$afepro Analysis of Expanded RTLB Program

When it comes to imagining what MSHA will do next to increase its authority and then to see what it actually does shocks me when I realize my naiveté. My imagination would not allow me to envision an agency with the gall to tamper with legal principles so ingenuously a part of the historical fabric that makes up our nation’s “due process”.

In RTLB III MSHA again promises to enforce paragraph (b) of the M/NM standard 56/57.14100. This time the meaning of the phrase “timely manner” contained in the standard will be left up to the discretion of the individual MSHA inspector. He will determine just how much time exceeds a “timely manner” and issue a citation based upon his newly concocted guidelines.

M/NM Operators have long recognized the legal and moral wrong in operating equipment and machinery with identified and known hazards. Logically, repaired in a “timely manner” means how long the mobile equipment sits before it is put into service. The hazard must be corrected before anyone may use the loader, etc. in the process of mining. The Act is to protect people not equipment. MSHA should enforce when mobile equipment has been put in service when known hazards to miners existed instead of determining the meaning of the unconstitutionally vague phrase “timely manner” and issuing a citation based on that folderol.

When there is no nationwide consistency among Districts and inspectors in the evaluation of S&S (even though case law exists defining escalation to significant and substantial), where is the rationale in expanding their authorization to invent hazards buttressed by their imaginations? How will that produce safer jobs? Jobs are being lost because of the expense required when fighting and abating fallacious and nonsensical citations.

More to Come!