On the recordApril 24, 2013
I rise today to discuss mine safety, a critical issue to my state and the tens of thousands of miners across the Nation. Earlier this month we observed the third anniversary of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster which killed twenty nine of our Nation's miners. That disaster, the most deadly in decades, shocked the country and made us realize that we must aggressively and continually seek to make mining safer and we cannot rest--because no number of deaths or accidents is acceptable. In the past 3 years we have seen some positive steps in our Nation's mine safety efforts. As part of the Dodd-Frank bill we required publicly-traded mining companies to report safety information to their shareholders through their public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Congress provided additional funds, $22 million, for MSHA and the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission to reduce the appeals backlog, enforce mine safety laws and investigate the Upper Big Branch Disaster. MSHA has also pursued increased enforcement actions through their impact inspections that target violations at unsafe mines with poor compliance history or specific safety concerns. As of March 2013, the Administration had conducted 579 impact inspections, resulting in 10,036 citations, 946 orders, and 43 safeguards. The administration has finalized rules to improve the broken ``Pattern of Violations'' process to better pursue repeat offenders.…
