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We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health report transparently each year on the number of idle mine visits (E28) and attempted inspections (E27) used to eliminate mandatory inspections each fiscal year.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health revise business rules used in MSHA reports for the mandatory inspections program to align with the Mine Act and MSHA policy, or update MSHA policy accordingly and consider raising the number of E28 idle mine visits and E27 denial of entry attempts used in MSHA reports to eliminate an inspection requirement.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health improve the design and execution of MSHA’s internal control system for the mandatory inspections program to align with the GAO Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, specifically by identifying key risks through a programmatic risk assessment and collecting MSHA workforce concerns to verify or improve the integrity of the program.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health update MSHA policies to: (1) define a schedule for verifying mine statuses; (2) specify when visual verifications (e.g., E28 idle mine visits) are necessary; (3) limit deviations from the mine status criteria to defined exceptional situations; (4) define how “primary mine type” changes apply during calculation of inspection requirements; (5) define timeliness metrics for certification of E01 inspections; (6) require mandatory inspections start and end in the same fiscal year; and (7) define how to calculate the mandatory inspection completion rate annually.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health redesign monitoring processes to check Part 50 data reporting for mines on a quarterly basis, and verify timely certification of mandatory inspections and accuracy of activity codes and inspection dates.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health update supporting tools based on revisions to the mine status criteria.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health develop a process to verify if: (1) mines in “temporarily idle” status for extended periods need a change to “abandoned” status and (2) mines with underground openings are being timely sealed when their “primary mine type” is not listed as “underground.”

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health verify all underground coal mines in abandoned status for more than 90 days are either sealed (and its status updated in MSHA’s system), in the process of sealing and are issued a violation for non-compliance with the regulation, or has a remark in MSHA’s system indicating why it will not be sealed. This may include verifying the mine was identified for future reclamation in the Abandoned Mine Lands program inventory.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health communicate to staff on: (1) the current version of mine status criteria, (2) MSHA reports and tools available for the mandatory inspection program, and (3) leadership’s expectations on districts correcting activity codes and when Part 50 data should be available to districts (including follow-up and violations for operators not reporting timely).

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health Add a system control to verify the “primary mine type” field is populated.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health update policy or procedures to: (1) clearly define when an inspection starts and ends and (2) ensure the inspection dates for an E01 mandatory inspection include any inspection work done on other events (e.g., E16 spot inspection) to make the E01 inspection an “entire mine” inspection adhering to requirements in the Mine Act.