Mine Safety: MSHA Devotes Substantial Effort to Ensuring the Safety and Health of Coal Miners, but Its Programs Could Be Strengthened

MSHA adopted measures to improve the monitoring capability for 6-month plan reviews and issued guidance on 12/23/03 that defines its standard operating procedures for ensuring that all plan reviews conducted by district personnel are entered into the Mine Plan Approval system in a timely fashion. The agency also has an ongoing project in which all of its data systems will be consolidated in one common platform, including the Mine Plan Approval database.

MSHA stated that, by January 2004, the agency would develop and implement a quarterly review process for key inspection data, including monitoring the timely abatement of violations. In addition, MSHA revised its Accountability Program to ensure that accountability reviews focus on core inspection activities, including the abatement of violations. The revised Accountability Program was approved in March 2005 and distributed to all MSHA supervisors.

MSHA has revised its General Inspection Procedures Handbook to consolidate the various guidance documents into one reference manual. MSHA piloted its new inspection procedures in three of its district offices and plans to include them in an electronic resource package for enforcement personnel.

For certain locations where positions are hard to fill, MSHA expanded its recruitment possibilities by raising the entry-level grade for inspectors to GS-11. It also conducted a job task analysis and tied it to a competency model using the Federal Career Intern Program to fill mission-critical entry-level inspector positions. In October 2004, the agency implemented a revised recruitment-to-hiring process for inspectors. This has improved the quality of its inspectors and reduced hiring time from 180 days to fewer than 60 days. From October 2004 to June 2005, MSHA hired 90 inspectors. It has also adopted a competency-based recruiting approach for other mission critical positions such as engineers and senior level Mine Safety and Health Specialists.

MSHA contracted with RTI International to conduct an in-depth study of how it can improve outreach and better target enforcement and compliance assistance in regard to independent contractors. The study addresses in detail the issue of requiring and collecting new data on independent contractors. MSHA will receive a draft report on the results of the study in September 2005.

MSHA developed and implemented national procedures that ensure information regarding the root causes of all accidents investigated, including non-fatal accidents, is entered into its Accident Investigation database along with information on corrective actions taken. District managers now ensure that the appropriate reviews are conducted and that the completed forms are entered into the database.