NEW CHANGES TO 30 C.F.R 100.3(C): WEAKNESSES AND SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ASSESSMENT OF A MINE OPERATOR’S HISTORY OF VIOLATIONS

Abstract

The mining disasters of recent years, culminating in Utah’s Crandall Canyon collapse, have brought to the public’s attention the dangers that face miners everyday.  We lament the lack of safety that leaves so many families without fathers, sons, brothers and uncles; typical media viewers ask themselves, “How is it, that today, when we can successfully launch a spacecraft for a nine-month voyage to Mars, when we can communicate electronically even outside the gravitational pull of our planet, we still can’t dig some rocks out of the earth without killing those that go down to get them?” As is so often the case, public exasperation leads our politicians to act.  On April 23, 2007 the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) began to enforce the regulations it amended in response to the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act, and not more than a year later there is already pending legislation to again strengthen the authoritative statute.