Contact: Thomas A. Stock, Executive Director
(202) 434-9905
Release No. 07002
For Release: December 31, 2007
The Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission announced today that it will begin publishing a weekly tally of newly filed cases to keep the public advised of the dramatic increase in the number of cases pending before the Commission since the passage of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (the "MINER Act") and the revision of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's (MSHA's) civil penalty regulations.
In the years immediately prior to these changes in mine safety and health law and policy, the Commission received, on average, 2,500 new cases per year. In FY 2007, that number rose to 4,097, and in the first three months of FY 2008, the Commission has already received nearly 1,700 cases. If new filings continue at current rates, the Commission could receive over 7,000 new cases in FY 2008. This would translate to well over 750 cases per judge in the Commission's Office of Administrative Law Judges.
Since FY 2004, the number of cases filed with the Commission has doubled, as has the number of MSHA citations being contested. During that same period, however, the amount of penalties sought by MSHA has more than quadrupled, from just under $7 million in FY 2004 to over $29 million in FY 2007. This has led to a sharp rise in the number of penalty contests filed at the Commission by mine operators. (See accompanying graphs.)
Commission Chairman Michael F. Duffy declared, "Recent announcements by the Department of Labor that it plans to add a substantial number of inspectors and increase the number of solicitors to handle mine safety and health litigation strongly suggest that the Commission's workload will continue to expand and that more cases will proceed to hearing."
Chairman Duffy added, "We are trying to deal with this dramatic surge in new cases as best we can. We are in the process of implementing a new case management system and hope to evolve into an essentially ‘paperless' filing and storage system over the next several months. We are also examining our processes for reviewing and approving settlements with the hope of streamlining those procedures. Nevertheless, miners, operators, and MSHA need to be advised that if the current trend continues, the Commission may not be able to meet certain performance guidelines we had previously set regarding the time it takes for a case to reach decision. That is why we have taken this step to keep the public apprised of this mounting challenge."