In NMA safety and health vice-president Bruce Watzmann's testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety in Washington, DC, Watzmann noted the push to formalise risk management methods will help all workers “identify, eliminate and manage” those work conditions and behavioural practices that have the greatest injury potential.

“Our objective remains, as it has been all along, to ensure that every miner returns home safely to their loved ones every day," he said as he outlined several actions the mining community as a whole has taken in the two years since the MINER Act’s passage.

Thanks to a recent survey of its member companies from across the US – a base which encompasses about 65% of all underground coal production – the NMA was able to provide a comprehensive report to the group of completed and planned products for 2007 and 2008.

For example, Watzmann said, the NMA’s members reported a total investment of $US70 million to obtain 150,000 additional self-contained self-rescuers (SCSRs) as well as training units for their workers, and another $70 million to “enhance the integrity” of mine seals.

More than $100 million will be spent by producers in the industry to purchase and install communications and tracking systems and refuge facilities. About $55 million is earmarked by companies for the former, he said, while 752 emergency facilities are planned for US mines at an expenditure of $53 million.

The cost to develop and equip an additional 45 mine rescue teams to comply with the MINER Act has had a total price tag for mining operations of $19 million, while those items outside the regulations, including safety equipment, training and manpower, has cost a total of $60 million.

Watzman said those investments make up a safety investment on the part of the mining community that exceeds $500 million, which represents just a “down payment” towards a much larger initiative to implement MINER Act rules and generally improve upon worker safety.

At the same time, the industry is working to integrate the recommendations of the Mine Safety Technology and Training Commission, he noted to the government committee. Some of those initiatives include the establishment of risk-based management plans based on a mine-by-mine risk assessment program.

“The end result of this cooperative effort with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health will be operational tools that will help every company identify and address significant hazards before they evolve into situations that threaten lives and property,” said the NMA.

Added Watzmann: “This new paradigm promises to have far-reaching implications as it requires us to look at mining differently and to train miners differently."