Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-07-01026/USCOURTS-caDC-07-01026-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mine Safety and Health Administration
Respondent
National Mining Association
Petitioner
Secretary of Labor
Respondent
United Mine Workers of America
Intervenor

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 13, 2007 Decided January 11, 2008

No. 07-1026

NATIONAL MINING ASSOCIATION,

PETITIONER

v.

MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION AND

SECRETARY OF LABOR,

RESPONDENTS

UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA,

INTERVENOR

On Petition for Review of a Final Rule of the

Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration

Daniel W. Wolff argued the cause for petitioner. With him

on the briefs were Thomas C. Means, Edward M. Green, and

Harold P. Quinn, Jr.

Jerald S. Feingold, Attorney, U.S. Department of Labor,

argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was W.

Christian Schumann, Counsel, Mine Safety & Health

Administration. Jack Powasnik, Counsel, entered an

appearance.

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1

These devices, known as self-contained self-rescuers, are

“closed-circuit breathing apparatus[es].” 64 Fed. Reg. 36,632 (Jul. 7,

1999). They operate by feeding fresh oxygen from a reserve tank on

the miner’s back into a breathing bag which is attached to an

inhalation tube and mouthpiece allowing the miner to inhale clean

oxygen. Instruction Manual for OCENCO, Inc. EBA 6.5 60 Minute

Self-Contained Self-Rescuer 4 (Sept. 7, 2001), http://www.msha.

gov/interactivetraining/scsr/ocenco%20eba%2065/lesson05/ocen

co%20eba%2065%20manual.pdf. The miner exhales through the

mouthpiece. The exhaled air is scrubbed to remove CO2 and then

returned to the breathing bag to be mixed with more fresh oxygen. Id.

The closed-circuit nature of these devices prevents toxins present in

the mine from being inhaled by the miner.

2

This requirement kicked in only if the rescue devices located

in the working areas of the mine would be insufficient to permit the

average miner to escape from the mine within thirty minutes. That

limitation, still present in the final rule, 30 C.F.R. § 75.1714-4(c)

Judith Rivlin and Grant Crandall were on the brief for

intervenor.

Before: SENTELLE, RANDOLPH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit

Judges.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: Two fatal accidents at West

Virginia coal mines in January 2006 prompted the Mine Safety

and Health Administration – MSHA – to adopt emergency

safety measures. See 71 Fed. Reg. 12,252 (Mar. 9, 2006).

MSHA, an agency within the Department of Labor, concluded

that the West Virginia miners might have survived if there had

been portable oxygen devices1

 in the escapeways to protect them

from toxic fumes for at least an hour. Acting quickly, MSHA

issued an emergency temporary standard requiring mine

operators to place such rescue devices, one for each miner, in

the primary and emergency escapeways of the mine.2 This

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(2006), is not important to our analysis. 

petition for judicial review, brought by the National Mining

Association, seeks to set aside the final rule that replaced the

temporary standard. 

The Mine Act authorizes MSHA to issue the temporary

rules without notice and comment in response to emergencies.

30 U.S.C. § 811(b)(1). In this case, in order to make its

temporary standard permanent, MSHA engaged in notice-andcomment rulemaking, with the published temporary standard

serving as the proposed rule. 30 U.S.C. § 811(b)(3). The

resulting product – the final emergency mine evacuation rule, 71

Fed. Reg. 71,430 (Dec. 8, 2006) – altered the temporary

standard with respect to rescue devices. See 30 C.F.R.

§ 75.1714-4 (2006). The final rule required either that one

additional device be provided for each miner in each emergency

escapeway or that one additional device be provided in a

“hardened room” cache located between two adjacent

emergency escapeways and accessible from both. Id. § 75.1714-

4(d). A “hardened room” is a reinforced room built to the “same

explosion force criteria as seals” and serviced by an

independent, positive pressure source of ventilation from the

surface. Id. § 75.1714-4(d)(1). 

I.

The National Mining Association urges us to set the final

rule aside. One of its objections is that MSHA failed to give

adequate notice of the hardened room option. The objection

rests on § 101(a)(2) of the Mine Act. 30 U.S.C. § 811(a)(2).

This section requires MSHA, in putting out proposed rules for

notice and comment, to publish “the text of such rules proposed

USCA Case #07-1026 Document #1091669 Filed: 01/11/2008 Page 3 of 9
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In this respect § 101(a)(2) is more confining than the

Administrative Procedure Act, which allows agencies to give notice

of “either the terms or substance of the proposed rule or a description

of the subjects and issues involved.” 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)(3). Even so,

today “most agencies publish the text of the proposed rule when

commencing rulemaking.” Jeffrey S. Lubbers, A Guide to Federal

Agency Rulemaking 183 (3d ed. 1998).

in their entirety” in the Federal Register. Id.

3

 Because MSHA

never published the hardened room option in the Federal

Register before issuing the final rule, National Mining concludes

that this aspect of the final rule is invalid. 

That the final rule differed from the one MSHA proposed

is hardly unusual. An agency’s final rules are frequently

different from the ones it published as proposals. The reason is

obvious. Agencies often “adjust or abandon their proposals in

light of public comments or internal agency reconsideration.”

Kooritzky v. Reich, 17 F.3d 1509, 1513 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

Whether in such instances the agency should have issued

additional notice and received additional comment on the

revised proposal “depends, according to our precedent, on

whether the final rule is a ‘logical outgrowth’ of the proposed

rule.” Id.; see United Mine Workers of Am. v. MSHA, 407 F.3d

1250, 1259-60 (D.C. Cir. 2005). While we often apply the

doctrine simply by comparing the final rule to the one proposed,

we have also taken into account the comments, statements and

proposals made during the notice-and-comment period. See

Natural Res. Def. Council v. Thomas, 838 F.2d 1224, 1243

(D.C. Cir. 1988); Edison Elec. Inst. v. OSHA, 849 F.2d 611, 621

(D.C. Cir. 1988); United Steelworkers of Am. v. Marshall, 647

F.2d 1189, 1221 (D.C. Cir. 1980); District of Columbia v. Train,

521 F.2d 971, 997 (D.C. Cir. 1975). In South Terminal Corp. v.

EPA, the case that gave birth to the “logical outgrowth”

formulation, the court did the same. 504 F.2d 646, 659 (1st Cir.

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1974). The court held that the final rule was “a logical

outgrowth” – not simply of the proposed rule – but “of the

hearing and related procedures” during the notice and comment

period. Id.

Here MSHA’s proposed rule – the emergency temporary

standard – required that a rescue device be provided for each

miner in both the primary and the alternative escapeways. That

proposal left open several questions. Where in the escapeways

should the devices be stored? How should they be made

available to the miners? When the two escapeways are close

together, will it suffice to have one common cache of devices

rather than two separate caches? Given these considerations,

interested persons must have been alerted to the possibility of a

hardened room option. And the record shows that they were so

alerted. Mine operators inquired about the potential of using a

common cache of rescue devices located between adjacent

emergency escapeways. They submitted questions to MSHA

about whether such a common cache would suffice. Four public

meetings were held as part of the rulemaking. At each, the

MSHA official’s opening statement addressed the possibility of

a hardened room alternative directly and sought comments from

interested parties. A representative of the National Mining

Association attended the Washington, D.C., meeting and

indicated that his organization would respond to the opening

statement by the end of the comment period. The Mining

Association never submitted comments, but several interested

parties did – including several of the Mining Association’s

members. MSHA later extended the comment period by thirty

days so that “interested parties could adequately address issues

contained in MSHA’s opening statements.” 71 Fed. Reg. 29,785

(May 24, 2006). 

The hardened room option was thus a logical outgrowth of

the proposed rule, or put differently, the Mining Association had

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Its statutory interpretation relies on a Senate Committee

Report published six months after the passage of the MINER Act. S.

Rep. No. 109-365 (2006). 

adequate notice. Even if we were less than certain about this

conclusion, the actual notice the Mining Association received

would have cured any inadequacy. See 5 U.S.C. § 553(b); Small

Refiner Lead Phase-Down Task Force v. EPA, 705 F.2d 506,

549 (D.C. Cir. 1983); Sierra Club v. Costle, 657 F.2d 298, 355,

360, 398-99 (D.C. Cir. 1981); Owensboro on the Air, Inc. v.

United States, 262 F.2d 702, 707-08 (D.C. Cir. 1958); Phillip M.

Kannan, The Logical Outgrowth Doctrine in Rulemaking, 48

ADMIN. L. REV. 213, 221 (1996). 

II.

Between the time MSHA issued its temporary standard and

the time it promulgated its final rule, the Mine Improvement and

New Emergency Response Act of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-236,

120 Stat. 493 (2006) (MINER Act), became law. The Mining

Association claims that the MINER Act precluded MSHA from

promulgating the hardened room option. It is unnecessary to

recite in detail the Association’s arguments.4

 It raised none of

them before MSHA, although it had ample opportunity to do so

between the time Congress passed the MINER Act in June 2006

and December 2006 when MSHA issued the final rule. In

common with many regulatory statutes, the Mine Act states that

“no objection that has not been urged before the Secretary shall

be considered by the court, unless the failure or neglect to urge

such an objection shall be excused for good cause shown.” 30

U.S.C. § 811(d). The Mining Association contends that the

comments of several other parties mentioning the MINER Act

preserved its objections. We think not. None of those

comments came close to setting forth with any specificity the

objections the Mining Association now makes regarding the

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Several other options were suggested, including a

requirement that non-combustible stoppings be used at each end of the

common cache, a requirement that steel boxes be placed in the wall

accessible from both escapeways, a requirement that the cross-cut

MINER Act. See Nat’l Mining Ass’n. v. MSHA, 116 F.3d 520,

532 (D.C. Cir. 1997). We therefore will not consider the Mining

Association’s arguments about the impact of the MINER Act on

MSHA’s final rule.

III.

The Mining Association alleges that the hardened room

option – as opposed to an option allowing a common cache with

less stringent safeguards – is arbitrary and capricious because

MSHA did not sufficiently explain its decision. 

The Mine Act incorporates the rulemaking requirements of

the APA. 30 U.S.C. § 811(a); United Mine Workers of Am. v.

Dole, 870 F.2d 662, 666 (D.C. Cir. 1989). Under the APA, an

agency must “incorporate in the rules adopted a concise general

statement of their basis and purpose.” 5 U.S.C. § 553(c). This

requirement is not meant to be particularly onerous. See Public

Citizen, Inc. v. FAA, 988 F.2d 186, 197 (D.C. Cir. 1993). It is

enough if the agency’s statement identifies the major policy

issues raised in the rulemaking and coherently explains why the

agency resolved the issues as it did. See U.S. Telecom Ass’n v.

FCC, 227 F.3d 450, 460 (D.C. Cir. 2000); United Mine Workers

of Am. v. Dole, 870 F.2d at 666; Indep. U.S. Tanker Owners

Comm. v. Dole, 809 F.2d 847, 852 (D.C. Cir. 1987). MSHA’s

statement did just that.

As to the hardened room option, the main controversy was

about whether less stringent common storage measures could be

used instead.5

 The claim was that these less stringent

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rooms be made out of concrete and use heavy steel doors, and a

requirement that airlocks between the escapeways be utilized to house

the rescue devices.

requirements would provide incremental safety benefits over

placing the rescue devices in the escapeways and that the

options would be cheaper than the hardened room alternative,

making common caches feasible for more mines. 

MSHA referred to those comments in the preamble to its

final rule. 71 Fed. Reg. 71,7430, 71,444 (Dec. 8, 2006). It

explained that its primary concern with approving a common

cache of devices was that the cache needed to be “secured

against damage from explosions in either escapeway.” Id.

Underlying MSHA’s analysis is the apparent belief that the

redundancy provided by having separate sets of devices results

in an increased likelihood that at least one set would survive an

explosion. Thus, in order to justify collapsing the two sets into

one, additional steps are required to ensure that an explosion

would not destroy the devices in a common cache. Hardened

rooms achieve this end because they are built to more rigorous

specifications. Id. While other options might be cheaper, the

hardened room meets the primary concern MSHA identified.

Though MSHA’s explanation of its decision is short, it

adequately addresses the major policy concerns raised and

demonstrates a course of reasoned decisionmaking. The final

rule, including the hardened room option, is not arbitrary and

capricious.

IV.

The Mining Association argues that MSHA failed to

comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 601-12,

because it did not analyze the economic impact of the hardened

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room option. When promulgating a rule, an agency must

perform an analysis of the impact of the rule on small

businesses, or certify, with support, that the regulation will not

have a significant economic impact on them. 5 U.S.C.

§§ 603(a), 604(a), 605(b). When it published the temporary

standard, MSHA certified that the primary method of

compliance – placing a separate set of rescue devices in each

emergency escapeway – would not have a significant economic

impact on small businesses. 71 Fed. Reg. 12,252, 12,266-67

(Mar. 9, 2006). The Mining Association does not challenge the

sufficiency of that certification. Since the primary method of

compliance did not create a significant economic burden on

small businesses, there was no reason for MSHA to undertake

an economic analysis of the alternative. If the hardened room

option is considerably more expensive, small businesses can

simply refuse to choose it. Compare Envtl. Def. Ctr., Inc. v.

EPA, 344 F.3d 832, 879 (9th Cir. 2003) (noting that the creation

of cheaper alternative methods of compliance is one way to

minimize the impact on small businesses). 

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is denied.

So ordered.

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