Another point of view:
The Sago mine disaster is proof that Congress needs to deregulate mine safety.
In the wake of the deaths of a dozen miners at the Sago coal mine in West Virginia this January, Congress is demanding that the federal government take another look at mine safety. A delegation led by senators Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) wants to raise the penalties for safety violations assessed by the Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA).
That's the wrong approach. Coal mine fatalities started to drop way back in 1910. After 1969, when the federal government first introduced punitive law-enforcement tactics that included fines for all violations, the decline in fatalities per million tons of coal mined did not accelerate. The safety trend is driven by market forces and not by law enforcement. A mine operator who isn't concerned about safety will see insurance, accident and compensation costs eat away at its bottom line. Tougher law enforcement is ultimately working against the goal of zero mining fatalities. Here's how.
• Regulations create a rule-bound mentality that stymies the adoption of safety innovations. At a recent hearing Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) demanded to know why more U.S. coal mines don't provide miners with personal emergency devices that can receive one-way text messages underground. Although these devices don't work in all mines, they might have gotten crucial information to the Sago miners. But U.S. companies that are early adopters of new technologies run the risk of losing their investment if MSHA subsequently publishes a different requirement based on another technology. Although intended as minimum standards, the reality is that enforceable rules tend to keep most companies from raising the bar.
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• Federal inspections give miners a false sense of security. Inspectors logged 744 hours at Sago in 2005. But as Sago shows, conditions in mines can change with lightning speed. Only mine operators and miners can assure a mine's safety. To the extent that federal inspections inadvertently relax that vigilance, they jeopardize safety.
• MSHA inspectors distract mining companies from their priorities. At Sago, MSHA issued 208 citations in 2005. More than half of these were deemed by MSHA to be "unlikely" to result in an injury that might cause the miner to be away from work. Nonetheless, the company was required to address those conditions immediately in order to avoid additional penalties. Frequently this government-directed work is performed at the expense of more important tasks identified by company managers who really know the mine.
• The threat of penalties turns government officials and mine operators into adversaries. At Sago in 2005 MSHA shut down areas of the mine on 18 occasions and assessed $24,000 in fines. That's $24,000 the Sago mine did not spend on improving safety. This type of enforcement, which is common, forces mine managers to treat the MSHA inspector as a cop, thus diminishing the effectiveness of the government's nonenforcement, research-based initiatives to improve mine safety, which depend upon cooperation.
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The federal government should get out of the mine safety business. There is little that MSHA does that can't be done more effectively by the private sector. Voluntary consensus standards maintained by private organizations should replace MSHA regulations that can't keep pace with technology. Audits by insurance companies are a great substitute for MSHA inspections, without the potential to lull miners into complacency. When accidents expose reckless operators, state leaders, like West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, are fully capable of meting out appropriate punishments.
In February the Senate passed a provision that allows companies to immediately write off 50% of new mine safety equipment. That's a small step in the right direction. If the U.S. ever hopes to achieve and maintain zero fatalities, Congress will need to replace the law enforcement approach with a system that better aligns economic interests. Perhaps that can be Sago's legacy.
C. Gregory Ruffennach, 02.27.06, 12:00 AM ET
