The Bush Administration Abandoned Miners

Just a few short weeks ago, right-wing bloggers came unhinged at the suggestion that the Bush administration bore responsibility for their failure to enforce mine safety laws.

Today, the Washington Post reveals that there were proposed regulations that could have prevented some of the recent tragedies in the mines, but the Bush administration withdrew those regulations to pursue a more industry friendly course.

After one of the deadliest months for coal mining in years, federal mine regulators last week began formally considering safety improvements to help miners survive underground fires and explosions. Among the proposals: mandatory caches of oxygen tanks and breathing masks inside every coal mine.

The idea may have struck some miners as familiar, because it was. A similar proposal was put forward by the same regulators six years ago, only to be scrapped by the Bush administration shortly after it took office. And the oxygen caches were not the only proposed safety improvement to be withdrawn.
   
In all, the Bush administration abandoned or delayed implementation of 18 proposed safety rules that were in the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's regulatory pipeline in early 2001, a review of agency records shows. At least two of the dropped proposals have now been resurrected in the aftermath of deadly accidents at the Sago and Alma mines in West Virginia.

So, the next time you hear the Bushies talking about overly burdensome regulation, you'd better make sure it's not actually lifesaving regulation that they are really talking about.