Date: 2008-01-16
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

What this amendment would do would be to strike many of the very important provisions in the underlying bill that are there to protect the lives and the safety of those who mine coal in this countrys coal mines. They would change the retreat mining where we just saw a disaster of a mine accident in Utah this last August. They would provide a provision of a study. Rather than changing the regulations by which that happened. they would provide a study. A study was not going to save those miners. They would also take out the provision that we have that miners should have 96 hours of air available to them in the mines until such time as we have the refuge chambers. They take that out. hose miners need that air today. The fact that a refuge chamber is on order. may not be delivered for six months. a year. a -year and a half. does nothing for the miner who goes to work today and tomorrow. and that is why we did it. We did it so that we could provide that margin of safety for those individuals. We also look at conveyor belts. a major ignition point of fires in the mine. and if not properly installed. if not properly taken care of. can take the fire and the gases directly to- where .the miners are working. So they take that provision out.. We say that MSHA cannot investigate itself. It cannot investigate itself. These must be independent investigations. because you have to look at whether or not MSHA properly did its job. properly enforced the requirements of the law. properly inspected the mines and all that that entails. and to have them redo that themselves is a disservice to the miners and to the families. Its the single most provided complaint to this committee by the families. that they*just dont understand how the watch dog can investigate themselves when their family members died in these mines. They want somebody else to take a look at it. They want somebody else to see whether or not it was done properly or not. and that is out in this provision. It also limits the family participation. Why is it .that the victims arent able to testify and to participate and understand the design of the investigation? They are excluded from this process today. These are family members. these are victims of the disaster. these are taxpayers. and theyre told. Just stand on the side. well tell you what happened. In many instances. they know more about what happens because when their spouses come home from work. they talk to them about what is wrong in the mines. whats dangerous. about their fear of going to work. So we provided an ombudsman so that that could happen. They should also be part of that investigation. We think its very important that this amendment be defeated because it wipes out. it guts those provisions of the law that we envision in this legislation that are so important to those miners and to their families. We cannot do what we have done in the past and assume that we can just leave this to the Mine Safety Health Administration. They essentially did nothing for 8 years. Now. tragically. year after year .those mining families are paying the price for that. That must come to an end. That is what this legislation does. This amendment destroys the ability of this legislation to provide that margin of safety to the miners and to their families. and I urge a "no" vote on the Wilson amendment. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.