Mine Operators Say New U.S. Rules Will Increase Costs

Planned new U.S. mine safety rules, following a blast that killed 29 men last year, will further raise costs for mining companies that already spent close to $1 billion between them upgrading safety measures four years ago, the mine industry said Thursday.

“It’s challenging our ability to do the kind of rigorous analysis that can really improve mine safety, particularly as we’re preoccupied with implementing major safety improvements in order to meet earlier requirements,” Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association (NMA) lobby group, told Reuters.

He was responding to new rules planned by the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Agency (MSHA).

“Many of the major new proposals rest on technical studies that require significant review. That’s why we are concerned about the speed at which this is being done,” Popovich said.

According to the MSHA web site, planned new rules would require companies to provide miners with equipment to monitor coal-dust exposure and install alarms to protect them from heavy machinery.

Another rule would require mining companies to clarify who the legal owner of a mine is to prevent owners from shutting and reopening a mine under a new name.

Regulators have discussed tighter rules since last April’s explosion that killed 29 men in Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.

But a broader safety bill proposed after that accident, and which would raise penalties for violators of safety rules, failed to pass in the House of Representatives last year.

The NMA’s Popovich said he did not expect a new safety bill to be introduced by Congress, noting that tighter laws after 12 men died in the Sago mine in West Virginia in 2006, had cost the industry close to $1 billion.

He could not estimate the monetary impact of MSHA’s new proposals, but said the agency already had shown it had the authority to take action and close dangerous mines and did not need more authority.

On Wednesday, the MSHA announced it reached a settlement agreement with Massey over alleged safety violations at the company’s Freedom mine No. 1 in Pike County, Kentucky.

Last November, MSHA filed a motion in federal court for a preliminary injunction against the mine, the first such action ever taken by the agency against mine operators it said habitually violate health and safety standards.

Shortly after the suit was filed, Massey announced plans to idle the mine permanently.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis hailed the agreement as a legal victory allowing MSHA “to withdraw miners immediately over a broad range of hazardous conditions, and health and safety violations.

“More than ever, these types of actions are forcing mine operators to take a hard look at their safety practices.”

The order, signed by Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, requires Massey to take certain actions to ensure the health and safety of miners still working at the mine dismantling and removing equipment in preparation for permanent closure.

(Reporting by Steve James, editing by Dave Zimmerman)