BOULDER, Colo. -- Although the anguish and anger remain raw from January's fatal accidents at the Sago and Aracoma mines in West Virginia, the coal industry wants to roll back or amend most of the federal emergency rescue rules adopted in response to them.

In testimony over the past month at four federal Mine Safety and Health Administration hearings around the country, industry officials and lobbyists offered condolences to the families of the 14 miners who lost their lives in January and voiced general support for safer mining practices, but they challenged the core provisions of the emergency rules aimed at helping miners escape after an underground fire or explosion.

Miners union representatives said even tougher rules were needed and were long overdue.

The emergency regulations, imposed by MSHA in March, require mines to notify the agency of a serious accident within 15 minutes, improve evacuation training and install more and better-situated oxygen supplies and lifelines. The agency also is requiring mine operators to report all unplanned underground mine fires instead of only those that burn for longer than 30 minutes.

By December, MSHA must decide whether to make permanent, amend or scrap the rules. The public comment period ends May 30.

"MSHA held the hearings to get feedback on how the rules can be improved, if needed, in order to achieve our goal to help miners evacuate safely in the event of an emergency," said Dirk Fillpot, an MSHA spokesman in Washington.

Edgar Oldham, a United Mine Workers of America leader in Kentucky, testified in Lexington that miners were losing faith in the agency's ability to protect their safety underground.

"As always, good hardworking miners had to shed their blood in order to get additional protections from MSHA and the Bush administration. It wasn't that many years ago that these same issues were out there for the miners' benefit but were laid to the side until the Sago Mine disaster rekindled them," Mr. Oldham said. "What trust they had in this agency is fading fast."

Although the National Mining Association and many of its member companies said they supported the intent of the emergency rules, those testifying for the industry said MSHA, reacting to harsh public scrutiny and pressure in the aftermath of the accidents, imposed rules that are too rigid and maybe too costly.

They were particularly critical of the new 15-minute notification requirement for serious accidents, the only emergency provision that applies to nonmetal and metal mines in addition to coal mines. They said it would result in many false alarms and could interfere with emergency efforts to fight fires or to save or treat injured miners.

Bruce Watzman, the National Mining Association's vice president for safety and health, testified that MSHA was notified last year of 2,400 immediately reportable accidents, but that approximately 90 percent did not involve an injury.

"The agency's statistics disclose the real possibility of being overwhelmed by the 15-minute notification requirement for accidents where a real emergency does not exist," Mr. Watzman said.

Elizabeth Chamberlin, general manager for safety at Consol Energy Inc., Pennsylvania's biggest coal mine operator, testified last week in Charleston, W.Va., that the new reporting requirements could prove counterproductive.

"The resultant media reporting frenzy further exacerbates such an error by creating angst among our families and negative press for the industry as a whole," Ms. Chamberlin said. "Therefore, a preferable alternative would limit the 15-minute notification ... only to accidents posing a threat to life or requiring a rescue or other emergency response for trapped or injured miners."

Mine operators also want MSHA to establish a rapid response reporting line, an 800 number with automatic forwarding to the appropriate MSHA office, and to specify how MSHA will respond to the calls. That request is supported by the UMWA and the United Steelworkers of America, which represents 30,000 metal and nonmetal miners in the United States and Canada and 500 coal miners in Canada.

The industry position on notification is supported by Robert Ferriter, director of the Mine Safety and Health Program at the Colorado School of Mines, who worked at MSHA for 25 years.

"There are a lot of things to get going when an accident occurs, and, realistically, the time goes by fast. It's too short," Mr. Ferriter said. "Some of those mines are two or three miles underground and the first thing they're thinking is to get the fire out and then warn people to get out of the mine. They're in crisis response and 15 minutes is pretty foolhardy, quite frankly. The previous 30-minute requirement gives them more wiggle room."

MSHA tightened the rule in response to criticism of the delay in reporting the explosion at Sago Mine. MSHA was not contacted for two hours. State and local officials were not notified for at least 90 minutes.

Union officials and coalfield citizens groups testified that the 15-minute limit would help rescue crews respond in emergency situations and preserve accident scenes for investigators.

"I believe the 15-minute notification must be strictly enforced. Two hours, like at Sago, is unacceptable," said Ron Bowersox, a safety representative with the UMWA who testified in Charleston. "Timing is everything in a rescue mission."

Tony Oppegard, a lawyer who represents miners for the Appalachian Citizens Law Center in Kentucky, cited a case in Knott County, Ky., where a miner's hand was partially torn off when a water hose snagged on a moving belt line. By the time investigators arrived, the belt had been equipped with side guards, altering the accident scene, he said.

Pennsylvania law effectively requires notification of a life-threatening mine accident within 30 minutes, but "we'd like to set a 15-minute requirement so we can get the proper rescue equipment mobilized," said Tom Rathbun, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Mining Bureau. "And on fires, we absolutely want to know about all of them."

The 15-minute requirement appears in bipartisan federal mine safety legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate last week. The legislation would impose a $5,000 to $60,000 civil penalty on mine operators who fail to report accidents that "pose a reasonable risk of death" and mandate wireless communication equipment and miner tracking devices within three years.

Other emergency rules opposed by industry representatives include requirements to install escape lifelines; to have miners practice walking long escape routes; and to inspect, test and place more emergency oxygen breathing devices in hardened rooms along primary and secondary escape routes in all mines.

While many mine companies, including Consol, say they already have put additional breathing devices in their mines and the National Mining Association says it supports the requirement, the industry objected to rules requiring their placement along each escape route.

The industry wants to store the devices in air-locked rooms between parallel escape routes, saying this would provide a pocket of clean air where miners could switch air packs. But MSHA said that if a fire burned into such a room, it could destroy air packs for two escape routes.

Air packs cost $650 apiece and are the costliest component of the emergency rules. But Luke Popovich, a National Mining Association spokesman, said: "The CEOs I've heard are not nickel-and- diming this rule. What they're trying to do is determine what moves the needle to safety."

MSHA estimates the annual cost of the new rules at $18.9 million. Breathing devices would cost $10.5 million. Training would run $7.9 million.

MSHA has issued emergency rules twice before. In 1987, after 27 miners died in a fire at the Wilberg Mine near Price, Utah, in 1984, the agency required additional training on emergency breathing devices. In 2002, after an explosion at the Jim Walters Resources mine in Alabama killed 13 miners, it rewrote mine evacuation rules. In both instances, the emergency rules eventually were made permanent, but were more limited in scope than miners and their unions would have liked.

After the Wilberg Mine fire, Mr. Ferriter said, a task force recommended that caches of additional breathing devices be placed along lengthy escape routes.

"But MSHA never adopted that recommendation," he said. "It should have been adopted and there should be more breathing devices available to help miners escape in the event of an accident. I totally agree with that recommendation."

Dennis O'Dell, administrator for occupational health and safety for the UMW, said the federal mine agency should mandate the kind of miner tracking devices, wireless communication equipment and emergency rescue chambers that are in use in Germany, Poland and Australia.

"The emergency rules do some good things but don't go far enough," Mr. O'Dell said. "We in the United States are really behind on the kind of technology that protects miner safety and is already saving lives in other countries."

Twenty-six coal miners have died this year in mine accidents nationwide. There were 22 coal mining fatalities last year.

Public comments on MSHA emergency regulations can be submitted through May 30 to the MSHA's Office of Regulations and Variances, 1100 Wilson Blvd., Room 2350, Arlington VA 22209-3939, or at www.regulations.gov, or by e-mail to zzMSHA-comments@dol.gov, inserting RIN:1219-AB46 in the subject line.