We do feel in all sincerity that we are doing the most that we can do with the manpower and the funds available. But I must add that, as time has passed, we have found that some of the things we were doing were not the best way and this has come from some of the listening and from some of the doing, and we have changed. I think we are learning; I think we are learning a lot.

I think a good example of this is the time that we feel necessary to train our mine inspectors. The Bureau of Mines is an old and proud outfit. They have done some marvelous things. They are proud of their mine inspectors, and rightly so. When they send these inspectors out, they want them to be the best-trained mine inspectors there are because they do not want to make any mistakes.

We tried to hold to this tradition and we found out that we were not getting the men aboard as rapidly as we should. So we have dropped down now to a 4-month training period. This is an example, and there are others.

I feel that we are putting as much effort as humanly possible and I wish that the members of Congress and the public generally could see the 14- and 18-hour-day work, the 7-day weeks that these people put in in trying to do this.

But to say honestly we, I think, are doing all that we can, I would have to answer that, yes, at the moment I do, but tomorrow I may think today's effort was not sufficient.

Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Dole, you had 210 inspectors in the past. Now, under this act, you realize that you need 610, to use the figures in your statement today.

There was criticism yesterday of the speed or procedure that came from the United Mine Workers of your efforts to assemble a group of inspectors to do this work.

I, for one member of this subcommittee, realize that you would be doing no service to health and safety to send out a person to make an inspection who was not qualified. And this takes screening, doesn't it? It takes training. I can't tell you how long it takes; I don't know. But I do think that we must realize that you can't hire people off the streets, as it were, to do the type of work. Is that true?"

Mr. DOLE. This act, Senator Randolph, is too important and the results of inspection work are too important to miners for us to take just anyone or to train them casually.

This is why the old hands, if you want to call them that, within the Bureau are very reluctant to send a man out who does not have the experience, the expertise, the knowledge, that they are used to in their mine inspectors.

I feel that the need for having more people does in some measure account for the fact that we must withdraw the length of time of training or drop down from that. We are making tradeoffs; there is no question about it. This is a decision that was made. I hope that it is right.

Senator RANDOLPH. Thank you, Mr. Dole.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did not mean to take this much time. but I felt that we want to have this record as complete as possible and to have men who are trained, as Mr. Dole and his associates, who come and speak not only from the standpoint of the knowledge of the technology involved, but of the commitment which they as individuals

feel to the organization of which they are a part for the enforcement of this law and for the implementation of its provisions.

Even though we don't want a day lost, Mr. Dole, I can understand, and I concur with what you are saying, at least in part. Senator WILLIAMS. Senator Schweiker.

Senator SCHWEIKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Dole, in your prepared statement you say that the spot inspections will be divided into two categories: Those that liberate over 1 million cubic feet of methane and had a serious accident or explosion or ignition during the last 5 years resulting in death or injury, and then another grouping of mines that liberate between 100,000 and 1 million. I wonder how many mines are in each of those two categories. Mr. DOLE. May I refer this to Mr. Wheeler, please?

Mr. WHEELER. It is about 50-50 between those two. Approximately 100 in each. I think there are 220-some-odd on the list altogether. Senator SCHWEIKER. Now, you say that, "We will make a spot inspection."

When are we talking of?

Mr. WHEELER. We are talking now, Senator.

We issued instructions to our inspectors a week and a half ago. Now, they have not, as you can see by our report, begun to make these at the rate that we told them to. I was just talking to Mr. Westfield this morning and I heard him call the district managers and tell them that these spot inspections are the No. 1 priority on their list of inspections and they must make these inspections if they don't do anything else.

So, next week when this report comes out, if it does not show the proper number of spot inspections, then something is going to be done about it.

Senator SCHWEIKER. One thing I am a little bit concerned about. The way the law works, it does not separate the explosive-prone mines in two categories. It says any mine irradiating excessive quantity of methane and any that shall have death or serious injury shall be inspected once every 5 days.

What I am concerned about is, the law does not differentiate, that it specifically requires five.

Two, you make no further statement about updating the second group to the level of inspection that your first group set.

Mr. WHEELER. The law does not say either that 100,000 cubic feet of methane a day is an excessive amount of methane. This was a determination that we made initially.

We could have made a determination that 1 million is the proper amount to apply to those 5-day inspections and thus take those 100,000 cubic-foot mines off the list entirely. We did not choose to do that. We chose to split the list into two parts and get into the mines between 100,000 and a million cubic feet a day every 10 days.

Now, all of the mines that have had explosions and ignitions and other especially hazardous conditions will get every 5-day inspections. Senator SCHWEIKER. Now, we could have written into the law the specific exact amount to counteract this.

I specifically asked Director O'Leary this very question and the record will show that he specifically earmarked 200 mines that were excessively dangerous and, in fact, he said he wouldn't want to differentiate. I think the record will show this, between the two categories.

If it was methane present, it is dangerous, period. It is not half dangerous, not 72-percent dangerous. This surely was not the intent of either the amendment or the testimony that Mr. O'Leary gave in terms of not differentiating between the two categories.

I can understand your differentiating as a matter of necessity because you don't have the help at this point, but this permanent kind of differentiation is not the intent of the law.

If the Department feels that they should set a lower standard, I think this committee would feel we have to write specifics into law. We did this on the basis that Mr. O'Leary said there were 200 mines that he would place in this category and he would not attempt to differentiate in any way. I asked him this very point, on this ground.

So, I hope you will give this more thought because this is not what Mr. O'Leary told us.

Mr. WHEELER. I am not going to comment on what Mr. O'Leary told you, but I would like to point out to you that determining whether or not an excessive amount of methane exists in a mine on the basis of a number, like 100,000 or 1 million cubic feet a day, is not a very precise way of doing it. For an obvious reason.

A very large mine with 100,000 cubic feet of methane a day where that methane is dispersed throughout the mine does not have the same conditions as a small mine with 100,000 cubic feet of methane a day. This is an area where we are going to have to redefine our determination of what constitutes an excessive amount of methane.

Senator SCHWEIKER. That may be true.

What I am saying is that this committee took the word of the Department in saying that they thought there were 200 excessively dangerous mines.

In questioning Mr. O'Leary specifically, he would not differentiate into half dangerous or part dangers. So, in good faith, we wrote the amendment based on that judgment and the 200 is your figure. You folks have historically used 200. So, to come in and change at this point is a lessening of the standard.

Mr. WHEELER. It might be sufficient to say that I think you wrote the provisions of the law properly which gives us an opportunity to exercise our judgment as to what constitutes an excessive production or accumulation of methane in a mine.

The way we did it was to get it on the road by starting out with 100,000 cubic feet a day. This started out with approximately 200 mines that Mr. O'Leary told you about. But, in my opinion, it is not the right way to do it and we will have to find a better way.

Senator SCHWEIKER. You had better straighten out your press department, too, because I have a July 8 release from you folks:

Moreover, roughly over 200 mines that are considered potentially very hazardous and must be spot-checked every five days.

The release goes on that you are now requiring the spot checks on the basis of every 15 days and have completed a first round of partial but representative inspections of underground mines.

Here is a release of last month which states 200 mines are hazardous. Somebody made a decision between writing this release and writing this report. I am concerned because we went along in good faith and wrote the amendment on the basis of what the Department's his

tory and record was. If you are going to change it now, then you force our committee to also change our thinking in that area.

Mr. WHEELER. May I make this further comment, Senator, to really assure you, I believe, that this division that we are making at this time is done simply because of the limited manpower that we have, andSenator SCHWEIKER. I accepted that.

Mr. WHEELER. That does not indicate that we are taking the mines off the list. The mines are still on the list. Unless at some time in the future we decide to make a different determination as to what constitutes an excessive amount of methane, all of the mines will stay on the list and get 5-day inspections in the next fiscal year.

Senator SCHWEIKER. I accept the fact that under the conditions you are operating, granted they are difficult and you don't have to differentiate. I agree. But you made no statement in your testimony that it was your intention to change this. That is what concerns me.

We had testimony from Mr. Joseph Yablonski, Jr., here about an explosion that occurred in Pennsylvania. I am going to quote from his testimony:

On April 6, 7 and 8 of this year, a PBR was conducted at the Helen Mine Company in Homer City, Pennsylvania. Miners who worked there told me the inspector never examined the working faces of the mine to determine whether ventilation was adequate.

* inadequate ventilation is the most frequent cause of mine explosions. *** On April 10th, * * * a continuous miner ignited a methane bleeder. One man was killed and three seriously injured in this explosion.

I am also told that the men at this mine had complained about the lack of adequate ventilation. But it required the death of a miner and the serious injury to three others to abate this unsafe condition.

If the facts about this disaster recounted to me are true, I hold the Bureau directly responsible for this predictable tragedy.

I wonder if you folks had any facts on this that might clarify this situation.

Mr. DOLE. Senator Schweiker, may Mr. Westfield respond to that, please?

Mr. WESTFIELD. Your information on the dates of the inspection is correct. The mine was inspected between April the 6th and 8th by an inspector from our Johnstown station. This was a partial-but-representative inspection. I believe this was a five-section mine. The inspector inspected three sections of this mine. He took air readings in each and every one of these places and found the quantity of air varying somewhere between 12,000 to 14,000 in the last open crosscut.

He, in inspecting the mine, inspected for gas where the machines were working in these three working sections. He found no subventilation in the place, although the line curtains that directed the air from the last open crosscut to the working faces were about 25 feet back from the face.

This was about the same distance that line brattice was back at the time of ignition where one man was killed and those other men were injured.

He did not find out that the two sections were ventilated by the same split of air because he only inspected one section and he had no way of finding this out until the investigation of the disaster was made. This is where the evidence came out that two sections were ventilated by the same split of air.

This is one of the weak parts of a partial-but-representative sample because an inspector does not inspect all of the mine and, in some instances, there might be some very definite information that he should have to make a complete inspection of the mine. It was a partial inspection. The parts of the mine that he did inspect, he inspected very well and reported what he found.

Senator SCHWEIKER. I can understand with your personnel problem once again you have to unfortunately take some short cuts until you get the people.

I am not quite clear, though on this charge.

Did he, in fact, look at the working faces of the mine?

Mr. WESTFIELD. Of the sections that he made; yes.

Senator SCHWEIKER. What is that?

Mr. WESTFIELD. The three sections of the mine he made, he did inspect the working faces. The other parts of the mine he never even visited.

Senator WILLIAMS. Where was the explosion?

Mr. WESTFIELD. In one of the sections that he inspected, is where they had the ignition.

Senator SCHWEIKER. I am not a mining engineer, but just as a matter of having been on this committee a year and a half and getting familiar with it, would it not almost be a must that the working faces be looked at above everything else?

In other words, if he did not have time to do anything, wouldn't that be where he would start looking?

Mr. WESTFIELD. His inspection, his partial-but-representative inspection, was made of the three working sections. He did not inspect the return airway or travel the escapeway. This was a partial inspection made of the working sections. He was at the working sections. Senator SCHWEIKER. To clear up the terminology, you make the statement the working section as opposed to

How many working faces were there at the mine?

Mr. WESTFIELD. In this case, there would be three main working faces in this mine, in the inspections that he made. The mine is a continuous miner operation and all of the work is done in one working place. They have a continuous miner.

They have shuttle cars into which the coal is loaded for transport to a conveyor which moves the coal outside. So, when he was there, they were working just one face. But the adjacent faces in these working sections were inspected by this inspector from his own report. Senator SCHWEIKER. It still is not quite clear.

The working face where the explosion occurred he did not inspect; is that correct?

Mr. WESTFIELD. I cannot answer that question because the place where the ignition occurred, the day he was inspecting the mine had been advanced. It was not the same place as the ignition occurred.

Senator SCHWEIKER. I know it is a technical area. I think it would be helpful if you could give us a report on this so that we may have a chance to digest what you are saying in fairness to you folks.

Senator WILLIAMS. Before you go to another area, Senator, I thought you had said that the area where the explosion that occurred was an area that he had inspected at least once.

Mr. WESTFIELD. That is correct.