A front-page story in the New York Times August 9 examined the Bush administration's record over the last four years of subordinating mine safety issues to the special interests of the mining companies, stressing in particular the role of former mining executive Dave Lauriski, who is now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Among the rollbacks of mining safety protections under Lauriski's leadership:

• A proposed change to allow coal-dust levels in mines to quadruple, thus putting miners at a significantly increased risk of black lung.
• Erasing from the rulemaking agenda a proposed rule to regulate the structure and condition of coal waste impoundments, which can hold hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic coal wastes. The rule had been added to the agenda in the aftermath of an impoundment rupture that released over 300 million gallons of hazardous coal slurry into rivers and streams in Kentucky and West Virginia.

OMB Watch has been monitoring and reporting on these developments throughout this time. Our recent report, Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards (available here), documents the rollbacks of mine-related workplace and environmental protections and highlights the problem of the "foxes in the henhouse" -- former executives of the mining industry, including Lauriski, who have been tapped by the administration to serve in the agency intended to regulate that very industry. OMB Watch has also compiled a chart of rules withdrawn from MSHA's agenda. This chart compares MSHA's rationales for adding the rules to its agenda against its explanation for withdrawing them. Other recent OMB Watch dispatches on mine safety rollbacks include the following:

• Federal Judge Rebukes Bush Administration's Hard-Rock Mining Rules
• Administration Moves to Allow Dumping of Mining Waste Into Streams
• Court Ruling Overturned: Mining Companies Free to Bury Streams Once Again
• Court Rejects Move to Allow Dumping from Mountaintop Mining
• Administration Moves to Clear Way for Dumping, Mountaintop Mining
• Administration Lifts Restrictions for Dumping Mining Waste
• Safeguards Weakened or Revoked