[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 187 (Wednesday, December 7, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8191-H8192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE REINS ACT AND MINE SAFETY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, 
later today, the House will consider the REINS Act, which is 
legislation designed to make sure that in a Republican-controlled 
Congress, no new regulations would be put into effect, whether they 
deal with clean drinking water, clean air, child safety, the safety of 
children when they play with their toys, the drugs that so many 
citizens need to take to maintain their health, or occupational safety 
at the workplace. All of that would be destroyed under the REINS Act.
  You might ask yourself what would society look like? Well, we had a 
preview of what that society looks like yesterday when the Mine Safety 
and Health Administration released its report on the Upper Big Branch 
mine. What that society looked like to these miners and to their 
families was 29 dead coal miners, because the Massey Corporation was 
basically allowed by its board of directors to evade the basic 
regulations that were in place to protect the miners.
  Although the miners don't have whistleblower protections, we saw that 
Massey was able to intimidate the workers every day not to report 
safety violations, not to write up safety violations, not to report 
things that needed to be repaired, because the chairman of the board 
told them the priority was the production of coal, not the safety of 
the workers.

                              {time}  1010

  Produce the coal or get out is what he told them. So they were not 
able to participate in their own safety when they saw a violation or 
they saw a problem that caused danger in the mine.
  They also were able to circumvent the right of the mine safety 
inspections

[[Page H8192]]

in the mines because they gave advance warnings. They were told if a 
Federal mine inspector comes onto the property, you must give advance 
warning to the people in the mine so they can divert the mine inspector 
away from the problems in the mine, take up their time while we can fix 
them, or he'll run out of time to inspect the mine. There's regulations 
against that. There's laws against. They avoided those.
  Then they kept two sets of books so that the mine regulators couldn't 
see the real level of violations in the mines. That's what it looks 
like when you don't have regulations. That's what it looks like when 
you don't have enforcement.
  And it's the conclusion of the mine safety report that mirrors one 
that was done by the State government. The conclusion is that the 
tragic death of 29 miners and serious injuries of two others in the 
Upper Big Branch mine were entirely preventable--entirely preventable--
had regulations been enforced in that mine, had this company not been 
allowed to go rogue and ignore the regulations that are there to 
protect the miners' lives.
  We must now understand what that means to the American public, what 
it means to these families.
  What could have been contained, what could have been contained as a 
mine or a coal dust explosion or a localized methane gas explosion 
became an explosion that traveled 2,000 feet per second--2,000 feet per 
second. There is no miner that could get out of the way of that act.
  And what happens at the end of that world without regulation, where 
you don't have to put up with paying fines, where you can clog the 
courts with appeals? When the Massey Company was sold, the board of 
directors that allowed this to happen, the executive officers that 
directed this to happen, the officers walked away with $90 million in 
bonuses; the board of directors walked away with $19 million in 
bonuses. And Don Blankenship, the CEO of the company that wrote the 
memo that said it's production of coal or get out, it's not safety, 
walked away with $86 million.
  And now get this: Don Blankenship, the CEO, now wants to go back into 
the coal business after killing 29 miners. And whether it's the State 
of Virginia or the State of West Virginia or Kentucky or anywhere else, 
the suggestion is that they might be able to give him a permit to open 
up a mine. Twenty-nine miners are dead, violations of law, a criminal 
corporate culture, and somebody else says that they might be able to go 
back into the mines.
  You will not reignite the American Dream for workers in this country 
if you take away their rights at work. You will not reignite the 
American Dream for the middle class if they have no rights at work, if 
they're subjected to this. For these families who lost the 29 members 
of their families, they're crushed. They're crushed. But you can't do 
that by eliminating the regulations. It's the regulations in place that 
have saved miners' lives; but it's the avoidance of the regulations, 
the ignoring of the regulations, and it's the failure of this Congress 
to introduce tough sanctions.
  When you obstruct a Federal safety investigation, it should be a 
felony. Somebody should go to jail. When you obstruct the right of a 
worker to blow the whistle on an unsafe procedure, there's got to be a 
strict fine for that. That's how we reignite the American Dream.
  We've got a lot of work to do in this Congress, but you can't do it 
by stopping all regulations that protect our families, that protect our 
communities, that protect the workers in America today.

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