Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumMSHA Inspector General: Silica Dust Standard Outdated; Shitstain's Chief Hack Does Not Care
A group of Ohio Valley senators says a watchdog agencys recent report shows that federal regulators must do more to protect coal miners from silica dust, an especially toxic form of dust created when mining equipment cuts into rock layers near coal seams.
In a Monday morning press release, six Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, called the findings in last weeks Inspector Generals report extremely troubling, saying the Mine Safety and Health Administration knew what it needed to do to lower miners exposure to deadly silica dust.
The senators pressure comes after the Department of Labors Office of the Inspector General found that MSHAs standards for exposure to deadly silica dust were out of date, and that the mine safety agencys sampling methods were too infrequent to guarantee that miners were protected.
We are asking that you take immediate action to implement the recommendations contained in the OIG report, the senators wrote in a jointly issued letter addressed to MSHA head David Zatezelo. We further ask that you provide us with a thorough description of the measures currently being conducted by the agency to ensure that our brave and patriotic coal miners are shielded from excess exposure to silica dust on the job site. Zatezelo, a former mining executive, has been slow to act on a separate standard for silica exposure, and, in a response to the Inspector Generals report included in its appendix, said he could not agree with two of the IGs three recommendations for improvements.
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https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2020/11/23/lawmakers-union-urge-mine-safety-regulators-to-act-on-silica-dust/
blueinredohio
(6,797 posts)hatrack
(59,436 posts)DeWine doesn't give a shit either, it would appear.
MyOwnPeace
(16,887 posts)West Virginia's Joe Manchin was there? He's complaining about government standards?
That "man" - that DINO - is the same one who has championed every legislative act to lessen evironmental regulations designed to PROTECT those very workers!
He must have thought it was going to be another TRUMP rally.