The head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration said Thursday that his agency has declined to provide Utah's Mine Safety Commission with access to all information in an MSHA investigation into the Crandall Canyon Mine accident because the commission declined to sign a confidentiality agreement.

"If (the commission members) sign a confidentiality agreement, I would trust that, and from what I understand, that has been put on the table and was offered," MSHA head Richard Stickler said in an interview with the Deseret Morning News. "But the folks on the commission would not sign the confidentiality agreement, is what I've been told."

Those comments were disconcerting to the chairman of the state panel, Scott Matheson Jr. He said MSHA has not made any specific offer of access in exchange for a signed confidentiality agreement.

"There's been no resolution, and there has been no refusal to do anything," Matheson said.

He added he has spoken directly to the attorneys for MSHA at the Labor Department but hadn't spoken to Stickler. Matheson said talks between the Utah commission and MSHA lawyers continue, and he hopes to come to some accord that will allow his panel the access.

"We've talked about briefings in a public meeting, and we've talked about doing briefings privately, subject to non-disclosure. But we have not reached any resolution of those discussions, and we have not taken anything off the table," Matheson said.

The Labor Department last month refused to let the commission have any information from the Crandall Canyon Mine accident investigation until the MSHA inquiry is finished, citing "grave concerns" that the panel's involvement would jeopardize the department's work. Matheson had asked MSHA for full cooperation and access to information as the federal government conducts its investigation into the accident.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who created the state commission after the accident, also has urged MSHA to be forthcoming in sharing information with the commission members.

Nine men lost their lives in the Aug. 6 collapse and subsequent rescue effort. The mine is closed.

Access to the probe findings and confidentiality also were the subjects of a lawsuit filed recently by the Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake Tribune, Associated Press, CNN and the Utah Media Coalition. The media outlets argued that reporters and the public have a right to know what is happening in proceedings undertaken by MSHA investigators. The media filed suit in federal court last week in an attempt to open the closed hearings.

But federal Judge Dee Benson ruled Tuesday in Salt Lake City that the meetings will remained closed, saying he could find no constitutional justification for opening the hearings to the media and the public.