Under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (the “Mine Act”), Congress created MSHA and gave it primary responsibility for ensuring the safety and health of mine workers. MSHA’s Coal Mine Safety and Health program office in headquarters is responsible for carrying out enforcement activities related to surface and underground coal mines, managing agency operations, and monitoring the activities of its 11 district offices. MSHA’s district offices have day-to-day responsibility for activities such as reviewing and approving mine plans, including emergency response plans, and for conducting inspections, issuing citations for violations of health and safety standards, and investigating mine accidents. As of December 2007, MSHA employed 460 underground coal mine inspectors in its 11 district offices. MSHA’s principal enforcement responsibility for underground coal mines is fulfilled by conducting a minimum of four comprehensive inspections of every underground coal mine in the United States each year. When MSHA inspectors observe violations of mandatory federal health and safety standards, they are required to issue citations, or in some cases withdrawal orders, to mine operators. The mine operators generally are required by law to correct the hazardous situation on which the violation was based within the time frame set by the inspector, even if the mine operator contests the violation or penalty. As of June 2007, there were approximately 470 U.S. underground coal mines categorized by MSHA as active, producing mines. As shown in figure 1, the number of active, producing mines varies among districts. The number of active, producing coal mines changes frequently as new mines open, active mines are temporarily idled, or mines are abandoned. Some underground mines do not actively produce coal all year; some are only operated seasonally because of local weather conditions; and operations at smaller, less cost-effective mines are often suspended when the price of coal drops below a certain level. Underground coal mining is a dangerous industry for several reasons. For example, the presence of methane gas, which is highly explosive and is often produced in large quantities when coal is extracted, contributes to the hazardous working conditions. Additional risks include geological conditions in many areas of the country that make the roofs of mines unstable, the danger posed by a fire in an underground mine, and flooding from nearby abandoned mines. The danger posed by these factors has increased in recent years as miners dig deeper to reach remaining coal reserves. Further, while the number of underground coal miners was on the decline in the last half of the 1990s, as shown in figure 2, this trend has reversed in recent years, exposing more workers to the dangers of underground coal mining. In March 2006, a few months after the Sago mine accident, MSHA issued an Emergency Temporary Standard that required mine operators to immediately implement certain health and safety improvements designed to enhance protections for underground coal miners. MSHA issued a final rule revising the standard in December 2006. In June 2006, the Congress passed the MINER Act, which required mine operators and MSHA to undertake reforms, including developing and adopting emergency response plans, enhancing mine rescue teams, and instituting higher penalties for the most serious violations. The MINER Act required that, within 60 days of enactment, underground mine operators develop and adopt written emergency response plans. The act also required MSHA to review and approve emergency response plans. The agency implemented this requirement by issuing guidance for mine operators to use in developing their plans and by having its district offices review the plans submitted by mines under their jurisdiction to ensure that they conformed with the guidance. MSHA is also required to review approved plans at least every 6 months to ensure that they are updated to reflect changes in mine operations and advances in technology. The MINER Act specified several components that mine operators must include in their emergency response plans, including providing uncontaminated or “breathable” air for miners after an accident. The postaccident breathable air component includes two parts: (1) emergency supplies of air sufficient to maintain trapped miners for extended (long- term) periods and (2) caches of portable breathing devices—known as self-contained self-rescuers (see fig. 3)—positioned along mine tunnels leading to the mine entrance to aid in the miners’ escape. Another component required by the act is postaccident lifelines—ropes that miners can use after an accident to find their way out of the mine and to find the caches of portable breathing devices stored in the mine (see fig. 4). Table 1 describes all of the components of mines’ emergency response plans required by the MINER Act. MSHA’s headquarters allowed district offices to separately approve each component of a mine’s emergency response plan so that the mine could begin implementing each component once it was approved, rather than waiting for approval of the entire plan. Most of the required components were to be implemented immediately upon approval or within the time frames set in the approved plan. However, the act gave operators additional time to implement certain components, including wireless communications and electronic tracking systems, or their alternatives, and flame-resistant lifelines, which generally are not required to be implemented until June 15, 2009. In addition, the MINER Act required NIOSH to study the utility, practicality, survivability, and cost of providing various refuge alternatives in underground coal mines and to report its findings, which it did, by December 2007. Under its Mining Safety and Health Research program, NIOSH conducts research on mine safety technology, including research on advancements in self-contained self-rescuers, communications equipment, and tracking devices. In 2006, the Congress provided NIOSH with $10 million in emergency supplemental appropriations for research to develop mine safety technology. MSHA and NIOSH are both responsible for getting new safety technology into the mines. For certain types of mining products, MSHA’s technical experts conduct evaluations and tests to ensure that they will not cause a fire or an explosion in a mine before they approve the use of such products. NIOSH is responsible for developing and adapting new technologies for use in the mining industry. Based on research findings, NIOSH may recommend that MSHA issue new safety and health standards. However, NIOSH does not have the authority to compel MSHA to take action on its recommendations. In our 2007 report on MSHA, we stated that coordination between MSHA and NIOSH was primarily informal and inconsistent and recommended that they develop a formal memorandum of understanding to guide their agencywide coordination efforts. However, at the time of our review, such a memorandum had not been finalized. The effectiveness of MSHA’s approval process for underground coal mines’ emergency response plans was hampered by several factors that delayed approval of the plans. Specifically, MSHA issued its guidance multiple times and did not issue guidance on one key requirement until 6 months after the initial plans were due. Once issued, MSHA’s guidance lacked specificity and, as a result, MSHA district staff we interviewed said that they had to spend time resolving mine operators’ questions about the guidance after it was issued. In addition, actions taken by some mine operators, such as their reluctance to submit adequate plans, further delayed the approval process. We also found that the plans we reviewed varied in content and did not always specify the protections to be provided for miners. Both MSHA district staff and mine operators we interviewed stated that MSHA’s revisions of its guidance and delays in issuing the guidance caused mine operators to revise their mines’ plans several times, delaying plan approvals. The MINER Act required underground coal mine operators to develop and adopt written emergency response plans by August 14, 2006. (See fig. 5 for a timeline of MSHA’s guidance and key events related to the emergency response plans.) MSHA issued general guidance on the requirements for the emergency response plan components in July 2006 and revised it twice—in August and October of that year. According to district officials, by the time MSHA headquarters issued its revised guidance in October—2 months after mine operators were required to submit their plans for approval—the districts were in the process of reviewing and approving the plans. As a result, mine operators had to revise and resubmit their plans to reflect the revised guidance, and the districts had to review them to ensure that changes were incorporated. In addition, in February 2007, 6 months after mines were required to submit their emergency response plans to MSHA for approval, the agency issued new guidance on the MINER Act’s requirement that the plans provide long-term postaccident breathable air for miners trapped underground. MSHA sought input from the mining community on this requirement, requesting comments on methods for providing safe and reliable supplies of postaccident breathable air in the summer of 2006. However, while MSHA received 11 comments from mine operators or their representatives during the comment period that closed on October 16, 2006, it did little to act on these comments for several months. One senior level MSHA official told us that a working group established to develop this guidance did not begin to do so until January 2007 and that the agency did not finalize the guidance until February 2007, 4 months after the comment deadline and 6 months after the deadline for mine operators to submit their plans to MSHA for approval. In the absence of written guidance, some district officials we interviewed said that they provided mine operators with verbal guidance that was inconsistent with written guidance later issued by MSHA headquarters. For example, officials in one district told us that they had informed mine operators, based on discussions with headquarters officials, that they would be required to provide 48 hours of long-term postaccident breathable air. However, when headquarters later issued written guidance requiring mine operators to provide 96 hours of postaccident breathable air, the district officials had to meet with mine operators to explain the new guidance and ask them to revise their plans, which delayed approval. According to MSHA officials, some of the revisions and delays in developing guidance resulted from the tight time frames specified in the MINER Act for developing and adopting the plans.