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WASHINGTON - The nation's largest mine union complained Monday that President Bush's budget slashes the coal mine safety program by $10 million after a year in which 33 workers were killed in American mines.
"President Bush has told America's coal miners that he doesn't care about making the improvements so clearly needed to keep them safe and healthy on the job," United Mine Workers of America International President Cecil E. Roberts said in a statement, calling the cut "absurd."
The Mine Safety and Health Administration, however, said it spent millions last year purchasing equipment and completing backlogged inspections that do not need to be part of the new budget.
Funding for coal safety under MSHA had increased to $155 million, but Bush's 2009 fiscal year budget proposes $145 million for that program.
The budget change comes after a deadly year in mines nationwide, including the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster that claimed nine lives in central Utah. The mine union says 232 people have died in American coal mines since Bush took office.
"People all over America - indeed, all over the world - asked: 'How can this happen? How can it be that American coal miners are still getting killed on the job?' " Roberts asks. "The answer is clear. Miners are being killed because of neglect on the part of their government."
MSHA spokesman Matthew Faraci countered that the president's spending plan actually boosts the coal safety program and MSHA overall because the agency spent $20.4 million on programs that won't be needed next year while only dropping the coal safety budget by $10 million from what Congress doled out this year.
"This budget proposal demonstrates a strong commitment to mine safety and would provide MSHA with vital resources it needs to help protect miners' safety and health," Mine Safety and Health Administration chief Richard Stickler said Monday after unveiling the budget.
The office released a PowerPoint presentation showing a $19 million increase between the agency's fiscal year 2008 and 2009 requests. The comparison, though, doesn't show $20 million Congress added to the agency's request this year.
News of potential cutbacks doesn't sit well with the families of the Crandall Canyon tragedy.
Any reduction in MSHA's coal-mine safety budget is "bewildering" to Steve Allred, a resident of the Emery County town of Cleveland. His brother, Kerry, was one of the six miners entombed by the initial failure of the Crandall Canyon mine's walls Aug. 6.
"I don't understand politics and maybe there's something there I don't understand, but this totally blows me away after so many people died, especially with what happened at the Crandall Canyon mine," he said. "If the safety [measures] had been there and implemented correctly, those men would never have died, my brother being one of them."
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* MIKE GORRELL contributed to this article.