As the calendar turns to a new year, the Mine Safety and Health Administration appears to have found its footing – and that means mine operators need to be on their toes in 2023. After.
President Biden has nominated a top attorney at the National Labor Relations Board and former staffer for West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to run the
At the federal level, worker safety and health policies swung from high points to low points over the last 12 months. Those highs and lows from new OSHA protections issued by the Obama administration to proposed rollbacks of funding and regulations by the Trump administration. Many of the highs and lows are described in the sixth edition of The Year in U.S. Occupational Health and Safety.
It is well-documented that breathing in silica dust, also known as quartz, is a prime culprit in the ongoing epidemic of complicated black lung disease, but regulations protecting coal miners from this dangerous substance are weak. With one in five Central Appalachian coal-miners who have worked 25 years or more underground now afflicted with the deadly disease, the consequence of these weak worker protections can be measured in lives.
Currently, the Mine Safety and Health Administration allows miners to be exposed to as much as 100 micrograms of silica dust per cubic meter of air. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General both recommend that this level be reduced to 50 micrograms per cubic meter, which is the current legal level of exposure in all other industries. (You read that right. It is currently legal for coal miners to be exposed to