UMW asks Senate to delay its vote
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The president of the United Mine Workers of America, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and several family members of men killed in the Sago Mine disaster yesterday urged the U.S. Senate not to move forward on the nomination of Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Cecil E. Roberts, UMW president, asked senators not to invoke cloture -- a move that would shut off any filibuster against the nomination. To date, one senator, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, has placed a "hold" on the nomination, preventing it from going to a vote. Senate Republicans have scheduled a cloture vote for today.
The White House defended Mr. Stickler yesterday, with spokesman Alex Conant calling him "a well-qualified nominee committed to improving safety in America's mines."
President Bush is scheduled to sign newly passed mine safety legislation this week and has pressed the Senate to quickly confirm his MSHA nominee.
In urging senators not to overrule Mr. Byrd, Mr. Roberts echoed the senator's concerns about the nomination.
"The nation's miners cannot tolerate having another mine executive running the agency responsible for protecting their health and safety," Mr. Roberts said in a prepared release. "Too often these mining executives place priority on productivity, but fail to focus on miners' health and safety."
Mr. Stickler is a longtime executive in the coal industry, recently having worked for a subsidiary to Massey Energy. His predecessor at MSHA, David Lauriski, resigned his post last year over allegations that he used his position to help companies with which he was connected. Mr. Lauriski has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing.
Sen. Kennedy's office later issued a statement that included letters from families of miners killed in the Sago Mine disaster of Jan. 2, as well as the widows of two miners killed in the 2001 explosion at the Jim Walters Resources mine in Alabama.
The letters urged the Senate to abandon the Stickler nomination.
"Mr. Stickler is a longtime coal executive and because of his connections with the coal industry, we are concerned that his primary objectives may be solely on compliance and production, not on miners' health and safety," wrote Sara Bailey and Debbie Hamner.
Mrs. Hamner and Mrs. Bailey are the wife and daughter of George Hamner Jr., one of the miners killed at Sago.
Peggy Ware Cohen, whose father Fred Ware Jr. also died at Sago, wrote that Mr. Stickler "offered no insights about what he would do if he were to become the head of MSHA."
First Published June 13, 2006 12:00 am
