Inspecting Mine Safety

SINCE JAN. 1, coal mining accidents have killed 16 men in West Virginia. This unusual wave of misfortune has impelled the governor, Joe Manchin III (D), to halt all operations until every coal mine in the state can be inspected. It should also lead Congress, the administration and the mining industry to look harder at the question of why so many deaths have occurred in such a short time in an industry whose safety record had been rapidly improving.

Maybe all that's at work is an unfortunate series of coincidences, as spokesmen for the Labor Department and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) have implied over the past several weeks. They have pointed out, accurately, that the trend in mining accidents is downward and has been so for two decades, including under the Bush administration. In 2005, there were 22 deaths in the United States, compared with 66 in 1990.

But there is another way to interpret the data. After all, when regulatory policies change, it can take time for the impact to be felt. The good safety record of the past five years may reflect not current policy but 1990-2000 policy, as well as industry investment. The recent spate of disasters may, in turn, reflect the events of 2001, when mine safety policies changed substantially. As we've written before, since taking office the Bush administration has put administrators with business ties to the mining industry at the head of MSHA. Those administrators have promoted a less punitive, more cooperative regulatory atmosphere, kept penalties for safety violations low and withdrawn proposed safety regulations. One such regulation could have led to safer underground conveyor belts; one of the recent accidents was caused by a conveyor belt fire.

MSHA officials deny that any changes at the agency have had any negative impact on mine safety: "It's worked," is what one spokesman said of MSHA's strategy.

West Virginia's congressional delegation has proposed legislation to stiffen MSHA's spine, but the agency itself has the tools to regulate more stiffly. What its leaders need is a change of attitude, not a change of rules. Along with Congress and the White House, they should drop their complacency about what a wonderful job they are doing and start analyzing not just the mistakes made in recent accidents but whether the more cooperative regulatory model itself is working.