For 448 days and counting, despite being rejected twice by the Senate, Richard Stickler is still in charge of the embattled Mine Safety and Health Administration.

When the Senate failed to confirm his nomination in 2006, Bush used a loophole in the Constitution to appoint Stickler as mine safety czar during a congressional recess that October. And when his recess appointment expired last month, Bush renominated the former mine manager and coal company executive, and once again named him "acting" MSHA chief. While the Senate can remove him in late July, he'll likely serve the rest of Bush's term.

It's a classic case of a Bush fox guarding the henhouse. Mines managed by Stickler were the scenes of several fatalities in the 1980s and '90s, and experienced preventable accident rates well above the national average. And, when questioned during his nomination hearing following a mine disaster in West Virginia, he told a Senate committee that federal mining laws were "adequate."

While fines levied by the agency have increased and the injury rate has dropped a tick during Stickler's tenure, the Senate's concern that the Bush toady would be soft on safety have proven to be true.

A November report by the inspector general of the federal Department of Labor, MSHA's parent agency, revealed that MSHA failed to conduct mandatory quarterly safety inspections in 107 of 731 underground coal mines during the first year Stickler had the helm.

Worse, the report found that the safety inspections conducted prior to the catastrophic collapse at the Crandall Canyon coal mine were deficient. On average, 16 percent of the 68 "critical inspection activities" were not documented, and apparently not performed, by MSHA inspectors.

MSHA officials also approved the dangerous "retreat" mining plan that resulted in the twin tragedies that claimed nine lives at the Emery County mine. The method allows mine owners to maximize profits by removing coal that helps support the roof.

With a $380 million budget, 273 new mine inspectors and a boss named Stickler, MSHA officials should run a tight ship. But Stickler fails to live up to his name. Bush should withdraw the nomination and find a new nominee who can put the agency back on course.