ÐÔÊӽ紫ý

Mine operators no longer would have to revise roof control or ventilation plans at the request of an MSHA district manager.

“Preventing district managers from fashioning mine-specific requirements for ventilation and roof control is reckless and lethal,� said Sam Petsonk, a Beckley-based attorney who represents coal miners.

The proposed rules come amid the Trump administration’s downsizing of MSHA through a hiring freeze and voluntary resignation offers, part of a larger effort to dramatically slash the size of the federal workforce.

MSHA has recorded 25 roof fall-related fatal mine incidents since the start of 2010, per agency records — including six in West Virginia.

Revisions at the district manager’s discretion are common, according to MSHA, heightening the stakes for the proposals.

MSHA estimates that each year there are 84 new and 482 revised roof control plans submitted to the agency, of which half would need to be revised at the discretion of the district manager. MSHA estimates that each year 14 new and 760 revised ventilation plans are submitted to the agency, of which half would need to be revised at the district manager’s discretion.

MSHA on Tuesday extended a public comment period on those and other rule change proposals, moving back its end date from July 31 to Sept. 2. The rule proposals and comment instructions can be found at .

The United Mine Workers of America union, which did not respond to a request for comment, had requested a 60-day comment period extension to allow more time to review the proposed rules.

MSHA: Ventilation plan changes would take one hour 

MSHA estimates in its rule proposal it would take a coal mine supervisor four hours to make district manager-requested roof control plan revisions and one hour to make district manager-requested ventilation control plan revisions.

The agency’s planned ventilation control rollback looms amid what has been a sharp rise in black lung disease in central Appalachia among increasingly younger mine workers, driven by toxic silica dust arising from increasingly younger miners cutting into more rock as coal seams thin.

In April, MSHA announced it was postponing until Aug. 18 enforcement of a landmark rule to strengthen protection against silica exposure days before it was slated to take effect for coal mine operators. MSHA cited sweeping staff cuts within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, saying the NIOSH “restructuring� could affect supply of certified respirators and personal dust monitors.

In May, a federal judge granted a request from Kanawha County resident and Raleigh County miner Harry Wiley, represented partly by Petsonk, to restore jobs within the Respiratory Health Division of NIOSH.

But in a July 9 filing in their federal class-action complaint against the Department of Health and Human Services, NIOSH’s parent agency, Wiley and Mingo County resident Matthew Ward, another miner, said HHS still wasn’t offering mobile health screening services or otherwise complying with their mandatory statutory duty to offer free health screenings in the form of chest X-rays.

Charleston native signed off on proposed rule rollbacks 

MSHA said in its rule proposals it has “tentatively concluded� that the discretion given to district managers in federal code violate the U.S. Constitution’s empowering the president and Congress to select “Officers of the United States.� The agency claims the clause doesn’t cover district manager appointments, making their authority to require additional measures to roof control and ventilation control plans unlawful.

MSHA claims district managers‘ discretion to require further measures to ventilation and roof control plans also violates the Administrative Procedure Act, federal law governing administrative law procedures, by lacking “any of the necessary process� for what it asserts are new “substantive rule[s].�

West Virginia Coal Association president Chris Hamilton did not respond to a request for comment.

The rule change proposals were signed off on by MSHA Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy James McHugh, a Charleston native who had been an attorney at Charleston- based Pence Law Firm PLLC, whose core clients have been coal operators.

But the McHugh-backed roof and ventilation control plan oversight changes have drawn miner advocate ire sparked by fear they will turn MSHA rules into tools that threaten vulnerable miners instead of protecting them.

“Mine planning,� Petsonk said, “is the heart of the regulatory process in which independent engineers and safety specialists assist mining companies in saving miners’ lives by focusing on safety and health factors rather than the almighty dollar.�