Best of Gazette-Mail: MSHA cuts fueling safety fears 15 years after Upper Big Branch

That something, at 3:02 p.m. on April 5, 2010, was a massive coal dust explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County.

The catastrophe left 29 miners dead and two injured. It was the deadliest U.S. coal mine disaster in nearly four decades.

An internal review of MSHA actions at Upper Big Branch in response to the disaster published nearly two years later found that Massey Energy Company, through its subsidiary Performance Coal Company, caused the explosion by violating widely recognized safety standards and failing to correct hazards.

Fifteen years since the disaster, Main said he sees more signs of trouble.

“[There are] parallels that we’re seeing,� Main said in a phone interview.

The MSHA internal review noted that budgetary constraints resulted in inspection workforce reductions that compromised the agency’s ability to carry out its mission.

Main recalled getting MSHA briefing books while waiting for his Senate confirmation to lead the agency as assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health in 2009 that revealed half the inspectors had two or fewer years of experience.

MSHA district supervisors and managers did not provide sufficient oversight of inspections and investigations, the agency’s post-Upper Big Branch internal review found.

Supervisors did not adequately review Upper Big Branch inspection reports, identify significant deficiencies or recognize that some parts of the mine had not been inspected, the agency determined. Resource limits forced specialists and special investigators to pitch in on mandated regular inspections instead of doing their prescribed duties.

“One of the things that critically showed up was the inexperienced folks that were in the agency that were missing things and not [making] decisions they should be making,� Main said. “And that was part of our findings. That was one of the underlying factors in that disaster.�

Now, Main views sweeping Trump administration MSHA staff cuts and threats of agency office closures with wary eyes, knowing all too well what might come next.

“I lived through that in 2010 at Upper Big Branch,� Main said. “I’ve seen the results of this firsthand, and I know what it can lead to.�

“The eerie thing to me is that a lot of these things that are present now mirror what was present before Upper Big Branch happened,� Chris Williamson, a Mingo County native who led the MSHA from 2022 through the end of the Biden administration, said in a phone interview.

The Trump administration is accelerating a long-term decline in MSHA staff that portends a deeply diminished presence in West Virginia that miner advocates say needlessly risks another Upper Big Branch-level catastrophe.

“It’s just reckless, what they’re doing,� Main said of the Trump administration’s MSHA oversight.

‘What’s UBB?’

The Department of Government Efficiency, a new commission the Trump administration has charged with cutting federal spending, has indicated at its website at doge.gov/savings that the leases of 33 MSHA offices have been terminated. Those include offices in Summersville, Nicholas County, and near Pineville, Wyoming County, and seven offices in Kentucky.

Known as DOGE, the department co-launched by Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person per the business magazine Forbes, has said the terminations are expected to save the federal government just over $9.5 million, with $4.85 million saved in annual lease costs.

Carey Clarkson, national vice president with the National Council of Field Labor Locals union that represents MSHA employees, told the Gazette-Mail last week a President Donald Trump-ordered hiring freeze cut off the hiring process for 90 people who had been offered MSHA positions. Roughly 120 more employees were lost after they took a voluntary resignation offer as the Trump administration looks to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.

Clarkson said the MSHA barely has enough staff now to perform required inspections, let alone “spend quality time� on mines that need greater enforcement.

“It’s like you just cut your pipeline off,� said Williamson, who worked to increase the agency’s staff size after cuts during the first Trump administration.

Clarkson said the office closures would further hamstring mine enforcement and inspector recruitment.

“Strategically, if you look at a map and look at all the areas where the mines are closing, it makes no sense,� Clarkson said.

Kristen Knebel, spokeswoman for the Department of Labor, the MSHA’s parent agency, declined comment on personnel matters and referred comment on leases and the future of field offices to the General Services Administration, which manages federal property and provides contracting options for government agencies.

A GSA spokesperson said the agency is reviewing options to optimize federal footprint and building use. The spokesperson did not respond to emailed questions regarding specific field office leases and futures or how it determined which leases were targeted for terminations. The GSA has not provided information in response to a related request the Gazette-Mail filed per the Freedom of Information Act last week.

The GSA spokesperson said it is sending letters to customer agencies to inform them it is considering terminating leases as they enter their “soft term� — a period in which the GSA may terminate a lease early without penalty. The spokesperson said the agency is adjusting its approach in instances in which the current space remains the most suitable option, either rescinding termination notices or not issuing them.

The GSA’s responses did not clear up the uncertain future of MSHA field offices amid the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal workforce.

“That’s very frustrating to me, the lack of transparency,� Williamson said. “Those mine inspectors ... those are incredibly hard jobs already. And then you add on top of it, am I going to get fired? Am I going to lose my job? Am I going to have an office to report to?�

United Mine Workers of America president Cecil Roberts said the potential closure of MSHA offices with no provisions as to how the agency will continue to work to keep miners safe would “significantly increase� miner health and safety risks.

Roberts also cited hundreds of layoffs being implemented in and beyond West Virginia to employees within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a research agency that studies worker health and has contributed decades of critical findings to better protect miners from toxic coal and silica dust and mine accidents.

“[Miners] deserve answers from the administration as to why it appears there is now a target on their backs,� Roberts said in a statement Tuesday.

UMWA health and safety director Josh Roberts said during a MSHA panel discussion last year at the National Mine Health and Safety Academy, in Raleigh County, that union officials talked to miners who hadn’t heard of the Upper Big Branch disaster.

“They look at you [and say], ‘What’s UBB?’� Josh Roberts recalled during the discussion.

“People tend to forget,� said Clarkson, who was moved by the Upper Big Branch disaster to join the MSHA. “And if you don’t study history, you’re doomed to repeat it.�

‘I would really like to see a plan’

The MSHA’s Pineville area field office presence was a response to the Upper Big Branch disaster.

In 2011, the MSHA divided its District 4 in two, with a newly formed District 12 including its Pineville area office.

The creation of District 12 doubled the number of specialist departments and supervisors, special investigators and conference/litigation representatives — usually experienced mine inspectors who represent the federal government in cases contested by mine operators.

“They did that because they needed more oversight for these mines,� Clarkson noted.

In its post-Upper Big Branch internal review, the MSHA had found the assignment of specialists and special investigators to assist with regular inspections rather than their own duties due to limited resources resulted in delays in reviewing ventilation and roof control plans. Some areas of the Upper Big Branch mine weren’t inspected during six regular inspections across an 18-month review period, including some areas where violations contributing to the catastrophic explosion existed.

A Gazette-Mail review found that MSHA staffing and funding have decreased since the agency’s pre-Upper Big Branch status quo that allowed failures to detect safety risks there.

MSHA’s 1,747 full-time equivalent positions and $387.8 million appropriated for Fiscal Year 2023 were 26% and 21.3%, respectively, below their Fiscal Year 2009 amounts when adjusting for inflation, according to MSHA budget plans for those years.

Those declines were much steeper than a concurrent 13.8% decline in the nation’s mines, meaning the MSHA’s resources decreased faster than the mines it was created to regulate.

Much of the agency’s long-term staffing decline came during the first Trump administration. Approved MSHA positions fell 18% to 1,866 full-time equivalents from fiscal years 2016 to 2020.

“We hired about as many people as we had money for,� Williamson said of the MSHA during the Biden era.

Williamson recalled that upon taking MSHA over in 2022, high-ranking agency officials were vocal in expressing a need for more inspectors.

Clarkson said members of his union who are MSHA employees have had to work overtime and are getting burned out.

The MSHA’s fiscal year 2024 budget plan reported the agency’s workload was increasing due to effects of higher production in the country’s mines.

Increased MSHA outreach activities were resulting in more complaints about mining workplace hazards, the agency said.

In 2024 and 2025, 16,639 inspections were conducted by the 33 MSHA field offices that the DOGE has signaled could be shuttered, according to a study by the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, a Kentucky-based nonprofit that represents miners. Inspectors in those offices spent more than 234,000 hours onsite at mines and more than 399,000 hours completing inspection duties, the firm found.

“I would really like to see a plan or some transparency with mining communities about how they are planning to get effective, comprehensive inspections done,� Williamson said.

‘You’ve got to know what you’re doing’

Those who can perform what Williamson called “quality inspections� are hard to come by. New and inexperienced mine inspectors have a lot to learn, he said.

“We have a rule that it takes about five years to really get your hands around everything,� Main said.

The MSHA internal review following the Upper Big Branch disaster estimated a newly hired trainee needs roughly two years to finish classroom and on-the-job training to become a journeyman inspector.

Main observed some mines have different geologies than others and that inspectors must account for preparation plant facilities, stockpiles and waste dumps.

“It’s a complex science of things that has to be understood, and so it takes a lot of time,� Main said. “You’ve got to know what you’re doing when you walk in that mine to say, ‘Yeah, this is safe, this is not safe.’�

Lung transplants vs. DOGE savings

Mine worker allies say MSHA cuts threaten enforcement of a landmark rule the agency finalized last year. Coal mine operators must comply with it beginning on April 14.

The rule lowered the permissible exposure for respirable crystalline silica to the limit recommended in 1974 by the NIOSH, following years of escalating incidence of black lung disease among increasingly younger central Appalachian coal miners.

Industry groups, led by the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, filed an emergency motion in a federal court Wednesday seeking to put the silica rule on hold. The groups said the rule was too far-reaching and that the MSHA had been unresponsive to their request for a court-issued rule pause.

Miners have been breathing in more toxic silica dust generated from cutting into rock as coal seams thin.

NIOSH researchers found in a study of lung exams collected from 1970 to 2017 published in 2018 that 20.6% of miners with careers of 25 years or more in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia had black lung — a pronounced increase following a national low point in the late 1990s.

Sam Petsonk, a Beckley-based lawyer who specializes in representing coal miners, reported he has clients age 35 and younger who have lost nearly a quarter of their lung function to progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of dust-induced lung disease.

That means lung transplants required for some miners still in their 30s, Petsonk observed during a West Virginia Law Review symposium in Morgantown last week.

One lung transplant operation can cost upwards of $1 million — more than double the total amount the DOGE has estimated would be saved by terminating the MSHA Summersville field office’s lease.

National Black Lung Association president and Beckley resident Gary Hairston choked up during the symposium as he recalled his wife walking out their door to go to work to support their family after he quit mining coal in 2002 at 48 after his black lung diagnosis.

“I don’t want to see our young people go through what I’m going through,� Hairston said.

Clarkson says more enforcement requires more man-hours.

“Without additional staff, how can we enforce the new silica standard?� Clarkson said. “And we need that.�

State’s congressional delegation quiet

West Virginia’s congressional delegation has largely been quiet amid threats to the rule and the MSHA at large.

In July, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives Appropriations Committee approved, in a 31-25 vote, a fiscal year 2025 funding bill that would block money for the rule, setting up a vote on the appropriations package by the full House. The federal government has been operating under a temporary funding measure that lasts through Sept. 30 to avert a government shutdown.

Former Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., was a vocal supporter of the silica rule, but the other members of West Virginia’s congressional delegation have been noncommittal.

Spokespeople for Sen. Jim Justice, Rep. Carol Miller and Rep. Riley Moore, all R-W.Va., did not respond to requests for comment on the MSHA staff shrinkage and lease termination notices.

“I don’t know what they’re thinking,� Main said. “I don’t know what Congress is thinking, sitting back and just watching all this happen.�

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told reporters Thursday she lacked information on the status of MSHA office leases.

“As you can imagine, everything is going rather rapid here, and it’s hard to get straight answers sometimes, which is discouraging for a U.S. senator,� Capito said.

Capito indicated she needed more information on the MSHA issues before assessing the Trump administration’s oversight of the agency.

“I need to really get assurance from MSHA and others that the aspect of safety that is so critical here is still paramount and that that’s the guiding principle, and that that will be fully attended to under the new scenario,� Capito said. “I’m not sure I have that assurance right now, so I need to get that.�

Some leading House Democrats have been more aggressive in seeking answers.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the top-ranking Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., the top-ranking Democrat on the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, sought documents and information regarding MSHA office lease designations and communications about the termination of leases from the Department of Labor in a March 6 letter to the agency.

But although Scott and Omar requested responses by March 20, Scott’s press secretary, Raiyana Malone, said last week they had not yet received a response.

Capito was noncommittal Thursday when asked for her stance on previously stalled legislation to be reintroduced by Scott in the House of Representatives and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in the Senate. That legislation backed by the UMWA and Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, the Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act, would:

• Direct the Department of Labor to issue a succession plan to ensure timely replacement of critical personnel
• Authorize the MSHA to hire replacements for employees before their departures to ensure an adequate number of qualified inspectors and technical specialists
• Significantly boost the MSHA’s ability to collect delinquent fines by authorizing it to close a mine whose fines are more than 180 days overdue
• Require the NIOSH to empanel a group of experts to investigate major mine accidents and provide subpoena authority to the NIOSH and the independent panel

“The tragedy of the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster will be in vain if Congress does not close the loopholes that have allowed a small minority of mine operators to put profit ahead of their miners’ safety,� Scott said in a statement Thursday.

The UMWA said in a statement Friday the Byrd bill would “hold bad actors accountable.�

“As we remember the 29 lives lost on April 5, 2010, let us also renew our commitment to ensuring that no miner ever has to face the same fate,� the UMWA said.

Main, who led the MSHA for over seven years under former President Barack Obama, said he wants to see congressional Republicans do more to press for more MSHA support.

“I don’t know how, in good conscience, they can sit on their hands with this one,� Main said.

More than half of MSHA employees deemed essential

Despite its cuts to the agency, the Trump administration — in a document it produced last month — showed how indispensable many MSHA employees are.

The Department of Labor published an Office of Management and Budget-required plan for operating in the event of a lapse in appropriations indicating 879 out of 1,749 employees — more than half — would be retained full-time in such a scenario.

Employees conducting statutorily mandated inspections and investigations and providing mine emergency support were categorized as “necessary to protect life and property.�

The MSHA’s 50.3% of employees to be retained was nearly double the 26.8% across the Department of Labor in that category and even tops the 45.4% total in that category among Department of Defense civilian employees in that agency’s 2023 contingency plan.

“I consider much of the work MSHA employees do to be public safety-oriented,� Williamson said.

But much of the work MSHA employees do is poised to soon be lost. More miners’ lives easily could follow.

Joe Main has seen enough to see that: “It’s a recipe for disaster.�