[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15613]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     VERY REAL AND DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES OF A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from West 
Virginia (Mr. Rahall) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues would have us believe 
that our current Federal shutdown has no real consequences. I have 
heard some even suggest that this period of suspended government should 
be thought of merely as a slowdown or a slimdown. There is talk that 
the shutdown is causing no real pain. The most extreme anti-government 
politicians even express the hope that such a cutback in government 
programs and services should be made permanent, and too many others are 
content to hang back and let those with extreme views have their way 
for the time being.
  But I stand here today to remind my colleagues and the public that 
cuts in government funding and government programs have consequences, 
sometimes deadly. It is a lesson we learned in 2006 when annual coal 
mining deaths soared to 45, a 10-year high, reversing an 80-year trend 
of steadily falling fatalities, a trend attributed in part to years of 
underfunding the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
  It is a lesson we should heed now. This year, as of September 4, 14 
coal miners had died on the job in our country; and this past weekend 
alone, three coal miners lost their lives at work over 3 consecutive 
days, including one miner in West Virginia. Think about that. In the 
first 9 months of the year, 14 coal miners perished on the job. In the 
first 9 days of the government shutdown, three coal miners have 
perished.
  Mr. Speaker, even one death is one too many. Now, no one has linked 
these recent deaths directly to the government shutdown, but the 
inability of this Congress to pass a simple bill to fund all the 
operations of our government has resulted in cutbacks of routine 
inspections that are essential to the complex system of safety 
oversight of this complex industry.
  Miners and operators know that MSHA's multi-layered inspection and 
enforcement system has been hampered. Assistant Secretary Joe Main has 
said:

       Three miners killed on 3 consecutive days is extremely 
     troubling. The fact that this occurred over a weekend when 
     there may have been a greater expectation that an MSHA 
     inspector would not be present is a red flag.

  I hope that everyone in the coal industry, from the CEOs to the 
office staff, to security guards, to the coal miners themselves, will 
redouble their vigilance and take every possible step to ensure health 
and safety; and I urge my colleagues in this body to abandon this 
ridiculous political showdown that is undercutting the safety in our 
mines, our industrial facilities, our food chain, and so much more.
  This is not a slowdown. It is not a slimdown. This is a politically 
driven shutdown, and it has real and dangerous consequences for the 
people who put their faith in us to provide them with basic services to 
ensure their well-being, to protect their lives, and to simply do the 
job that we have been elected to do: to lead.

                          ____________________