[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 8 (Friday, January 22, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S151-S152]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IMPROVEMENTS IN MINE SAFETY

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I come before this Chamber to speak about 
good news. The Mine Safety and Health Administration confirmed that 
2009 was the safest year in the history of American mining.
  As many of us have learned in the course of our lives, sometimes good 
can come from tragedy. Indeed, this is true of American mining after 
the 2006 disasters at the Sago, Aracoma, and Darby mines. Overall that 
year, 73 miners perished in American mines. Last year, that number 
decreased by more than half as a result of efforts made throughout the 
industry. Thirty-four American miners perished, a new record low.
  Also in 2009, nearly 85 percent of all U.S. mines recorded no lost-
time injuries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2009 
incident rate of nonfatal occupational injuries for mining was 3.5. For 
comparison, the incident rate for all of private industry was 3.9 and 
manufacturing and construction were 5.0 and 4.7, respectively.
  Four years ago, after a decade of steady improvement in mine safety, 
the Nation was riveted to the unfolding mine tragedies in Appalachia 
that claimed the lives of more than a dozen miners. And as some of you 
in this Chamber will recall, those accidents prompted us and the mining 
industry to revisit mine safety.
  Several of us, including Senators Byrd, Enzi, Kennedy, Murray, and 
Rockefeller, spent long hours and conducted extensive hearings on how 
we could make our mines safer.
  We delved into the safety challenges and how the industry and the 
Federal and State regulators were meeting them. We consulted 
professional safety experts inside and outside the mining community--
including academicians and technology experts.
  The result was the MINER Act that Congress passed in the summer of 
2006.
  At the same time Congress was responding to these tragedies, so was 
the entire mining industry--employers and employees alike. Complacency 
about safety was no longer acceptable for 21st century mining. 
Employees and employers set out to put the industry on course to drive 
serious mine accidents down to zero.
  Among their first actions was to go outside the mining community for 
other perspectives on how best to meet the mine safety challenge. The 
result was the Mine Safety Technology and Training Commission--a panel 
of independent experts from public, private and academia established by 
the National Mining Association, the industry's trade group.
  Among the recommendations of the Commission, perhaps none was more 
far-reaching than the recommendation to better manage risks. The 
Commission advised the industry to focus particular attention on areas 
of the mine where incidents were more likely to occur, then manage 
those risks aggressively with programs specifically designed to raise 
awareness of them. The idea was not just to respond to accidents 
better, but to prevent accidents from happening in the first place.
  U.S. mining is acting on these recommendations, and has taken steps 
far and wide with more sophisticated technology and enhanced training 
to further improve mine safety. A third component of this effort is 
raising safety awareness among everyone who works at our mines, and one 
example is a series of initiatives launched by the industry to reduce 
accidents by drawing attention to the risks in three high-
incident areas: proximity to mobile underground equipment, slips and 
falls, and driving safety. At the same time, U.S. mining has been 
investing almost a billion dollars in communications technologies; 
increased oxygen supplies underground, enhanced rescue capabilities and 
other safety measures under the MINER Act and to meet the 
recommendations of the independent safety commission.
  Every time we discuss mine safety, I cannot help but remember George 
``Junior'' Hamner. Junior Hamner died in the January 2, 2006 disaster 
at the Sago Mine in Tallmansville, WV. His loving daughter gave me a 
picture of him and asked that in my capacity as chairman of the 
Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee, I would work to see that 
future generations of miners would not suffer as her father did. I 
promised her I would.
  It is in light of that promise that I will continue working with the 
industry, the Obama administration, and my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle to

[[Page S152]]

ensure that American mining is unquestionably the safest mining 
industry in the world.
  We know the 34 lives lost last year in American mines were 34 too 
many and remain committed to seeing zero fatalities and injuries in 
U.S. mining. That is a goal worth striving for, and it is a goal that 
increasingly appears to be in reach.

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