West Virginia passes law to help protect miners

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – After 14 coal mining deaths in three weeks, West Virginia lawmakers unanimously passed a bill Monday that would require mines to use electronic devices to track trapped miners and stockpile oxygen to keep them alive until help arrives.

The state Senate and House both acted speedily at the urging of Gov. Joe Manchin, who unveiled the legislation about 11 a.m. and pressed lawmakers to pass it by the end of the day.

“We can’t afford to wait any longer,” Manchin said after two miners were found dead over the weekend in a mine fire in Melville. Three weeks ago, 12 miners died after an explosion at the Sago Mine.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration enforces federal safety laws, but states can pass more stringent mining regulations if they wish.

“I just wish they would have done it before and maybe I’d have my daddy here with me,” said Brittany Hatfield, 18, whose father died last week as a result of the mine fire.

Once the governor signs the bill, coal companies in the nation’s No. 2 coal mining state – behind Wyoming – will have to comply by the end of February.

Manchin’s legislation will require improved communications and the electronic tracking of coal miners underground, as well as faster emergency response and the storage of additional air supplies in the mines.

“No miner’s family is going to have to endure what we all endured for 90 hours over the past three weeks,” the governor said.

If the 14 miners who died in two accidents since Jan. 2 had been wearing tracking devices, rescue efforts could have been concentrated where needed, Manchin said. In both cases, rescuers were uncertain exactly where the miners were situated.

In Washington, D.C., meanwhile, the Senate opened a hearing on mine safety.

Lawmakers pledged to step up federal oversight of the nation’s coal mines and accused the agency that has that job with failing to prevent the recent deaths in West Virginia.

“Fourteen men in the span of three weeks. These deaths, I believe, were entirely preventable,” said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who chaired the hearing, said he would try to pass federal legislation this year that would stiffen penalties against coal operators that violate safety rules and would require that up-to-date safety equipment be placed in mines.

Specter called for an end to a practice in which coal operators can whittle down fines though an appeals process.

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