Senate takes up mine safety problems

Also on Capitol Hill today, a Senate committee took up mine safety - just weeks after the deadliest mine blast in four decades killed 29 workers at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virgina. Since the April 5 explosion, many are pointing to Massey's poor record of safety, including more than 500 citations from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration or MSHA in 2009 alone. Senator Tom Harkin chaired today's hearing.
"That just today, MSHA just ordered today the withdraw of minors from three different Massey mines due to hazardous conditions."
Even federal mine officials say the system that regulates mining companies is broken. At today's hearing, MSHA Assistant Secretary of Labor Joe Main outlined the problems.
"MSHA's pattern of violations programs should be out most effective tool for holding bad actors accountable, but the policies that this administration inherited make it easy for operators like Massey to avoid the pattern of violation status."
Main also said some mine violations should be felonies, not misdemeanors.
Massey continues to defend its safety practices saying over the past 20 years the company has done its best to quote "engineer the dangers out of coal mining." Lawmakers also point to another problem hindering mine safety - a massive backlog of 16,000 cases and 82,000 violations at MSHA. At today's hearing, Senator Jay Rockefeller called for more funding for MSHA and said improvements to mine safety can't wait until the investigation in Massey concludes, which could take many months.