Handling of Utah disaster may determine mine bureaucrat's future

WASHINGTON — Richard Stickler's handling of the Crandall Canyon Mine accident in Utah will likely be at the top of the list when Congress considers whether he should stay as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, senators and mine-safety experts said Tuesday.

They question his overall handling of the rescue effort, his decision to allow media to enter the Crandall mine, and his allowing the unguarded Robert Murray, co-owner of the Crandall Canyon mine, to become the main voice of the rescue effort. These come on top of more general complaints about MSHA's slow implementation of major federal mine-safety reforms passed last year.

"The quality of MSHA's investigations and resulting actions in the aftermath of the Indiana and Utah incidents will undoubtedly be a test of Richard Stickler's leadership and worthiness to be properly confirmed by the United States Senate," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said in a statement Tuesday.

The Senate in August 2006 rejected Stickler's nomination to head the agency, but President Bush appointed him to lead MSHA while Congress was on recess in October 2006. Under Senate rules, whenever the Senate adjourns for more than 30 days, all pending nominations are rejected and returned to the president.

Stickler's term is slated to finish at the end of this year, when the 2007 congressional session concludes, unless the Senate reconsiders him. Discussions of whether to renew his appointment could occur as congressional hearings into the Utah mine collapse take place.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., who heads the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, said Friday that they intend to answer questions about the accident and mine safety, "by investigating and convening hearings at the appropriate time."

The committee has oversight over the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Last year, Byrd and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, who is now chairman of the Senate committee that oversees mine safety, led the effort to reject Stickler's nomination, saying he was not focused enough on worker safety.

Stickler, a West Virginia native, spent 30 years as a coal company manager with Beth Energy, the coal arm of Bethlehem Steel. He was director of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Deep Mine Safety from 1997 to 2003.

After the Sago explosion last year in which 12 West Virginia miners died, Stickler told U.S. senators during a confirmation hearing that current mine safety laws were "adequate."

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she later asked him for ways to improve mine safety, and he did not make any suggestions.