Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor 40-695 O U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1970 FOREWORD The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act was a monumental piece of legislation directed at improving both the safety and the health of men who work in coal mines, the Nation's most dangerous occupation. The new Health and Safety Act is not only one of the most important pieces of legislation of this or any other Congress, it is one of the most complex pieces of legislation ever enacted. It deals in great detail with a substantial number of factors intricately interrelated in their impact on safety in the mine. It is a landmark in the history of occupational health legislation. In providing compensation for disability or death resulting from the dreaded "black lung" disease, it deals with a highly complex subject about which both the medical profession and the administrators of compensation will have a great deal to learn. The interpretation of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act is not expected to be easy. Those of us most familiar with the legislation would have little trouble right now interpreting any provision of the act. But the administrators of the programs and the regulation writers did not live month after month with the legislation as some of us did. With respect to many provisions of the law, a tracing of the development of individual sections through the legislative process will be necessary if administrators, lawyers and the courts are accurately to interpret what the legislation means. The regulation writers in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, as well as the Department of the Interior, are presently preparing guidelines and regulations. Their efforts are proceeding with some difficulty. Reports have reached the committee that tentative interpretations are being discussed which would appear in some respects to diverge from what the Congress intended. A more than average amount of congressional effort and oversight will be necessary to insure that the legislative intent is followed in every respect. It is to assist the regulation writer and to facilitate his efforts, as well as to assist and facilitate legislative oversight by the Congress and by the members of the Committee on Education and Labor in particular, that this legislative history is drawn together. CARL D. PERKINS, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor. (III) |