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WASHINGTON – Today, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) sent a letter to Department of Labor (DOL) Acting Secretary Julie Su expressing concerns with the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) proposed silica rule. While Chairwoman Foxx supports reducing miners’ exposure to silica, she warns that the regulation’s compliance challenges, unrealistic implementation timeline, and significant cost are unworkable. 

In the letter, Foxx writes: “Prior to finalizing the proposed rule, it is critical that the Department adopt feedback from stakeholders, better align MSHA’s standards with what is required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), allow mine operators more time to comply with the significant changes, and update the proposed rule’s economic impact analysis in order to ensure the rule is both effective at keeping miners safe and workable in the industry.” 

The letter continues: “[M]SHA must better align its silica standard with OSHA’s 2016 silica standard to reduce compliance burdens on mine operators while adequately protecting miners. There is an inherent inconsistency in this new proposed rule: it claims to be based on ensuring that miners have the same protection as other workers and relies heavily on risk models that OSHA used in support of its 2016 silica rule, yet it does not allow for the same compliance measures. … MSHA must also extend the proposed implementation timeline beyond 120 days in order to give the mining community adequate time to implement the rule’s requirements fully.”

The letter goes on: “Incredibly, the proposed rule claims that it will not impose a significant economic impact on the mining industry… [h]owever, the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association estimates the costs for sampling alone in the metal/nonmetal sector to be over $162 million. Time and time again, the Department has failed to take into account the real economic impact of its regulations, and this proposed rule is just the latest example of DOL’s economic illiteracy.”

To read the full letter, click here. 

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