guess I'm not clear
       on what issue it is that you're flagging.
                 MR. FALLON:  Let's say we hired this person.  He
       came to work June 1st, and we took care of the newly
       employed experience miner training requirement.  Okay?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. FALLON:  Now we come back.  It's a year later.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.
                 MR. FALLON:  Or actually five months later.  It's
       June 1st again, and this person by virtue of this rigid
       interpretation is entitled to or required to have annual
       refresher training even though they've worked less than five
       months for us.  So I'd like to have it spelled out that -- I
       think the intent was after 12 months of employment that
       people receive refresher training, but I think it is
       enforced on a calendar year basis.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I see.  Is the question then
       somebody comes on, you know, is hired at what -- I mean, and
       they get their whatever initial training it is that they're
       required to have.  Are they also required to have that
       refresher training in that year as well?  Is that --?
                 MR. FALLON:  Well, what I was -- part of the
       thinking was that if you work six months this year and then
       six months next year, at the beginning of the third year you
       better have your annual refresher done because you've worked
       a total of 12 months --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I see.  So you're talking about --
                 MR. FALLON:  -- versus some of these operators
       that work year round.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Whether it's, you know, based on a
       calendar regardless of whether you're working or not or --
                 MR. FALLON:  Correct.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  -- whatever your cumulative months
       of employment are?
                 MR. FALLON:  Correct.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  
                 MR. FALLON:  And last but not least, I've heard
       some commentary today about the consultative branches of
       your various OSHA agencies, typically state plan states, and
       I, too, kind of share the same sentiment.  You know, a year
       ago, a little over a year ago, MSHA conducted what I think
       they called the walk and talk, and it was in response to all
       the transportation fatalities, and I checked with my three
       or four locations that had that visitation, and to a man
       pretty much they were very receptive to that approach of
       trying to provide a safer workplace.  It had took them some
       time to get over the initial skepticism that this guy was
       just going to talk to them about things of accident trends
       and what we might do as the industry to avoid repeating
       that, but once they broke through that shell, it was pretty
       much a participative dialogue, which is very unusual for the
       agency with the people that it's charged with protecting. 
       So I encourage that sort of thing, and I would hope that the
       agency does take into the input that they get at sessions
       like this.  I remain -- I don't know if the word is
       "skeptical" or "disillusioned" perhaps.  It was four years
       ago where we tried to partner with MSHA to come up with a
       collective consensus on guarding requirements, and it wasn't
       just the local office.  It was at very high levels, and it
       went no where, so, you know, I'm optimistic, but I'm sure
       the industry, as you've heard today, is willing to share
       what they have, which is not only materials but also a lot
       of collective experience.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Questions.
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.  I guess my question deals with
       the annual refresher training.
                 MR. FALLON:  Right.
                 MR. BURNS:  Now, I'm not an expert on training. 
       My recollection is -- and I'll have to look into this. 
       Well, the Act says no less frequently than once each 12
       months.  Now, that's not necessarily specific along the
       lines of what you talked about, but I do believe the idea
       behind the annual refresher training was based on time and
       when people need to be refreshed about nonrepetitive type
       activities and that perhaps they were looking at, you know,
       a calendar period versus, you know, a work period, so, you
       know, that is something I'll look into.
                 MR. FALLON:  Well, you know, there's other highway
       contractors that are affected as me, and you might have a
       guy who gets around a crushing spread in support of the
       aggregate for a highway job for one month out of a given
       season or a calendar year, and you take the case of Alaska,
       much of our work is very seasonal limited to seven, eight
       months a year.  So one month he's around a crusher that
       supports the highway crew, and then he's back to the normal
       highway construction activities, and lo and behold, comes up
       in the 13th month after he did that, he's back around a
       crusher supporting a highway crew.  Technically, he's called
       for annual refresher.  
                 MR. BURNS:  That's one way of reading it.
                 MR. FALLON:  Right.  
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.  I mean, that is something I
       think we'll have to look at.
                 MR. FALLON:  Well, it would be nice to have a
       little latitude there.  It's not as though the person hasn't
       been receiving, as you heard from others, routine safety
       training through safety meetings held with the crew or other
       forms of training.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Anybody have anymore questions?
                 MR. BRELAND:  Well, just to follow up on that. 
       One month, you said, that this employee might have worked
       and it's been 12 months, but given the example you gave,
       this individual might be 12 years before they got 12 months. 
       You wouldn't be proposing --
                 MR. FALLON:  That's true.
                 MR. BRELAND:  You wouldn't be proposing that that
       would be --
                 MR. FALLON:  That's true.  That's the other end of
       the extreme.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Yes.  So I mean, I think you're
       right about you got to consider the possibilities when
       you're considering the flexibility.
                 MR. FALLON:  Right.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Now, if you came on the 13th month
       and you had planned to have the annual refresher completed
       in a certain amount of time might be different than saying
       just only on the 12 months itself I mean when you're
       considering making comments.
                 The other thing on the academy material, you said
       you been to the academy.  Was that in recent times?
                 MR. FALLON:  In 1985.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Because the academy is under
       a revitalization, if you will.  They're doing an awful lot
       of new program materials.  They're trying to gear it more --
       a lot of it to metal on metal industry.
                 MR. FALLON:  That's good.
                 MR. BRELAND:  They are looking for a lot of sand
       and gravel kind of issues.  I think you're going to find it
       has moved in a different direction in recent times, and part
       of our program will be to try to distribute materials
       through again state organizations and out to our field
       offices, and as we get scattered around, one of the things
       we'd like to do is have a good listing of materials in each
       district office and where we have training specialists
       located, so just for your knowledge there.
                 MR. FALLON:  That's great, and I hope that they
       start to de-emphasize the computer training programs they
       had back there, which we can get locally without having to
       go into Beckley. There's been -- I counted one time -- and I
       think it was preparatory to our meeting four years ago --
       something like 20 percent of the course offerings were in
       the area of learning computer software programs and how to
       apply them, you know, and that just didn't make sense to me
       when I could get it locally and that I would expect to go to
       the academy to get training in, you know, ground control or
       something like that.  
                 MR. BRELAND:  Yes.  Well, some of that was
       intended I think in recent times was to further educate
       employees within MSHA to use some of those programs to
       better work with people in the field, but the academy
       intends to do some traveling.  We're going to try to have
       some programs set up in the west.  There's some
       partnershipping that's going on with some of the -- like
       University of Nevada, Reno, and Colorado School of Mines, to
       try to offer some of those kinds of courses out west, and
       we'd be interested in hearing from other, you know, schools
       that are out there presently as a means of trying to again
       get materials out and some help.
                 MR. FALLON:  You know, and I know that MSHA has
       delivered grants to -- you keep saying a number of state
       agencies.  I'm familiar with Idaho, and I think even here in
       the State of -- Washington is across the river.  They've
       given it to university extension services typically, and
       I've seen a variety or a variation of what gets delivered
       then from that entity back to the industry.  So, again,
       anything you can do to streamline consistency and content, I
       think, is beneficial in the long run.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  That's all.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.  
                 We have a choice now.  I mean, we may want to take
       another 15-minute break.  We may want to break for lunch. 
       We've got two more people who have signed up to speak. 
       There may be other people who sitting here listening to what
       other people have said want to speak who haven't signed up
       or people who have already spoken who may want to come back
       up again.  Does anybody -- I mean, do people want to break
       for lunch now, or do they just want to keep on?  Anybody
       have any particular -- nobody wants to speak --
                 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE:  Let's get going and get it
       over with.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  Do you want to take a short
       break now and then come back in 10 or 15 minutes and then
       just pick up in ten?
                 MR. BURNS:  Make it ten.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Ten?
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay, ten minutes.  It will be
       about 10 till 12:00, and then we'll just finish up when we
       get back.
                 (Short recess.)
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Back on the record.  
                 The next speaker that we have on our list is Jock
       Dalton from Dalton Rock, Incorporated.
                        JOCK DALTON
                 MR. DALTON:  I am Jock Dalton, D-a-l-t-o-n.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I think you're going to have to
       speak up.  Oh, it's not on.  
                 MR. DALTON:  It's on.  It just doesn't work very
       well.
                 (Pause.)
                 Any better?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Can you hear him?  Speak.  Say 
       sentence or so.
                 MR. DALTON:  Okay.  I'll try and talk as loud as I
       can here.  
                 MR. BRELAND:  There you go.
                 MR. DALTON:  Better now?  Okay.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.  I think if you just make an
       effort to, you know --
                 MR. DALTON:  Okay.  Get close?
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes, yes.  
                 MR. DALTON:  Since I'm hearing impaired, I may be
       revisiting issues that have already been addressed here.  
                 One of the things that I'd like to actually ask
       you is what sort of attempts are being made in this training
       program to try to make the training stick to the employee. 
       You know, there's some addressing the qualifications of the
       trainers, but dealing -- what we're dealing with is the
       employee.  That is what this is all about is training them
       and bringing up their skills and addressing safety and
       operating practices that make them skilled and productive,
       and being skilled and productive involves being safe.  
                 So there are lot of operators here that have spent
       a lot of time and money trying to achieve this goal, and
       we're generally all looking for the same goal, and it's just
       a matter of how do we achieve it, and I think that's one of
       the reasons why a couple of people wanted MSHA to be more
       involved in the training itself, because they are trying to
       get MSHA in a proactive mode because it has potentially far
       greater resources than the individual operator, especially
       when we're talking about the small operator.
                 I'm trying to skip around, because these are -- I
       didn't organize this before, but --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  That's fine.
                 MR. DALTON:  -- I was just reacting to what was
       said.
                 A lot of operators, because it's part time and
       seasonal, are going to lose employees, trained employees
       over the winter because they can't keep them employed, and
       the motivated employees, which are the ones that are
       probably most likely to respond to the training positively,
       to retain the most, are the ones that are most likely to be
       motivated to get another job and to move on.  So part of
       what we're doing in training is trying to achieve either
       retaining employees or creating a pool of skilled employees
       from which to draw.  Again, this works in the benefit of the
       employee and, you know, the miner himself.
                 You know, part of your -- you know, if the
       training records or, you know, proof of training follows the
       employee, then that means that the -- you know, you as an
       employer, someone walks in the door and say, well, yeah,
       I've got documentation of training, and that makes him a
       much more desirable employee.  The flip side of that is that
       by doing this it creates a barrier to entry to employee --
       you know, potential employees who do not have that training. 
       You know, it's give with one hand, take with the other.
                 In our operation and with I think most other
       operators, what we are interested in is giving opportunities
       to employees, because with the opportunities, we also get
       something back.
                 Another thing to address is with the individual
       miner, how to get him to become a stakeholder.  The way
       MSHA's enforcement is currently structured, the concept is
       that the employer is the one who determines what happens in
       the workplace, and, you know, I've seen other types of
       regulation where the employee is the one who is considered
       to have the discretionary power, and the employer has little
       or no culpability.  These two extremes tend to eliminate,
       you know, one or the other as having a genuine concern.  
                 You know, I take the example of the HMO.  If
       there's no co-payment, you know, the individual has the
       temptation to go into the doctor for any little minor ache
       or pain.  If there's even a token co-payment, say $5, $10,
       they think twice about that little stuff, and they start
       saying, well, I want to save this for something that is
       serious.  One of the things -- there's an opportunity by
       having the training apply to everyone in the mining
       industry, and that is that if you can make the employee
       become a stakeholder and if you have the employee even to a
       very minor extent be a party to the violation and especially
       by using -- if you're trained and you have the documentation
       of the training, you should have a certain amount of
       responsibility in the violation because you should know
       better.
                 Now, the question is, you know, coal mines or
       whatever, historically the idea was that the miner didn't
       have a choice, he was ordered to by the operator and, you
       know, it was either that or be fired, and especially for our
       small operators, we would much rather rehabilitate a miner
       than to fire him if we can achieve the level of safety,
       because we've invested a lot in his skills.
                 And another thing is, you know, what we were
       looking at is essentially imposing a new level of
       regulation, because it's been in abeyance on a lot of small
       operators, and, you know, each operator is supposed to have
       an approved plan at a deadline.  They're in charge is
       supposed to have examined and approved each plan before this
       deadline without an increase in man power.  So how do we
       keep the ability to operate from being held hostage during
       the implementation period?   And one of the things that
       comes to my mind is the idea of approval, you know, rather
       than outright approval, provisional approval of a plan.  If
       you meet certain minimum standards during this provisional 
       -- you know, you can get a provisional acceptance or
       approval of your plan, and that gives you more time to flesh
       it out or to meet changes and suggestions, and that way
       you're still operating in the letter of the law.  You're
       having an approval, but by making it provisional, you're
       giving that window to where the details can be worked out,
       but by setting the standards for a provisional approval high
       enough to insure the basic level of safety where everybody
       is covered.  
                 So that's all I have.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much.  Does anybody
       have any questions?
                 MR. BRELAND:  Just on this provisional approval
       maybe so I understand.  Are you talking about like something
       that you would submit or a generic outline that says if you
       start off with this, that's okay to start with until it's
       looked at later?  I'm not sure I understood what --
                 MR. FALLON:  Yes.  I think in this process -- here
       you learn an awful lot about what people think should be
       involved in the basic plan, and I think an outline is the
       place to start, and then you have to flesh out -- you know,
       as it's questioned, you have to flesh out what you really
       need to achieve that level of safety to which everyone is
       comfortable with as an interim measure.  
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  That's all.  
                 MR. BURNS:  I guess I just had a question on the 
       -- you operate during certain periods of the year, and then
       you're down a certain period of time.  Is that --
                 MR. FALLON:  Well, actually we operate, you know,
       12 months a year, but in Western Oregon you don't move
       overburden in the winter.  The EPA would have something to
       say about that.  So in our particular operation, we have a
       certain -- we have a certain number of people that are
       involved in, you know, moving dirt that can't work for about
       six months a year.  So you have to -- you know, what you
       have is a seasonable operation superimposed on a full-time
       operation, and so you have -- for that number of employees,
       you have the same problem as if it was a seasonal operation,
       although we don't -- aren't like some of the portable
       crusher operators who move around, we still have to, you
       know, try to retain those employees during the off season,
       and it's very difficult.
                 MR. BURNS:  Is that something that over time is
       somewhat predictable and perhaps, you know, we could work
       with state grants to get a pool of new, you know, miners
       that would be -- at least have some training before it's
       time, you know, for the start up in the spring?
                 MR. FALLON:  You know, the question is, do you
       have the pool of trained miners.
                 MR. BURNS:  Yes.
                 MR. FALLON:  And that gets down to how much other
       activity is in the general area and whether they find better
       jobs doing something else.  Mining and construction skills
       tend to be very interchangeable, and you have people that
       float back and forth between those kind of jobs.  You know,
       one thing you might have to look at is someone who is
       trained, gets his 24 hours of training, then works in a mine
       for a season and then goes off and works two or three
       seasons in construction.  When he comes back, do you treat
       him as a new miner again, you know, even though, you know,
       what he's been doing is equivalent skills, and how do you
       document it, you know.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  I mean, is that your experience,
       that you may lose an employee out of the mining industry for
       some period of time but that they may float back in, you
       know, a year or a couple years later?
                 MR. FALLON:  Yes, and mining, construction,
       transportation.  You know, like for this particular seasonal
       stuff, you have several truck drivers, and the truck drivers
       may be employed in construction.  They may be employed over
       the road.  They may be doing anything, you know, in between,
       but, you know, once they've driven a dump truck and they
       know the basic operating rules, you know, really those
       skills stay with them.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Yes.
                 MR. FALLON:  It's a matter of -- you know, my
       personal feeling is it's refresher training, you know.  They
       know the basics, so what you have to do is go back and make
       sure that they haven't forgotten certain, you know, safety 
       -- aspects of safety, watching them berms, you know, dump
       site safety, things like that.  You're pretty much kind of
       refreshing them with the idea that okay, you're working on
       the mining end now, you know, these are the things you have
       to watch out for.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much, Mr. Dalton.
                 The last speaker we have on our list is David
       Chavez from Peter Kiewit Sons.
                       DAVID CHAVEZ
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  I always wanted to follow a music
       act, so maybe this is my opportunity.  
                 If I could, I'm just going to take a few minutes
       to address some of the concerns we have.  Peter Kiewit is a
       fairly large organization, and we have numerous mining
       operations throughout the southwest that are currently
       exempt from these current part 48 training standards.  Of
       course, I say exempt.  I don't mean that we -- I know MSHA
       doesn't have the monies appropriated to inspect our
       facilities, but most of our operators still do the training. 
                 Listed in the November 3, 1998, Federal Register,
       I'm just going to address those questions, and then, of
       course, if anybody has any comments to make afterwards, I'll
       do that, but I'll just go down through the questions if I
       could.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Okay.  I just want to check to see
       whether people can hear him or whether -- do you need to --
       maybe pull the -- I think if you pull the mike closer that
       it will work.
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  How's that?  Okay.  And like I say,
       what I'll do, is I'll just go down the list of the questions
       --
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  That's fine.
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  -- that were published in the Federal
       Register and try to address them as much as I can.
                 Regarding the new miner training, there's seven or
       eight specific items that are listed under new miner's
       training.  The question was, which of these subjects should
       be taught before a new miner is assigned to work even if the
       work is done under close supervision.  Our response to that
       is a new miner should be taught all the items listed in
       section 115 of the Act.  The one thing that brings us to
       concern is the portion dealing with first aid.  I think it's
       important that in order to do proper training in first aid,
       it requires additional training above and beyond what the
       Act requires, and a lot of people mentioned in this room
       here today that they go off and six or eight hours
       additional training in first aid, and I believe that's one
       item that we could possibly not put a lot of emphasis on
       when we can get it done in other areas, specifically in
       other standards or in additional new standards that are
       going to be coming out.
                 Number two, should training for inexperienced
       miners be given all at once or over a period of time such as
       several weeks or months?  Our response is with the exception
       of a short block of instruction at the beginning of
       employment, training should be spread out over a period of
       months.
                 Question number three, should this decision be
       left to the discretion of the mine operator?  We believe the
       mine operator should have as much discretion as possible and
       flexibility to do not only his training operations but also
       his safety responsibilities under the Act, so I think it's
       important that the operator be given the flexibility and the
       latitude to do whatever initial training is required in
       order to get the personnel to do their functions, that the
       remaining training, 16 hours, 20 hours, whatever we decide,
       should be done over a period of months in order to comply
       with the standard keeping in mind that we realize that the
       Act does say 24 hours training, and we're not going to get
       beyond that.
                 Question, what are the advantages and
       disadvantages of spreading training over an extended period
       of time?  We see two advantages.  One is we try to place
       together training done in groups of people in order to get
       the best -- get the employees together in order for them to
       exchange ideas when it comes to safety.  In addition,
       occasionally we do a one-on-one training, but we like to get
       three or four employees together and exchange ideas once
       they've been out on the job and have certain concerns.  
                 Second of all, addressing the concerns especially
       for a lot of the small operators, especially in this part of
       the country where a lot of work is seasonal where they may
       hire a person today, if we require them to do the 24-hour
       training over a period of three days, a month from now they
       may lose a person.  That's an economic disadvantage to them
       as we see it.
                 Question, should supervisors be subject to the
       same training requirements as miners, and our response to
       that is yes, absolutely.  A lot of our supervisors are also
       instructors, and they should have to go through the same
       training as hourly employees.
                 Under task training, the question is, should
       training be required whenever a miner receives a work
       assignment that involves new and unfamiliar tasks.  Our
       response is yes to insure that the job is accomplished in a
       safe and efficient manner.  
                 Annual refresher training, should specific areas
       be covered during annual refresher training?  Yes.  The
       subjects that should be covered is not only what's required
       under the Act, but it should be those subjects that the
       operator feels is necessary to cover for his or their
       specific operation.  One good example brought up earlier
       today was some operations do blasting, some don't do
       blasting, and I think it's imperative that the operator be
       given the flexibility to determine what type of training is
       required for their operation.
                 Question, can the eight hours of annual refresher
       training required by the Act be completed in segments of
       training lasting less than 30 minutes?  Our response to that
       is yes.  A lot of operators, most operators, conduct safety
       meetings.  A person's attention span is probably only 10 or
       15 minutes when it comes to a safety meeting, and if we are
       allowed to teach the eight-hour refresher training over a
       period of 10 or 12 months during safety meetings, I believe
       that we're going to be able to get a more effective training
       program by doing it that way rather than employees having to
       sit through a full eight hours of classroom training, which
       we've all been through at one time or the other, and
       sometimes it can be quite boring, depending on the
       instructor and the content.
                 Training certificates, question, should the
       records of training be kept by the mine operators at the
       mine site, or should the regulation allow records be kept at
       all other locations?  Our response to that is that should be
       at the discretion of the operator.  A lot of small operators
       are able to keep their records at their location. 
       Operations like ourselves, when most of our records are
       computerized, I think we should be allowed to keep them on a
       computer data base, and if the inspector asks for them, we
       could fax it to them or deliver them within a matter of
       hours or at least by the following day, or in our case, the
       inspector generally comes back for two or three days because
       of the size of our operations.
                 Qualifications of instructors, should there be a
       minimum qualification for persons who conduct miner
       training?  This is -- my response isn't much different than
       what's currently in part 48, and I have to look back at my
       experience, especially dealing with small operators.  I
       believe that the -- who determines the qualifications for
       instructors and who is selecting instructors should be
       totally up to the operator.  The operator knows the people
       that work for him.  He knows the qualifications of the
       person.  He knows their experiences.  He knows their
       knowledge and abilities, and the operator should be allowed
       -- should be given as much flexibility as possible to
       determine who on their staff, either a supervisor, a safety
       person, a training person -- they should be allowed to
       determine who is qualified to teach in their operations.  
                 A gentleman before me or two people before me
       mentioned of going to the two and a half hour days of the
       certification to become instructors.  They teach you there
       how to teach.  They don't teach you experience, and they
       don't teach you the knowledge of the operation.  That only
       comes by working there, and I believe that the operator is
       the person who should determine who is qualified to teach
       there.
                 Finally, operations similar to ours, we do a lot
       of -- we have a lot of crossover between MSHA and OSHA.  I
       believe it's essential in order to do proper training that
       somehow in this regulation that OSHA training that's
       currently being done should be allowed to carry over to the
       MSHA training in one manner or another at least giving
       credit.  For example, lock and tagout, confined space, first
       aid training, all these subjects that we currently do now on
       the OSHA side of the house should be allowed to carryover to
       MSHA, and I believe that would benefit the small operator,
       too.  For those that -- especially for those that do a lot
       of construction work, it would definitely benefit them.
                 Finally, once again, I have to gear these
       responses here towards the small operators.  There are three
       things that are important in this new regulation that I
       think is important for the small operator.  One, like I
       mentioned earlier about when it comes to trainers, I think
       that the discretion and latitude given to the operator to
       determine who a trainer is, is essential.  
                 Two, the plan that is written, I don't believe
       MSHA has the desire or the man power to look at all these
       training plans that are going to be shipped into district
       offices to determine who in the heck is going to approve
       these plans.  Different in part 48, I believe that the plan
       should be written and not submitted to MSHA, and as -- a
       person's -- maybe a way should be put on it when an
       inspector comes in and does an inspection, if they find that
       there's a lot of accidents, a lot of citations, then maybe
       the inspector should be given the latitude to look at the
       plan.  I don't think we should burden some MSHA and other
       people to look at training plans when we want the inspectors
       out in the field enforcing safety and health centers in
       order to eliminate accidents, and I think that's our -- of
       course, essentially, that's our goal in all this is to
       eliminate accidents.
                 Then, finally, once again, I think it's important
       that the operator, especially the small operator, be given
       whatever flexibility and discretion is allowable under the
       Act to determine their own training needs, to determine
       their training people and to determine what their plan is if
       anybody knows what their needs are.  We've had this
       exemption for a lot of years, and a lot of this is new to a
       lot of people, and I believe -- once again, it's important
       that the operator determine what those needs are.  
                 Finally, I believe that there should be a
       grandfather provision in the regulation that should allow
       all those employees that are currently employed by operators
       to be grandfathered so they will not be required to do the
       24-hour training and eight-hour refresher training once the
       law becomes in effect.  Of course, subsequently, after that,
       they'll have to take the eight hours training, but I'm more
       concerned about those employees that are currently working
       there now.  I believe they should be granfathered when this
       new regulation takes effect sometime in '99, we think, and
       those are my remarks.  
                 MR. BRELAND:  I have a couple things, Dave.  On
       the -- this is going backwards, I guess.  You said the
       grandfather provision -- and that's come up a couple times,
       but, again, with this particular segment of the industry
       that there's a lot of seasonal work -- have you got an idea
       in mind for definition of grandfather, somebody working at
       the time, worked the last year, so much in the last several
       years or what?
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Well, naturally I would ask that it
       would be someone who is currently employed at the time that
       the regulation takes effect, but going beyond that, I would
       suspect that someone who has worked in the industry over a
       period of time has some experience either with that operator
       or other operators.  You know, I'll just throw a number out. 
       Maybe six months, six months experience.  They wouldn't be
       required to take that 24 hours training but maybe just the
       eight hours training and, once again, have it done over a
       period of four to five months so the operators -- they could
       get all their employees in.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Then also you talked about
       the annual refresher of being in the segments of less than
       30 minutes, and that could be a concern for, again, the
       tracking requirement.  Do you have something in mind on how
       that could be done?
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Yes.  Actually, we currently do it
       now.  Since you come look at our records, that's the way we
       do it anyway, but we have safety meeting rosters.  At a
       minimum, there's a roster printed, and we put a copy of that
       in the employee's file to designate what training he had
       that particular month, and we check it off in the employee's
       file.  That's the easy way to do it on the paper side.  
                 We also have a system to where we have it
       computerized.  We list all the items that are required under
       MSHA and then check it off on the date that was conducted
       and by who it was conducted and the duration of the time
       that it was conducted, because I think at a minimum, I think
       just simply putting it in the employee's file would be
       adequate to where the inspector can look at it if necessary. 
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  Then you talked about the
       operator making the determination to select who is
       qualified.  There's a lot of people talking about that as
       well.  Again, I mentioned earlier with one of the other
       speakers that what if it's found in the on-site review maybe
       by an inspector or somebody else that the person that's got
       qualifications is really not doing a good job of teaching? 
       Do you have anything in mind for a remedy of that kind of
       problem?  It's likely to occur at some point in time.
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  And it probably would occur.  To be
       honest with you, I don't see much different than what we're
       currently doing now, because we send someone in to do -- to
       become a certified instructor, and once again, they just
       teach in content but no really experience or knowledge of
       the operation.  I believe that's the responsibility of the
       operator, that the operator determine who is competent to
       teach, and if the inspector determines that the person is
       not competent, then MSHA should address that issue
       specifically with that operator, but don't penalize, for
       lack of a better term, the people who are going to do a good
       job and pick competent people in order to get a good
       effective training because it costs money, and I think most
       companies are going to pick qualified quality people to do
       proper training.  Let the inspector on the site, if he
       determines that the person is incompetent, let him address
       that with the operator.
                 MR. BRELAND:  Okay.  That's all I have.  Thanks.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Kevin?
                 MR. BURNS:  No, I don't have any additional
       questions.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Ros has got a question.
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Yes, ma'am.
                 MS. FONTAINE:  Yes.  Do you do most of your
       training in-house, or do you bring contract employees who do
       it for you?
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Oh, we do all -- we do three.  We do
       training in-house, we hire outside contractors, and then we
       take advantage of the grants program in Arizona given to the
       state mine inspector program.  We take advantage of the
       grant program there, too, so we do all three.
                 MS. FONTAINE:  Okay.  Using MSHA's definition of
       19 or less is a small mine, can you give me an estimate of
       what it costs you to train your employees a year?
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Well, we have a pretty good staff of
       people.  There's probably eight or nine of us in the safety
       department.  Well, my budget is actually $1.5 million, so I
       guess that gives you a pretty good idea, but, once again,
       we're talking OSHA training, too.
                 MS. FONTAINE:  Right.
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Not just MSHA.  We do all kinds of
       training, including -- we have ready-mix drivers, and we do
       defensive driving training there, too, but we do a lot of
       training.
                 MS. FONTAINE:  Okay.  
                 MR. BURNS:  How many employees does that cover?  I
       mean both OSHA and MSHA.  I'm just curious.
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  About 3,000 employees, OSHA and MSHA,
       in the areas that I'm responsible for.  Peter Kiewit wide,
       we have about 16,000 employees.
                 MR. BURNS:  And that's what that training budget
       addresses?
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Yes, the 3,000 employees.
                 MR. BURNS:  Okay.  
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chavez.
                 MR. CHAVEZ:  Yes, ma'am.
                 MS. ALEJANDRO:  All right.  We've reached the end
       of the list of people who signed up to speak.  I'd like to
       ask, is there anyone who hasn't signed up who has now
       decided that they would like to come up to the mike and give
       some comments?  
                 (No response.)
                 No hands.  Is there anybody who has already spoken
       who feels like they want to add something more?
                 (No response.)
                 Okay, no hands.  What I'm going to do now is just
       give you a summary of some of the issues that have been
       touched on in some of the earlier meetings.  You've heard a
       lot of them already today.  
                 One of the issues that we've gotten some comments
       on has to do with contractors, and there's kind of two
       issues here.  A number of people have indicated that they
       believe that contractors should be primarily responsible for
       the comprehensive training that their employees receive and
       that the operator of the mine site should give these
       contractor employees site specific training but that the
       burden, the responsibility for the 24 hours of initial
       training and the eight hours of refresher training should
       fall primarily on the contractor's shoulders and should not
       be the responsibility of the mine operator.
                 Another issue related to contractors -- I sort of
       referred to it earlier -- is that we've gotten some comments
       on levels of training.  I mean, employees do a variety of
       different things.  I mean, some of them are directly
       involved in the extraction and processing process, and these
       other categories of employees who do come onto the mine
       property but may not be involved in the actual mining
       process, I mean delivery people, et cetera, and we've gotten
       a number of comments on the type of training that those
       categories of employees should be required to have under a
       proposed or final rule.
                 We've gotten a lot of comments on, you know, how
       much initial miner training needs to be given before the
       miner is allowed to begin work.  A lot of people advocated,
       you know, following the part 48 model, which is eight hours
       of training and then you deliver the 16 additional hours at,
       you know, some later point in time.  Other people have said
       two hours, four hours.  People have said, you know, cover
       specific topics up-front with no specific time period
       required.  We've gotten a number of comments from operators
       urging us to have these requirements be very flexible and
       also reduce any kind of administrative or paperwork burden
       that's going to be put on them.
                 As you've heard today, we've gotten a number of
       comments on what appropriate minimum qualifications are for
       instructors who give training under part 46.  We've gotten a
       number of comments recommending that we allow flexibility in
       record keeping and don't have a requirement that records be
       kept at the mine site, but it could be kept at some central
       location and then given to the mine inspector upon request
       within some minimum period of time.
                 Then, finally, we've gotten a number of comments
       on how much time beyond the date that the proposed -- or
       excuse me, the final rule is published, how much time does
       the industry and the trainers need to come up to speed to
       comply with training regulations.  Today we heard six
       months.  We've heard people advocate, you know, a year,
       other people advocating shorter periods of time, so we've
       gotten a number of comments on that issue.  
                 So if, in fact, you're thinking that maybe you
       would like to submit something in writing, I mean, those are
       the issues that we've heard comments on.  If you'd like to
       address those, I encourage you to do so.
                 To close, I'd just like to give you some idea of
       what happens from this point on.  As I mentioned to you,
       we've got a couple more public meetings.  The last two are
       the week of January 5th in Dallas and then Atlanta, Georgia. 
       We are expecting a draft, the final draft, from the
       Coalition.  A number of you got copies of a draft from the
       Coalition, and we're expecting the final draft before
       February 1st.  At that point after we get the draft and any
       other comments anyone has chosen to submit, we're going to
       work pretty quickly to come up with a proposed rule, which
       ideally we'd like to publish sometime in March or April.  
                 After the proposal is published, there's a comment
       period both through public hearings.  We're anticipating
       having at least two public hearings and maybe more depending
       on what, you know, time schedule we've got, and then
       additionally at that point you can also submit additional
       written comments, attend the public hearing, you know,
       whatever you feel comfortable doing.  
                 The record will close, and then we are under an
       obligation set by Congress to publish a final training rule
       on or before September 30, 1999, and then depending on, you
       know, what the compliance deadline is, at some point after
       that, the mines that are affected by this training will have
       to come into compliance with the requirements that are set
       in that final rule.
                 I would encourage you, again, to submit your
       comments by February 1st.  Feel free, you know, to contact
       MSHA if you've got any questions.  Additionally, I mean, for
       those of you who have got access to the World Wide Web, MSHA
       does have an Internet home page, and the address is
       www.msha.gov.  MSHA is m-s-h-a.  If you go to the home page,
       there's a button or a bar called "training regulations."  If
       you click on that, we're intending to keep, you know, up to
       speed on any documents that are generated.  I mean, that
       will be a quick way for you to figure out what the status of
       this project is.  
                 That's about all I have.  I mean, does anybody
       have any questions?  Otherwise, I mean, we'll just say thank
       you very much for coming, particularly thank you very much
       to those of you who have chosen to speak today, and please,
       you know, send us anything that you want considered as we
       formulate this final training regulation.  Thank you very
       much.
                 (Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the meeting in the
       above-entitled matter adjourned.)
       //
       //
       //
       //
       //
       //
       //
       //
       //                  REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
                             
       Public Meeting:
       MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH 
       ADMINISTRATION
       
       DATE:     December 15, 1998
       PLACE:    Portland, Oregon
       
                 This is to certify that the attached proceedings
       before the United States Department of Labor were held
       according to the record and that this is the original,
       complete, true and accurate transcript which has been
       compared to the recording accomplished at the meeting.
       
       
       
       __James H. Terrell________            December 17, 1998