[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 24]
[Senate]
[Page 33301]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MONONGAH, WEST VIRGINIA, MINE DISASTER

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, as a son of West Virginia's southern 
coalfields who grew up in a coal miner's home and married a coal 
miner's daughter, I note that today is the 100th anniversary of the 
Monongah, WV, mine disaster, a particularly momentous and solemn 
observance for the coal miners of West Virginia.
  The Monongah, WV, mine disaster remains today the worst industrial 
accident in American history. At least 362 coal miners lost their lives 
in that explosion on that cold December day, December 6, 1907. The 
truth is, some of the miners inside Fairmont Coal Company's No. 6 and 
No. 8 mines were boys--mere children, in fact--whose names did not 
appear on the company's official ledgers. So we may never know exactly 
how many lives were lost inside that mine on that dark day.
  Sadly, many more miners across West Virginia and the Nation would 
perish, including another 78 miners in an explosion in that same West 
Virginia community a little over 60 years later, before Congress would 
respond with the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969.
  Coal miners are a different breed. Coal miners are bound together in 
ways perhaps not unlike the bonds that develop between soldiers or 
others whose occupations are inherently dangerous. Coal miners share a 
vocabulary foreign to most outsiders. Coal miners must place great 
trust in the persons next to them for their safety. Although mortal 
danger stalks them daily, in every minute of every day, this mutual 
trust and mutual dependence creates unusually strong bonds. Coal miners 
enjoy an unusually deep camaraderie.
  Today in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana, Virginia, 
Utah, Alabama, Wyoming, and West Virginia, coal miners are marking the 
100th anniversary--that is today--of the Monongah, WV, mine disaster. 
They do it with reverence, and they honor their survivors. In West 
Virginia, we also mark December 6 as Miner Day and celebrate all coal 
miners--past, present, and future.
  Coal remains today, this very moment, the backbone of America's 
energy supply. Over half of all the electricity we consume every day--
and some of it is burning here tonight in the ceiling of this Hall--
over half of all the electricity we consume every day is provided by 
coal miners. We must protect those coal miners. The names Alma, Darby, 
Crandall Canyon, and Sago remind us that mine disasters are not simply 
a part of the coal industry's past; they are part of our present.
  As we remember the miners who lost their lives at Monongah on that 
cold December day in 1907, let us also recommit ourselves to protecting 
the health and the safety of all those men and women who so bravely 
toil in our coal mines today. May we also take a moment to consider 
that the current political debate regarding the future of coal--black 
diamonds--in our national energy policy is taking place under lights--
right here, for example--under lights illuminated by the work of coal 
miners, in the warmth of furnaces fueled by coal miners and completely 
independent of any foreign sheik or imam, thanks to coal miners--coal 
miners such as my dad, coal miners such as my wife's father, coal 
miners such as my brother-in-law. Coal miners, coal miners, coal 
miners--may God bless them.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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