The General Accounting Office (GAO) mine safety study found MSHA devoted substantial effort to ensuring safety and health of coal miners, but its programs could be strengthened.

The investigation focused on underground coal mines and assessed how well MSHA oversaw its process for reviewing and approving critical types of mine plans and the extent to which MSHA’s inspections and accident investigations processes helped ensure the safety and health of underground coal miners.

The report drew attention to a number of key areas GAO claimed MSHA failed to monitor effectively.

“MSHA headquarters does not ensure that 6-month technical inspections of ventilation and roof

support plans are being completed in a timely fashion,” the GAO report said.

The report went on to explain the lapse in time may lead to mines operating without up-to-date plans or mine operators not following all requirements of plans.

In the same area, the report also found MSHA officials did not always ensure that hazards found during inspections were corrected promptly.

“Gaps were found in the information that MSHA uses to monitor fatal and non-fatal injuries, limiting trend analysis and agency oversight,” it said.

“Specifically, the agency does not collect information on hours worked by independent contractor staff needed to compute fatality and non-fatal injury rates for specific mines, and it is difficult to link information on accidents at underground coal mines with MSHA’s investigations.”

The investigation also stressed that guidance provided by MSHA management to agency employees could be strengthened.

The report said the main reason this communication breakdown occurred was because inspection procedures were unclear and were contained in a number of sources. This lead to differing interpretations by mine inspectors.

The last major finding the report made was the lack of forward planning MSHA had made to deal with the ageing workforce within the inspectorate.

“Although about 44 percent of MSHA’s underground coal mine inspectors will be eligible to retire in the next 5 years, the agency has no plan for replacing them or using other human capital flexibilities available to the agency to retain its highly qualified and trained inspectors.”

The report outlined a number of recommendations to resolve the weaknesses found.

GAO firstly recommended MSHA monitor the timeliness of technical inspections conducted as part of the 6-month review of ventilation and roof control plans to ensure all inspections are completed by the district offices.

A second recommendation was to ensure mine operators were correcting hazards identified during inspections in a timely manner.

The report also said updated guidance should be given to district offices to eliminate inconsistencies and outdated instruction during inspections.

It was advised a plan was developed to address anticipated shortages in the number of qualified inspectors due to upcoming retirements, including streamlining the agency’s hiring process and offering retention allowances.

It was recommended a tighter reign be put on independent contractors, where they had to report information to MSHA for use in computing injury and fatality rates to measure effectiveness of the agency’s enforcement efforts.

Lastly, it advised the data collection system be revised so it was easier to link injuries, accidents and investigations.

In answer to the report's findings MSHA remarked in its comments submission that the overall tone of the report could be improved to convey that GAO did not find serious deficiencies during its review, and that MSHA was an agency with considerable strengths and accomplishments.

Further in its comments, MSHA did not remark on the recommendations from the report but did disagree with many of the findings on which the recommendations were based.

The GAO's full report can be found at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03945.pdf