Coal mine widows prove powerful in lobbyist roles

The women are committed to getting stronger laws in place.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- Claudia Cole would have considered herself an unlikely person to be a lobbyist. She preferred the simple life of wife and mother.
But when her husband was killed in a Kentucky coal mine, the country girl from Harlan County and several of her neighbors who had been widowed in the same way stepped forward. Their loss was too great, they said. Things had to change.
They persuaded Kentucky lawmakers to pass sweeping mine safety legislation, a feat even some long-term lobbyists thought impossible, especially with key lawmakers trying either to kill the measure or to gut it of important provisions.
"Sometimes I got down, but there was no way I was giving up the fight," said Cole, a mother of three. "I got strength from knowing that I was doing something that I knew my husband would be very proud of."
Ordinary people like Cole are underdogs in the world of political lobbying, where wealth and power wield influence, but they have proved themselves worthy adversaries.
Taking action
Widows stepped forward to push for stronger laws and regulations in Alabama after a 2001 disaster that killed 13 miners and another in 2005 that took 12 lives in West Virginia. Their speeches before legislative and congressional committees were heart-rending, leading to important changes in mine safety laws.
"There are no more effective lobbyists for mine safety than women who have lost their husbands in the mines," said Tony Oppegard, an attorney for the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, which represents mountain residents in legal disputes with coal companies.
A federal law approved by Congress last year requires miners to have at least a two-hour supply of air while they work -- an increase from a one-hour standard. It requires that extra air packs are stored underground and miners are provided more frequent and extensive training in using them. It also mandates more highly trained mine rescue teams, high-tech communications and tracking devices.
The additional Kentucky initiatives are part of a law sponsored by Rep. Brent Yonts that nearly died in the legislative process, only to be revived by the widows.
Effect
Because of the women's commitment over the past three months, underground coal mines in Kentucky will get increased scrutiny from state inspectors and more miners will have detectors to check for explosive methane gas.
"I think it shows what people can do when they're determined and have the passion to do the right thing, and when they have right on their side," said Steve Earle, a longtime lobbyist for the United Mine Workers of America.
The Kentucky law follows one of the deadliest years in recent history for the state's coal miners. In all, 16 miners were killed in 2006, five of them in a methane gas explosion in Harlan County in May.
The law requires inspectors from the Office of Mine Safety and Licensing to double their visits to underground coal mines from three to a minimum of six per year. It also requires at least one member of every underground crew to have a methane detector.
Oppegard said Kentucky now has perhaps the strongest mine safety law in the nation.
He said several provisions exceed even federal requirements.
Stella Morris had pushed hard for one such requirement: to have two mine emergency technicians on duty for every shift. Her husband, David "Bud" Morris Jr., would still be alive had he gotten adequate first aid following an accident in a Harlan County mine, she said. He lost both legs after being struck by an underground coal hauler.
Wanda Blevins, widow of Alabama miner David Blevins, said her husband died needlessly as well. "And I'm asking you to become his voice," she pleaded before federal lawmakers in 2005.
Raising questions
Deborah Hamner, widow of miner George Hamner who was killed in West Virginia, posed a series of questions to Washington lawmakers.
"One is why wasn't there a wireless communications system with the outside so that my husband and the other miners could have been told that the best chance for survival was to walk out? Why weren't the escape ways well marked so the miners could have seen their way through the smoke and escaped? Why hasn't MSHA [the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration] required mines to be equipped with chambers or at least to require extra air supplies on the sections?"
In response, coalfield states took action, requiring better underground-to-surface communications, lifelines showing the way to the surface and caches of oxygen tanks stored along escape passages.
For Cole, the top priority was getting a provision into Kentucky law that required government inspectors and coal operators to provide more training to miners involved in a deadly practice in which the pillars that hold up overhead layers of rock are removed. That allows the roof to fall in planned collapses.
Known as pillaring, the practice has been blamed for the deaths of at least 19 coal miners in southern Appalachia over the past nine years, including at least four in Kentucky over the past three years. Cole's husband, Russell, was among them.
The new Kentucky law requires coal operators to give the Office of Mine Safety and Licensing 48 hours notice before beginning to remove the pillars. That gives state regulators time to ensure that all the miners are thoroughly trained in the proper way to do the work.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.