black lung
cmonforton | May 4, 2011The Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Adminstration (MSHA) issued a news release yesterday reporting on the results of an inspection at Inman Energy's Randolph coal mine, a subsidiary of Massey Energy. MSHA chief Joe Main said:"the conduct and behavior exhibited when we caught the mine operator by surprise is nothing short of outrageous. ...The conditions observed at Randolph Mine place miners at serious risk to the threat of fire, explosion and black lung. Yet, MSHA inspectors can't be at every mine every day. Our continuing challenge is counteracting the egregious behavior of…
lborkowski | February 23, 2011By Dick Clapp
An ambitious paper was released in Boston last week, with subsequent media coverage in local, national and international outlets (see, for example the New York Times' Green Blog and Reuters). The first author, Paul Epstein, was interviewed on the Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise, which was anchored in the Boston Harbor as part of its month-long "Coal Free Future Tour." The paper, which was just published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, was the result of a two-year collaborative effort that I participated in, as did Celeste Monforton, other academics from…
cmonforton | February 21, 2011Freshman Congressman Larry D. Bucshon (R) of Evansville, Indiana is a cardiothoracic surgeon. His father was an underground coal miner and a member of the United Mine Workers Union for 37 years. Both his grandparents were coal miners. But, Republican-controlled Capitol Hill is now the Twilight Zone when I heard him say the following last week at a congressional hearing:"I see a lot of patients with workplace related respiratory problems, some of which, to put it bluntly, are their own issue because they refuse to wear safety equipment regardless of whether there are regulations in place to…
cmonforton | December 21, 2010By the end of 2011, the Labor Department's worker safety agencies expect to issue six new rules to better protect workers from on-the-job hazards. In the Department's regulatory plan issued yesterday, OSHA projects it will finalize four rules while MSHA expects to complete two new standards. As I've written before, these plans quickly become stale because target dates are missed, new issues emerge and political winds shift, but they still give us a snapshot inside the agencies and the Administration's regulatory strategies at a moment in time.
Of the four rules OSHA expects to finish in…
cmonforton | November 3, 2010It's that time of year, when the Secretary of Labor is supposed to outline her rulemaking priorities for next 12 months. This would include new proposal to protect mine workers, like the 64 killed already this year, and the tens of thousands made ill by inadequate OSHA standards on exposure to chemicals. The Presidential Executive Order governing this process dictates that agencies' regulatory plans be published in October. Last year the Obama Administration didn't release its plan until December, but I chalked that delay to the stalled Senate confirmation of the President's reg czar,…
cmonforton | October 14, 2010Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and MSHA asst. secretary Joe Main are proposing new rules to protect U.S. coal mine workers from developing illnesses related to exposure to respirable coal mine dust. The most commonly known adverse health effect is black lung disease, but exposure is also associated with excess risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, progressive massive fibrosis, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema. The proposal, scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Oct 19,* takes a comprehensive approach to the problem. I've not had a chance to read carefully the entire…
cmonforton | October 1, 2010The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is preparing to propose new regulations to protect coal mine workers from the respirable dust hazards that cause black lung disease. In May, the Labor Department's regulatory agenda indicated that MSHA would propose a rule in September. The White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) completed its review of the rule, deemed to be economically significant, on September 29. The proposal was returned to MSHA from OIRA with the notation that it is approved "consistent with change." Depending on the complexity of…
cmonforton | July 2, 2010The Mine Safety and Health Administration took an important step yesterday to meet a goal set in the Labor Secretary's regulatory agenda: proposing a rule to prevent black lung disease. According to data on RegInfo.gov MSHA submitted yesterday a proposed rule entitled "Lowering Miners' Exposure to Coal Mine Dust Including Continuous Personal Dust Monitors"to OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Typically, OIRA will take 60-90 days to complete their review.
Mine workers in the U.S. continue to develop debilitating lung diseases from exposure to respirable coal and…
lborkowski | May 24, 2010The New York Times' Clifford J. Levy reports on violence against at journalists investigating corruption in the Moscow suburbs:
Mikhail Beketov had been warned, but would not stop writing. About dubious land deals. Crooked loans. Under-the-table hush money. All evidence, he argued in his newspaper, of rampant corruption in this Moscow suburb.
"Last spring, I called for the resignation of the city's leadership," Mr. Beketov said in one of his final editorials. "A few days later, my automobile was blown up. What is next for me?"
Not long after, he was savagely beaten outside his home and left…
cmonforton | May 15, 2010As I noted in "Perplexed by OSHA's reg agenda," I've made a habit of commenting on the content of the Dept of Labor's semi-annual regulatory agenda [see links below]. I'll be the first to admit that our system for protecting workers from well-known hazards with new regulations is onerous and anything but nimble. It needs an overhaul. The obstacles, roadblacks and challenges plague OSHA, but these administrative and burden-of-proof hurdles DO NOT apply to MSHA. Here are just two examples of what I mean:
MSHA merely has to demonstrate that its decision is not arbitrary and capricious; a…
cmonforton | May 15, 2010Last week Labor Secretary Solis released in the Federal Register on April 26, 2010, her Spring 2010 regulatory agenda for the Department, including her rulemaking priorities for MSHA and OSHA. As required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act it was published on time in April, in contrast to her Fall 2009 agenda which was six weeks late.
This document is described by the Secretary as a:
"...listing of all the regulations it expects to have under active consideration for promulgation, proposal, or review during the coming 1-year period. The focus of all departmental regulatory activity will be…