criminal activity cecil roberts, whom we will hear from shortly, they are trying to do the right thing. bad actors continue to jeopardize the miner's safety. that's why we have the mine safety and health and administration when workers are needlessly put in harm's way, corrective sacks required to hold the mine operator accountable as we learn in startling detail and numerous safety violations and even more shocking are hazards that went unnoticed altogether.

and violating the approved plan. this proved to be a critical enforcement error once a roof collapse altered the air flow and allowed the build-up of methane gas. furth furthermore, it's difficult and almost unimageable. it later enhanced the magnitude of this disaster. creating a new category of flagrant violations never imposed against massey. technical support audits that outlined concerns with methane in the mine were never transmitted to the mine operator.

sadly, the list of enforcement lapses could go on as well. niosh states it could have possibly prevented the ubb explosion. there may be a number of reasons for these errors. some enforcement errors have plagued the agency for years and deadly mistakes are followed with a pledge to do better. upper big branch happened. tragedy strikes and enforcement regime goes on. administrator main, i hope you convince this committee and the nation's miners that this time it will be different, that this time we will learn from past mistakes and keep our promise to do better. i look forward to do this with our witnesses and i now recognize miss woolsey for her

opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. certainly as we examine the lessons from the upper big branch mine disaster, we can never lose sight that 29 families lost their brothers, their husbands, and best friends. almost two years ago this committee traveled to west virginia where we heard chilling testimony from the families of miners about the unbelievable conditions in that mine. most of which you listed in your opening testimony. a life-long minor and grandfather, one of the 29 miners who lost his life, testified that day. mr. long said, i'm asking for you all to please do something for the rest of the coal miners that's in the mines. i pray for it every night, every day. if you don't do something, something like this is going to

happen again. mr. long, we hear your cry. massey failed to prevent this strategy or shore up the mine roof to keep the mine ventilated and it failed to keep the mine rock dusted to prevent coal dust explosion. on top of the failure to follow basic production, it engaged in a pattern of destruction. massey gave foremen time to correct hazardous productions or kept mine examinings books and

engaged in a manner of intimidation if they tried to stop production to correct unsafe productions. these failures were the result of a culture where -- and he said it, wrongdoing became acceptable. where deviation became the norm. fw that operator fails, it's their responsibility to bring them back into line. there was a violation and failure to put this mine on the pattern of violation or apply maximum penalties. there was a failure to investigate managers who may have engaged in knowing and willful violations and mine plans were approved without

resolving previous concerns. we must examine why this happened. we have to know what broke. and finally reversed course and provided provided resources to put inspectors back into the mines but the new inspectors didn't have the needed experience and there were not enough technical specialists. violations went undetected, including critical violations highlighted in the latest report. the lead inspector had only 13 months experience and obviously missed a number of violations that may have prevented this

accident in the first place. while they fell short, it was not for lack of trying. they issued $1.3 million in penalties prior to the accident. the agency shut down parts of the mine 52 time in the previous year. by she's citations did not change massey's conduct. and 92% of all penalties prior to the explosion. what is clear, that m. shaw was no match for mass see or any other mining operation where corporate greed comes before the health and safety of the workers. today we recognize the entire system suffered the miners at upper big branch. congress shouldn't have slashed

miners for mine inspectors. and the weak enss were exploded in the law and hurt their workers. the law should have been much stronger because that is what it takes when an operator has little or no regard for their workers. we are prepared to work with our colleagues because the blood spilled by the miners must not be in vain and not forgotten and we must prevent all errors that led to the ubd disaster. in closing, i want to welcome our witnesses that will be here today. as well as representing ray hall who have a lot invested in us

getting this right. i yield back. >> thank you, gentle lady. pursuant to 7c, all committee members are permitted to submit hearing records that will remain open for 14 days. any material referenced during the hearing, let me add my welcome today to our colleagues in west virginia mrs. capito and ray hall are permitted to participate in our hearing and i hear no objection. >> we have two distinguished panel of witnesses. i would like to begin with our first panel. secretary of labor for the mine safety and health administration, joe main. mr. main has been a mine safety advocate for over 40 years. he worked with the united mine workers of america from 1974 to

2002, including 22 years as the administrator of umwas occupational and health and safety department. he worked as a mine safety consult stapt welcome back mr. main. before i ask you for your testimony, let me remind you of our quaint but nevertheless lighting system that is green, yellow, red. pretty self-evident. we want to hear what you have to say. you're free to summarize as you wish. when we get into questions, i'll be asking my colleagues to stick to the five-minute rule so we can all engage in the questions. with that, sir, you're recognized it. >> thank you, chairman kline

appreciate the opportunity to report on the april #th, 2010 disaster. cause of death, 29 miners before the explosion and still needed to pro investigate the nation's miners. the tragedy which occurred a few months following my confirmation was the deadliest coal mining disaster in 40 years, has caused unimaginable grief and extends beyond that. we're doing all that we can. on december 6th, 2011, the investigation teen issued a report.

when fueled by excessive amounts of coal dust transmitted to a coal dust explosion. it was a result of a series of violation of basic safety which was disregarded in upper big branch. it was also the unlawful by massey which was intimidation of miners and concealing hazards from regulators. while the top management exercised fifth amendment rights, one official recently gary may a. superintendent at the time of the explosion recently testified that with standard practice at ubd to fix or conceal hazards before inspectors could observe them. he also stated when he was a section boss he would spread extra rock dust and make sure everything looked good when he was told that inspectors were on their way. the massey $10.8 million in

natural resources that required massey after the explosion paid the penalties in full. they conducted an internal review and released a report on march 6th and among the toughest in the nation and significant shortcomings in the roof control plans. the internal review also identified deficiencies in the adherence to answer policies and procedures, including deficiencies by previous internal reviews. the internal review revealed this was budget constraints and experienced staff which left district experienced deficits. this was particularly true with a roof control ventilation and

other specialists. we should not lose sight of the challenges at ubb were created by an operator that intentionally enabled our ability to enforce it. the accident investigation team findings that massey caused the explosion. we have reviewed the internal review findings and implemented recommendations with reforms before ubd. we know more needs to be done. and a safe workplace for miners. our most effective enforcement tools are the inspections which began immediately after the disaster. since april 2010 wech conducted more than 400 impact inspections often monitoring communications

to prevent unscrupulous officers giving advanced notice. up with made it as effective as possible. we have placed two mines on a pattern of violations subject to the process. despite our efforts the system is still lawed. our proposal that we've announced would addressed it and made it less effective and what con gris intended for it to be. the health and safety requirements, regulatory action to improve compliance and mandatory training of all field all field supervisors and reorganize the enhanced enforcement actions and increased efforts to protect

miners from discrimination. the majority of officers try to obey the law. however, there's still operators who front the law. we are implementing not enough. as part of the congressional hearings we have made clear we do need legislative reform without cutting the many thousands of miners in death, injury, and illness. in trying to outfox the operators and focused improvements. congress should address the process and work to strengthen and tolerate employers who knowingly risking the lives of workers and providing advanced notice of inspections. and ensure they are fully

protected from retaliation. and miners were often aphrased trade to speak out because they fear losing their jobs. i look forward to working with the committee of providing nation miners the things they deserve. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. secretary. you mentioned in your testimony and every investigation and every report and they have made it clear that massey was operating outside of the law. there is no question. they are officially one of the bad guys here. you're here today representing the agency that is tasked with ensuring the safety of our mines and that included the safety of

the upper big branch. so i'd like to quote again from the independent review where they said if they had engaged in timely enforcement of the mine act and applicable standards and regulations it would have lessened the chances of and possibly could have prevented the upper big branch explosion do you agree with that statement? >> you know, i have to say this. if you look at all of the investigative findings thus far and i believe they pointed this out, that massey caused this disaster. having said that, it could or could not have been preventible. we look at all of the facts on the table. i haven't seen thes that tell me

there's a lot of things we could have done differently. and they could have shut it down in a heartbeat. i really believe that. >> so the question sort of remains that there were a number of opportunities and we've seen that in your own investigation to see what was going on even though they were in violation of the law. this seems pretty clear to me that if they inengaged in standards, it would have lessened the chances of and possibly prevented the explosion and your and try to plow through

everything and some of the issues raised that maybe point a closer fix on the question thaw raise or the inspections that were done over the last inspection period. the question is, did they identify if they didn't take appropriate action on? i have found no case where they identify and with regard to the inspections that you refer to, the foreign inspections, actually the foreign inspections that took place only one of them is a regular inspection. the others were in i think one case an inspection that took place where a team of inspectors went to the mine for the purpose of issuing an order upon arrival and spent time with the ventilation problem and i think

the other inspection that was involved in the foreign inspections was where an inspector went up to the tailgate but in an entry that was the return off of tailgate 22. it's isolated from the whole tailgate entries. so there's series of facts there. i think we have to look keeper at. but, you know, in terms of the rock dusting issue, let me swing back to that, i don't know if you folks have had a chance to read the testimony of the superintendent gary may who testified before a sentencing proceeding about three weeks ago where he and he even said a that whenever they would come into the mine he would scatter rock dust around and basically to

hurry it up and look like they had been rock dusting. in the areas that the inspectors were in, prior to the explosion, they were up on head gate 22, which was a development section on the northern side of the mine. this is where the explosion force was the worst in that mine that we found. on march the 15th, inspectors went into that section, did their inspection, sampled the rock dust and what the lab found was at that time that section was basically in compliance. all of the samples were in compliance. between the 15th of march, and april 5th, something happened and the inspectors were not in that area. if you look at the company's record books during that period, it appears that there was a lot of dust and combustible material loading up. if you look at the building which for the long hall was and

on march 15th conducted an inspection, issued an order on the tail drive of the belt and had a belt itself. and they went back in on the 24th of march to make their last inspection which they required the company to clean it up and that was terminated based on the inspection and that was the last time an inspector was in that area. and if you look at the company record books of the coal dust and the coal spilling from the date of the explosion back, you're going to find a listing of conditions. >> my time has expired and i know i have all of my colleagues either to engage in this kfrg. so i'm sure we will continue to pull this out.

unfortunately, it depends on which of the company books you were looking at, the ones that they cooked or the real ones. mr. miller. >> finding the opening statement thank you very much for your leadership and thank you for your leadership in response to this tragedy and in rebuilding the resources so we don't have to go through this again hopefully ever again. i want to read from the court transcript back and forth with the u.s. and the question is, while you're at the upper big branch, is that and can you tell

us the beginning to tell us beginning to end how these warnings were communicated? and announced over the company on property from that point it would be received at the office and from the office they would call underground and let us know that we have the company. skipping forward, question, how often were the warnings given to the inspectors coming on the property? answera tionwas it most of the time? answer, yes. question, was the upper big branch mine able to avoid advanced warning of the inspections? answer, yes. do you know if it is t was illegal to give notice of a mine inspection? yes, i knew it was unlawful. question, did your superiors at upper big branch and give advanced notice to inspections? answer, yes. did they encourage it?

yes, they did. when asked whether he would spread rock dust when he was warned inspectors coming, he answered, quote, i always spread extra rock dust to make sure everything looked good, end quote. how do you conduct inspections in that kind of atmosphere? >> it's almost impossible to be able to enforce the law in those kinds of activities in place. >> does your report corroborate with what mr. may said most of the time. >> despite that plan, they issued more closure orders than anybody in the united states. so i think that showed the fact that we had pretty aggressive

investors. >> it was a cool cue lated interference and efforts to shut down operations or clean them up prior to letting the inspectors come to that part of the active mine. is that correct? >> i think they hit a hid a lot of stuff from regulators, yes. >> now, in the report it's pretty clear they did not take action. is that correct? >> i'm sorry. >> in the criticisms of the agency, the suggestion has been

that action was not taken. >> i don't think there's any question that there is anything we could have done better at upper big branch. it was well articulated by the superintendent may was a challenge sometimes beyond the capability of any inspector, even experienced inspector to catch up with. >> in your internal review, you say, however, just before did not collect rock dust samples in the long hall gate entries at ugb after they began production or about they direct them to do so. so was the guidance wrong or inspectors not doing their job or improper guidance? >> there was an improper guidance. there was a serious problem with

the poll teas from that point forward you were on your own to develop policies and to implement those and generated from 2004 forward and you may or may not have known about one of those and how do best rock dust sampling in the mine. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. main, one of the conditions that led to the catastrophic explosion was coal dust. belts had been rolling through coal dust. the independent panel stated the mine operation did not and could not conceal