More than two years after enacting a law requiring more coal mine inspections, the state finally is getting the additional inspectors needed to enforce that law. Previously, the state’s continuing revenue woes had made it impossible for the state to hire the additional inspectors.
On Tuesday, Gov. Steve Beshear approved an additional 15 new mine inspectors plus 19 new mine permit reviewers, with 16 being permanent positions and three being temporary.
Following the deaths of 16 coal miners in Kentucky coal mines in 2006, the 2007 General Assembly approved a law doubling the number of required inspections. We praised the new law. Since nearly every single mining accident in Kentucky was the result of existing safety regulations being ignored, it was clear that what Kentucky most needed was not more regulations but more effective enforcement of existing ones. More frequent mine inspections clearly were needed.
While funding for additional mine inspectors was included in the two-year budget approved by the 2008 General Assembly, the nationwide recession caused state revenue to take a nosedive and forced the General Assembly to trim millions of dollars in spending from that budget. Since the mining inspectors had yet to be hired, it was easy to cut funding for them from the budget. Of course, those cuts also made it impossible for the state to fully implement the 2007 law requiring the additional mine inspections.
The new mine inspectors will be paid for with revenue generated by Kentucky’s severance tax on coal. New assessments on coal mining permit applications, plus a federal match, are expected to raise enough money to cover the cost of adding new permit reviewers, Beshear said.
Since the 2007 law was not being enforced, the 2009 General Assembly tried to change it. A measure considered by legislators would have reduced the number of inspections performed by the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing. Fortunately, the measure failed.
“It’s excellent news,” mine safety advocate Tony Oppegard said of the decision to hire the additional inspectors. “It’s the safest day of the year for coal miners when inspectors are present. The more days inspectors are present on the job, the more likely it is that they’re going to observe safety problems and less likely that miners will be killed or injured.”
He’s right, of course. Any law is only as effective as its enforcement, and for the first time, Kentucky is getting the manpower it needs to help assure mine safety regulations are not being ignored.
Editorials
Safer mines — 11/07/09
Inspectors needed to enforce 2007 law finally being hired
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Retiring
Dr. Gregory Adkins has served as president of Ashland Community and Technical College during a period of rapid growth and substantial changes. Adkins announced last week that he will retire June 30 after almost 11 years as the head of the school that now is located not only just off 13th Street in Ashland but also is in EastPark more than 20 miles from the Ashland campus.
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Try again
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