Republican Rep. John Blanton speaks to other lawmakers about his bill to reduce the number of METs for small coal mining shifts. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)
For the second year in a row, Kentucky lawmakers are trying to weaken a protection for coal miners that was put in place in response to the workplace death of a miner in Harlan County.
House Bill 196, sponsored by Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville, would reduce the required number of trained and certified coal miners able to respond to medical emergencies, known as mine emergency technicians (METs), depending on how many miners were working a shift.
Under Blanton’s bill, a shift with 10 or fewer miners would be required to have only one MET, down from the current requirement of two. METs are trained to provide emergency medical care and stabilize a miner’s condition.
For larger shifts with more than 10 but fewer than 51 miners, two METs would still be required. For underground mines, the bill would require shifts with more than 50 miners to have an additional MET on site for every additional 50 miners on a shift.
Tony Oppegard, a long-time mine safety advocate, part of a team who wrote the 2007 law that required two METs on every mine shift, remains concerned that not having a backup MET, no matter the size of the operation, could endanger miner safety.
Blanton told the Kentucky House Natural Resources and Energy Committee that HB 196 was needed to prevent smaller coal mining operations from temporarily closing down due to a lack of required METs available for a shift, echoing the reasoning for a similar bill that was filed last year but didn’t receive full passage through the GOP-controlled legislature.
“We’ve seen a reduction in our coal mining operations throughout the commonwealth,” Blanton said. “What we’re incurring is in speaking with some of these mine operators off these small mines is, with requirement of two [METs], if one has to be off sick, family emergency — the entire mine has to shut down.”
The committee approved the bill by a vote of 17-2 with all present Republicans and at least one Democrat supporting the bill.
Oppegard, a former mine inspector and attorney representing coal miners and their families including in wrongful death cases, has said he doesn’t think such reasoning for the bill “holds water” and sees miners potentially becoming endangered on small mining sites by having only one MET available.
Why not require more miners to train as METs?
Oppegard helped write the 2007 mine safety law that among other provisions required two METs, a provision he said was prompted by the 2005 death of a Harlan County miner, David “Bud” Morris, who didn’t receive proper first aid to stop bleeding after a loaded coal hauler nearly amputated both of his legs. The lone MET on site failed to give Morris necessary medical care.
“He just left and let the guy bleed to death. So that was the whole motivation behind requiring more than one MET at mines,” Oppegard said. “Instead of decreasing the safety for miners, he really should be asking coal operators, ‘Why don’t you require more miners to be METs?”
Oppegard said with no mines in the state being unionized and mining companies able to hire and fire miners at will, going through MET training could easily be a requirement of employment.
The training required to receive a state certification to become an MET includes at least 40 hours of training that includes learning about cardiac emergencies, muscular and skeletal injuries and bleeding and shock. A miner applying to be a MET also has to take an exam to receive a certification and receive retraining every year to maintain it.
When asked about the idea of incentivizing more miners to receive MET training, Blanton told the Lantern a smaller number of people are receiving MET certifications “because of such intense training” and that mining operations in general are becoming smaller with fewer METs.
Blanton, who joined the legislature in 2017, said he was familiar with Morris’ death and described it as an unfortunate, awful accident. But he said the mining industry and coal miners brought the idea of this bill to him because of the shrinking size of mining operations, and he wants to keep mines operating.
“I get it was needed and it was obtainable at the time to do. But things have changed in the mining industry,” Blanton said.
A very high-risk job
He also said some miners receive first aid training that’s not required for a MET certification. Oppegard has previously rebuffed similar arguments, saying the training received by METs is much more comprehensive to deal with injuries that can result from heavy mining equipment.
Blanton said he had worked with the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, which provides MET training through the Kentucky Division of Mine Safety, on modifying the bill to increase the number of required METs for larger mine shifts. He said the United Mine Workers of America was neutral on the bill. The union didn’t oppose last year’s version of the legislation but had opposed previous iterations in past years.
The Whitesburg-based legal group Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center (ACLC) is also opposing the bill on similar grounds to Oppegard. Courtney Rhoades, an organizer for ACLC, told the Lantern coal mining is already a job “we know is very high risk.”
“We have decades of data of it being high risk, and the idea of decreasing the number of individuals who would be there to provide medical care is concerning to us because you never know what can happen in a mine,” she said.
When a similar version of the legislation passed the Kentucky House of Representatives last year, Rep. Ashley Tackett-Laferty, D-Martin, the only Democrat in the legislature representing Eastern Kentucky, questioned the assertion of coal mines being closed down by the lack of METs after reaching out to coal miners and those she knew in the industry.
Blanton said he assumed she didn’t talk to the same coal miners that he has and offered to put her in contact with miners he’s talked with. Blanton attributed the bill stalling in the Kentucky Senate to the lack of time and other priorities by the legislature.
“I’m not given any indication that there is a major opposition in the Senate on it,” Blanton said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.