Mining offenses punished lightly

Accident puts lens on enforcement

Two winters ago, what had been a mediocre safety record at West Virginia's Sago Mine grew dramatically worse. Over 23 months beginning in February 2004, two dozen miners were hurt in a string of accidents. Federal safety inspectors slapped the mine with citations 273 times, or an average of once every 2 1/2 days.

Despite this record, the price paid by Sago's operators was light. Government regulators never publicly discussed shutting down the mine and never sought criminal sanctions. The biggest single fine was $440, about 0.0004 percent of the $110 million net profit reported last year by the mine's current owner, International Coal Group Inc.

Whether the mine's documented safety problems played a role in the fatal accident Monday is still unknown. But Sago's recent history illustrates what mine-safety experts say is a long-standing flaw in enforcement of federal mining regulations.

Although inspectors issue a blizzard of paper citations each year, these violations rarely translate into serious penalties, even for the worst offenders, according to government records and interviews with current and former regulators. Large fines are rare, and the most serious sanctions -- such as closing mines -- are almost never used, documents show.

This pattern has been even more pronounced under the Bush administration, which came into office with a promise to forge cooperative ties between regulators and the mining industry. During the past five years, the number of mines referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution has dropped steadily, from 38 in 2000 to 12 last year.

Meanwhile, inspectors who sought to impose large fines on coal companies have seen those penalties whittled down by agency negotiators and administrative law judges.

Last year, the operator of a Brookwood, Ala., coal mine, where 13 miners were killed in a September 2001 explosion, saw its fine reduced from $435,000 to $3,000 -- a 99 percent reduction. The Alabama disaster was the nation's deadliest coal-mining accident in the past two decades, nearly equaled by Monday's Sago explosion that left 12 miners dead.

"There are simply not enough incentives for safety built into the regulatory and compensation system," said Emily Spieler, an occupational safety expert and dean of Northeastern University's School of Law. "Pressure on regulatory agencies to allow unsafe businesses to operate is enormous, and the incentives to comply with regulations are small if the regulatory agency does not issue large fines."

Agency defends efforts

The chief enforcer of federal mining laws, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, defends its performance, pointing to a steady decline in the number or deaths and injuries in coal mines in recent years. Some of the decline has been attributed to increased mechanization, though both industry and union officials acknowledge improvements in safety practices.

"While MSHA has also pursued cooperative health and safety partnerships with labor unions, mine operators and industry associations, it has consistently backed up those compliance assistance efforts with strong enforcement against unsafe operators," agency spokesman Dirk Fillpot said in a prepared statement. Reporters inquiring about the agency's record were referred to the statement.

MSHA contends that its oversight is as least as robust as that of previous administrations, but the record is mixed. The total number of hours spent by inspectors inside coal mines has gone up, but the number of citations issued annually is down about 20 percent from a decade ago. The percentage of violations classified by inspectors as serious -- "significant and substantial," in agency jargon -- has declined.