Because of purchasing delays, the mine also did not have the required equipment in place to provide 96 hours of air, food and water. A federal official said manufacturing delays had prevented the Utah mine from stockpiling the required four days of food, water and oxygen.

"It's been very difficult for the industry to get these things," said Allyn Davis, a district manager in MSHA's Denver office.

The owner of the Utah mine has said the trapped men should have plenty of air if they are alive because oxygen naturally leaks into the underground chambers. He said the mine also is stocked with drinking water.

In June, MSHA director Richard Stickler said about half of the country's 670 underground coal mines had two air packs for each miner and 15 percent had stored sufficient air packs along escape routes. Manufacturers had delivered 86,000 air packs as of June, and the National Mining Association estimated 100,000 were on backorder.

In February, the House Education and Labor Committee issued a 38-page report on the MINER Act status, saying it is "proceeding too slowly."

"Delays put miners' lives at unacceptable risk and must be avoided," the report said, pointing out that MSHA has not required mine operators to provide hardened shelters underground, rescue teams are not as readily available and that communication is poor.

United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts told a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in February that "very little has changed in the last year concerning the ability to communicate with and locate trapped miners."

The efforts of the MSHA in the last year "would do little to change matters today if a mine were to experience an explosion like the one at Sago, or a mine fire like the one at Alma," Roberts said. "Indeed, the underground miners would likely fare no better than those who perished over one year ago."

But at the July 26 House hearing, Kevin Stricklin, MSHA's administrator for Coal Mine Safety and Health Program, said that the agency has implemented the new law's provisions "often ahead of schedule and beyond the requirements of the act."

To fulfill the law's requirements for communications and tracking systems, Stricklin said, MSHA has had meetings with 55 communications and tracking system companies and has approved 22 systems, including six new devices.

"MSHA is using all available tools, including tough enforcement, education and training, and technology, to achieve its goal of safer and healthier mines," Stricklin said.