The Nation was shocked to learn that the Sago Mine had over 200 MSHA Citations for 2005. Those in the M/NM Mining Industry are curious as to what percentage of them are legitimate citations. Legitimate citations are those written because of identified hazards to persons covered by the Part 77 Standards. How many were written by inspectors based on whims, prejudice, and yielding to Regional and District pressure to write citations? How many of the citations met the mandated criteria in Sec.104 of the ACT? The firms which have experienced the citation-driven inspectors for 30 years have always been suspicious of the inspector's credibility relative to his enforcement and advice. MSHA has taken no responsibility toward informing firms that their inspectors have issued phony citations. It has been the burden of the Production Industry to closely examine each citation relative to the Law and to pursue the questionable ones in the courts. This is an expensive and time consuming process and has been necessary because MSHA has not demanded legitimate, mandated enforcement by their people!
There is no good business reason for additional Laws relative to M/NM Mining. There is a definite need for the agency to demand and oversee that all of their inspectors are current in the ACT, 30CFR, the Part 56/57 Standards, and their nationally-published Enforcement Policy. Then, they must hold their inspectors and field managers accountable for enforcing according to the guidelines of the Mandate and Policy.
If enough questions have not occurred to you relative to the MSHA's mandated performance and "return on taxpayer's investment", peruse these 2006 budget figures.
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MSHA 2006 Budget Statistics Budget by Agency Division: Coal Enforcement--$118 million (increase of $3 million) 1,043 FTE MNM Enforcement--$68.8 million (increase of $2.1 million) 543 FTE Standards Development--$2.5 million (increase of $0.1 million) 18 FTE Assessments--$5.5 million (increase of $0.3 million) 55 FTE Education Policy and Development--$32 million (increase of $0.7 million) 151 FTE Technical Support--$25.7 million (increase of $0.6 million) 209 FTE Program Evaluation and Information Resources--$15.7 million ( decrease of $1.8 million) 78 FTE Program Administration--$12 million (decrease of $3.6 million) 90 FTE Total Budget--$280.5 million (Increase of $1.4 million over 2005) Total Full Time Employees--2,187 Mine IDs by category: 2004 Total Coal mine ID's----2011 Total coal employ.----108,734 2004 Total MNM ID's----12,467 Total MNM employ.--220,274 (includes contractors) 2004 Total number of mine ID's----14,478 Total mine employment-----329,008 Cost of coal enforcement budget per mine ID--$58,677 Cost of coal enforcement budget per mine employee--$1,085
Cost of MNM enforcement budget per mine ID--$5,518 Cost of MNM enforcement budget per mine employee--$312 Total MSHA Budget costs per mine ID--$19,374 Total cost per miner--$852
2004 Coal TCI---5.0 (dropped steadily since 2000) 2004 MNM TCI---3.55 (underground is 5.3, surface is 3.5)
Coal Fatal Rate--0.03 average since 1996 MNM Fatal Rate--0.02 average since 1988 (0.01 for 2000-2004)
OSHA Budget for 2006--$467 million 2,208 FTE (does not include 26 state-run programs employment) Total OSHA Budget cost per US worker---approximately $3 TCI's for OSHA Industry 2004 (aver. for OSHA site TCI---5.3) Manufacturing---6.6 Trade, transportation, utilities---5.5 Leisure and hospitality---4.7 Construction---6.0
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It appears that the Senate Oversight Committees should hold the agency accountable for the quality of its mandated enforcement and demand a positive "return on taxpayer's investment" from each employee of MSHA rather than enacting additional Laws to be badly-enforced on the successful M/NM Mining Industry!