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- The Kentucky House handed House Bill 85, permitting smaller coal mining operations to cut back the variety of miners with emergency medical coaching required for every underground shift.
- Supporters mentioned that the measure is critical to assist small mining operations whereas dealing with the business’s decline in Kentucky.
- Critics have voiced considerations that the invoice compromises miner safety, sacrificing it for monetary acquire.
The Kentucky House voted Monday to permit the state’s smallest coal mining operations to cut back the variety of miners with emergency medical coaching assigned for every underground shift.
In a state as soon as often known as a coal producing powerhouse, supporters mentioned the measure is required to assist preserve the smallest mining operations in enterprise amid the business’s downturn. The invoice’s critics warned it might roll again an essential safeguard enacted years in the past following a Kentucky mining fatality.
“It truly troubles me to think that we could potentially be trading the safety of our coal mining families for what appears to be a nominal financial benefit, if anything at all,” mentioned Democratic state Rep. Ashley Tackett Laferty, who represents a coal-producing area in jap Kentucky.
KENTUCKY BILL TO CREATE FUTURE-ORIENTED ENERGY COMMISSION ADVANCES AS COAL POWER PLANTS CLOSE
The measure — House Bill 85 — handed the House on a 75-18 vote and goes to the Senate subsequent. Republicans have supermajorities in each chambers.
The Kentucky Capitol is seen on Jan. 14, 2020, in Frankfort, Ky. The Kentucky House voted on March 11, 2024, to permit the state’s smallest coal mining operations to cut back the variety of miners with emergency medical coaching to be assigned for every underground shift. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
The invoice would minimize in half the variety of mine emergency technicians required to work when a shift has 15 or fewer miners. Two METs are presently required per shift, however the invoice would cut back it to one.
Republican state Rep. Bill Wesley mentioned his invoice is motivated by cases when whole shifts had been shut down and miners despatched house as a result of not sufficient METs confirmed up for work.
“Nobody got paid,” Wesley mentioned in the course of the House debate. “Everyone was sent home. And I think that this is a needed bill to help all the coal miners.”
Tackett Laferty mentioned she spoke to a miner with greater than 20 years of expertise who recalled only one occasion when a mine was shut down due to an absence of METs. He instructed her your complete shift was rescheduled a couple of days later to make up for the misplaced manufacturing, she mentioned.
Tony Oppegard, a mine safety lawyer in Kentucky, has mentioned the proposal would weaken safety requirements.
“I think it’s shortsighted and there’s an easy solution,” he mentioned in a latest cellphone interview. “The easy solution is mine operators can require more of their miners to be METs as a condition of employment.”
It can be a cheap possibility for coal operators, since METs typically are paid an additional $1 per hour, Oppegard mentioned. With two METs per shift, the associated fee can be an additional $16 per shift, he mentioned.
“That’s pennies for a coal company,” he mentioned.
METs are miners skilled to present emergency medical care and to stabilize an injured miner’s situation. Oppegard mentioned the requirement for 2 METs per shift was half of a bigger safety measure handed by Kentucky lawmakers in 2007, and it stemmed from the 2005 dying of an jap Kentucky miner.
A federal inspection report mentioned the miner was hit by a coal hauler at a Harlan County mine. He suffered “near-amputating injuries.” The report mentioned his accidents had been made worse as a result of he was not given first help earlier than he was taken above floor to an ambulance. The report mentioned staff in the mine had not been skilled in first help.
Tackett Laferty mentioned the safeguard of getting a number of METs on website is not what’s inflicting mines to shut.
The invoice’s supporters embody Republican Rep. Jim Gooch Jr., who represents a coal area in western Kentucky. Gooch comes from a coal mining household and beforehand labored in mines himself. He mentioned the invoice is a recognition of the realities for some operators with as few as 10 workers working a shift.
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“I don’t think it’s any threat to the safety of our miners,” he mentioned.
Under the invoice, two METs would nonetheless be required for shifts with greater than 15 however fewer than 51 miners.
Coal employment numbers in Kentucky have fallen sharply over the past decade as demand for coal has declined.
Kentucky employed about 4,700 mine staff on the finish of 2023, together with about 2,700 in underground mines, in contrast to almost 12,000 complete miners in 2013, in accordance to numbers supplied by the state.
Cheaper pure fuel costs and more durable environmental laws have prompted electrical suppliers to transfer away from shopping for coal.
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