quiring or asking that it be looked at, and I get ahold of them they do respond.

Senator WILLIAMS. You are certainly formalizing your complaints with the Bureau here this morning, and it is on our complete record, and did you make any record of complaints to the Bureau?

Mr. EVANS. When I get a complaint from our people?

Senator WILLIAMS. Yes; do you write them, wire them; was there any written record of your complaints filed with the Bureau?

Mr. EVANS. In some cases there are, but generally when the condition is existing at a mine and I know about it, it has been told to me by someone out in the field, miners or some of our staff people out in the field, I pick up the telephone immediately and get ahold of them and ask them if they will send an inspector out to the mine. I do this rather than writing them a letter that they may not get for 2 or 3 days. Senator WILLIAMS. It is arbitrary, and I would think it is a good practice where there is a pattern of failure to inspect and I would think the record should be formalized, and we are formalizing it here, and the committee has done this, and this has to be improved; I mean it has to be, this business if there are not enough inspectors, because we provided the money, am I correct, the quadrupling of funds, and that money is available for inspectors and the money is there and 300 had passed the examination.

Mr. EVANS. This is the figure I hear.

Senator WILLIAMS. This is what we heard, too, at the hearings in Pennsylvania, the hearings there.

Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, you are correct about the seriousness, as are the men testifying today, concerning the lack of inspection under the act. You were, of course, in the subcommittee and in the full committee when we were not listening to the witnesses but when we were actually attempting to draft an effective law, that over and over again in the hearing record earlier and in the record of those sessions would indicate that in large degree the success of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act would depend upon the inspection process, over and over again.

I picture the problems that could and might arise. We, at that time, were having correspondence, Mr. Evans, which indicated that the coal operators themselves were fearful that the United States, through the Bureau of Mines, would be coming in and taking its men who were skilled in inspection and bringing them into the national organization, and, now, whether that fear was founded or not, I can't say, but that was expressed to the committee over ad over again.

I would like to ask, Mr. Chairman, if it is appropriate at this time, to indicate whether these gentlemen who appear today, Mr. Boyle and/or others, attribute this problem at least in part to the failureand it is a failure that I denounced-the failure to appoint a new Director of the Bureau of Mines; is it a situation in the Bureau of Mines that has deteriorated over the period of 5 months approximately since Director O'Leary left the Bureau of Mines and no successor has been named? Or is this a condition that could have been corrected, Mr. Boyle or Mr. Evans, if the administration had sent a nomination to the Senate and the Senate could confirm a nominee?

Mr. EVANS. Senator Randolph, in response to your question, of course we have been without a Director in the Bureau for the number of months you mentioned. We had a similar situation for a period of

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9 months before Mr. O'Leary became Director of the Bureau of Mines. I think there are two things that have to be done and have to be done hurriedly: First, we have to get a Director in the Bureau of Mines, and it should be hard-nosed people who will bump some heads together.

Senator RANDOLPH. You are correct. I have gone to Secretary Hickel expressing a sense of urgency. In fact, on Monday of this week, I talked with him personally again and have spoken in the strongest terms that I know about the failure of this act to be implemented with a full-time Director at the helm. I said to him: "Why is it that a Director of the Bureau of Mines is not being nominated and the nomination sent to the Senate for confirmation?"

I think Secretary Hickel also wonders why it is not being done. He has promised me that he will give attention to it during this week and next, and he will hope to have the President of the United States act by sending a nomination to us within the next 2 weeks.

I agree with our chairman. The situation is atrocious, not only on one front, but on many fronts. As we think in terms of the Bureau of Mines, of its effectiveness, and now, of course, of its partial failure to deal with the provisions that have been the mandate for the Congress, Mr. Chairman, I think it is our responsibility, in every way that we can as individual members of this subcommittee, bring pressure upon the White House, and upon everyone concerned. First of all, we need a Director of the Bureau of Mines. I mean this is primary.

Mr. EVANS. Secondly, Senator, we need mine inspectors.
Senator RANDOLPH. Of course, I said that earlier.

Mr. EVANS. This is not being done, in my opinion, as promptly as it can be done.

Senator RANDOLPH. Isn't this partially a lack of leadership in the Bureau?

Mr. EVANS. I have no objetcion to training inspector 1 year or 2 years or 5 years or 10 years providing there are enough inspectors in the meantime out in the field inspecting coal mines the number of times required by the act.

Senator RANDOLPH. We understand that. There is a breakdown of course and isn't that partially, even substantially, because there is no Director of the Bureau of Mines? We certainly need leadership there. Mr. EVANS. The Bureau of Mines cannot function properly until it has a suitable person, competent person directing it, someone with authority.

Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to suggest that as many members of our subcommitteee as will join in a telegram of urgency, will affix their signatures to one to the President of the United States today urging an early nomination by the Chief Executive, pointing out that 5 months have gone by without any action on that need. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that this is something that we can do as a group of Senators on this subcommittee.

Senator WILLIAMS. I appreciate that and I will say that criticism of conditions as they are, the failure of inspectors to be on the scene, description of the hazards in the mine, reach me everyday from the rank and file coal miners that work in the coal fields and, as a matter of fact, that is one of the reasons we were in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, in response to rank and file expression of fear in the mines and criticism of the failure of the enforcement of the law, that is one of

the reasons we went to West Virginia last week and that is why we are here.

I will say, as far as I know, this is the first that the union representatives, officials at the international level have registered to me, anyway, right at this hearing, and we invited you, too, and we are glad to have it even at this point.

On this point, is there anything that Senator Prouty or Senator Schweiker have in this area or any other area you might want to take up?

Senator SCHWEIKER. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to comment on the matter of the Director of the Bureau of Mines. I want to express my deep concern along with Senator Randolph and the chairman and Mr. Boyle, because I have had a number of complaints from Pennsylvania not just from labor, but management, too, from many persons who feel that the drift and the lack of leadership in the Bureau has been a real serious problem, especially since the safety program under this new law has to be provided with leadership and know how.

Several Members of Congress, of which I am one, have actually suggested that Dr. Eric Walker could meet this particular situation. Dr. Walker is an engineer by background, former dean of the College of Engineering at Penn State, and he just retired as president of the Pennsylvania State University. I wondered, Mr. Boyle, whether you felt that a person of Dr. Walker's training and background would fit into this kind of job and what your idea would be of his qualifications?

Mr. BOYLE. Senator, I don't know Mr. Walker, but Mr. Evans knows him personally and I would like, if you don't mind, for him

to answer.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Very well.

Mr. EVANS. I know Mr. Walker and I had a good deal of contact with him. I met him through serving on the board of trustees at Pennsylvania State University when he was president of the university. I dont know how much money he has or where he has it invested, I want to make that clear. But I know him to be a fine gentleman and I know that he is a very competent person and he is a very brilliant administrator and I would be the most surprised man in the world if Eric Walker would want the job.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Well, I have had some reliable reports that as a matter of public service, he would probably be willing to do it. He is retired now and not looking for extra work. The only reason I have for injecting his name is we seem to be at a stalemate. This is the gut issue on whether we are going to have an on-going mine safety law in operation. We need somebody who can pull the different segments of industry, labor, and the executive branch together. I think that of the names suggested, and I was not the originator of his name, by any means, that Dr. Walker has that quality.

A second point I would like to raise is on the mine inspectors. As you may recall, I was the Senator who actually introduced the inspection amendment that provided for daily gassy mine inspections and we were bitterly opposed by the Department here on that issue. We had to fight for it. My amendment provided for daily inspections of the most gassy mines, the explosion-prone mines, and I think the Bureau has testified that at the present rate inspectors are being trained and

hired, it will be next year before we even have a chance of meeting the new requirements of the law we finally passed, which provides inspection of these mines at least once during every 5 working days.

Is that an accurate estimate, and I guess Mr. Evans made that statement, and what did you base that on? Are we in that bad a shape in terms of new inspectors?

Mr. EVANS. The last information I had from the Bureau was that they actually put on the payroll 100 additional inspectors, but they are in training and not out inspecting coal mines as such. So at this rate I would be very much surprised if the inspection requirements are being met even a year from now. It just is not possible.

Now, I saw here within the last couple of weeks that they have now cut the training period down from a year to 6 months and I think that this came about through my conversations with them, trying to get them to speed up the process of putting inspectors out in the field.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Well, I know in the gassy mines, which is where your explosions are most likely to occur, the amendment which I introduced provided for a daily inspection, a resident inspector, just like the Defense Department has on any of the missile projects. If these projects can have a resident inspector, why not have them in areas where human lives are involved in this country? We had a difference with the House bill on this, because the House had inspections every 25 working days in its bill, so we compromised on one inspection during every five working days. I gather from what you people said earlier we are nowhere near complying with this on the really ex'plosion-prone mines. We have not even begun to face up to that problem. Is that an accurate assessment?

Mr. BOYLE. That is right and, Senator, may I say this, that we felt very strongly about your amendment about having an inspector in mines that liberated quantities of methane gas and to have an inspector stationed at those mines constantly and when I testified before your committee and before the House committee, when the bill was before both bodies, I emphasized very strongly that that would eliminate, if that man is working for the Federal Government, paid by the Federal Government, not paid by the union, so they couldn't say that the union had any influence, not paid by the coal companies so they couldn't say they had influence, but paid by the Federal Government to perform a duty and be there every day that mine liberates gas in the quantities that the Farmington mine was liberating gas, then if his life was endangered, if you recall, I said he would be maybe more prone to be there and make these examinations and find this gas and do the things that maybe some of these other inspectors that come in and leave that brought about the spot inspections for the first time under Jack O'Leary of the Federal, the Federal Director rather of the Bureau of Mines, and we didn't have spot inspections up until we demanded, we implored, we insisted, we pleaded, we begged, and finally we got spot examinations and the record will disclose that after we showed the Department of Mines it was necessary to double back on these coal operators who were having a housecleaning arrangement knowing that the Federal mine inspector would appear on X date and in some instances as I testified, have a nice hot lunch prepared for him, to give him a buggy ride in and a buggy ride out, that if the Federal Department of Mines would double back, make

an inspection and then double back unknown to the coal company, you would see what a surprise they would find, and they did that and they had 600 inspections immediately upon or after we proved to them it was necessary and I forget how many mines were involved.

Senator WILLIAMS. When was this, what are you talking about now? Mr. BOYLE. When the bill was before Congress.

Senator WILLIAMS. Prior to enactment of the law?

Mr. BOYLE. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Can we just get what you personally have done to correct this appalling situation where we have not had anywhere near approaching the number of inspections that are required under the law? What have you done personally?

Mr. BOYLE. Well, I have sent a man who was paid by our organization to perform that work, I have sent him down there and he has gone of his own accord, I don't know how many times, Mr. Evans, he met with the different personnel of the Bureau of Mines, and the Department of Interior and we get nowhere.

Senator WILLIAMS. Have you personally gone down? Have you personally registered in writing?

Mr. BOYLE. I haven't. Oh, yes I have; oh, yes I have; and I sent a copy of my letter to each member of the subcommittee in both Houses that I sent down there.

Senator SCHWEIKER. I just want to say it is a matter of great concern to me where we can manage to have a resident inspector on any large defense production line where we send weapons of war to kill other people, but we won't even get activated and geared up to the point where we have somebody to protect American lives of miners down in the pits in these explosive-prone situations. I think it is an intolerable situation and I was hopeful the new law would do it, but we obviously are not going to do it without a Director of the Bureau of Mines. That is certainly a very important step.

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Boyle, I would like to inquire a bit about the cases involving the miners' walkouts in the Pittsburgh, Pa., area. Now, the miners walked off work, and their basic complaint, as it reached us, was in the area we are addressing ourselves to now, the 'failure to enforce the strong coal mine health and safety law, and part of that was a failure to have inspectors there, and as a result of the failure of inspection and enforcement of the law, some of these situations were described to us, and these were the reasons for a very, very serious walkout by coal miners. And I can recall talking to one group of coal miners, just one example of the terror they felt, and they felt it because the law was not being enforced; a cable was dragging through a foot or so of water. Well, this is in total violation of the standards of law, where every power cable is to be kept above the water and not to trail through the water. This was just one example that I recall.

They walked off, and then a suit was brought to enjoin a walkout, and I am correct in that procedure. I did get complaints from the workers that their union had not supported them in their plea for the proper enforcement of their law.

Now would you comment on what you did in that lawsuit?

Mr. BOYLE. Yes, sir. General Counsel is here, and he knows that that is not 'factual, because we sent a lawyer immediately to Pennsylvania to be of aid and assistance to those coal miners, from the