Testimony - Utah Mine Safety Committee
Salt Lake City, Utah, January 3, 2008
J. Brett Harvey, President and Chief Executive Officer
CONSOL Energy Inc.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am Brett Harvey, President and Chief Executive Officer of CONSOL Energy.
CONSOL Energy is the largest bituminous coal producer in the United States and the largest producer of coal by underground mining methods. We operate twenty mines in five states, including a mine here in Utah, and we employee approximately 8,000 people, the vast majority of whom are coal miners.
As we all know, this Commission is inquiring into issues of mine safety as an outgrowth of the issues surrounding the Crandall Canyon accident. Crandall Canyon was one of several high profile mine accidents that occurred in the coal mining industry in the past two years.
While an investigation into the causes of an accident is not unwarranted and while a pressure for action to prevent the accident’s reoccurrence would not be surprising, as you go about your work, I would ask you to keep several things in mind.
First, the mining industry has made substantial progress in the area of safety. In the 30 year period from 1975 through 2005, U.S. mine fatalities were reduced from 1,068 to 22. In 2006, because of several mining accidents in West Virginia, including the Sago accident, U.S. coal mining fatalities climbed to the highest number of fatalities since 1995. However, despite the tragedy at Crandall Canyon, fatalities for 2007 were down from the 2006 level. Now we need to continue that downward trend, surpass the record low level set in 2005, and drive as rapidly as possible to no fatalities.
Unfortunately, the high profile nature of the recent mine accidents obscures the fact that total injury rates for U.S. coal mining, based on MSHA records data back to the beginning of the 20th century, are as low as they have ever been.
In fact, the coal industry has a better overall safety record than many other industries or sectors of the U.S. economy and we are far ahead of countries such as China, where the coal mine fatality rate is 13 PER DAY.
CONSOL Energy’s safety record in 2006 was nearly 3 times better than the industry incidence rate for underground mines. We were very proud of our performance. But when I translated the statistics into human terms, I saw that 236 CONSOL employees had recordable injuries in 2006.
Ordinarily, corporate improvement is achieved incrementally. It is popular in some management circles to talk about continuous improvement. And it is a perfectly rational and useful way for a business to operate.
Except for safety.
In CONSOL’s case, Even if we improved our safety performance by 50%, it still means that 118 of our people will be injured. And that is unacceptable.
The only acceptable number is zero. I want that number to be zero and our employees want that number to be zero.
The same holds true for the U.S. mining industry, including Utah. We must admit to ourselves that we can no longer continue to run our business with an unspoken assumption that a certain number of accidents are simply inherent in our business.
You want that number to be zero, and the public wants the number to be zero. And we must all make it our business to see that this happens.
I want to discuss three issues today that are relevant to this Committee’s deliberations: 1) the law and compliance; 2) the technology/safety interface; and 3) the culture of safety.
Clearly, this Commission will consider changes or additions to Utah law with regard to mine safety and make recommendations to the legislature. As you do, let me offer several observations.
First, do not recommend changes to law or regulation based solely on what can be learned from Crandall Canyon. There are more than 700 underground coal mines in the United States. Every mine is unique – in size, number of employees, mining technology employed and geologic conditions encountered. The lessons learned from a single accident at one mine may provide only limited instruction for the broader industry.
Second, don’t assume that safety laws and safety are synonymous. Take highway safety as an example. The legislature has passed numerous laws regarding speed limits and driving behavior on state roads, yet accidents still occur every day. Laws, by themselves, are not enough to guarantee safety.
Third, don’t assume that compliance with the law and achievement of safety goals necessarily go hand in hand. We discovered, based on research we conducted in the last six months, that our safety professionals spend 90% of their time on compliance issues and only 10% on preventing accidents. It revealed that our safety professionals spend most of their time escorting inspectors and dealing with compliance paper work that flows from issues raised by inspectors with very little time left over for observing employees on the job – an activity that can lead to improved work habits and to the elimination of accidents caused by human error.
Fourth, I have seen little evidence to convince me that two agencies are better than one in administering safety laws at a single site – particularly if the standards being administered by each agency are different from one another.
Utah does not have a state mine safety agency. The Crandall Canyon accident occurred in Utah. West Virginia has a state mine safety agency. The Sago and the Alma accidents occurred in West Virginia. While there is some truth to the idea that an extra set of eyes is better, it is only better if they enforce the same set of laws and interpret an issue in the same way. The inconvenient truth from an operator’s perspective is that dual enforcement where non-parallel standards are being enforced usually creates conflicts, inefficiencies and frustration. What it does not do is to guarantee the advance of safety in the mine.
Let me quickly add, however, that compliance with the law is an obligation of every company, every mine manager and every employee. Failure to comply with the law is unacceptable job performance. However, if we limit ourselves, as an industry, only to complying with the law, we will not eliminate accidents. Compliance with the law is only one element in the safety triad.
A second is the technology/safety interface.
Effective technology, properly applied, can be an important component of an overall effort to eliminate accidents.
We are an industry with a long history and with strong traditions that often change slowly. But where safety is concerned, the industry – and here I mean management, labor unions and government agencies – should be open to the possibility that a new technology can create a new safety paradigm.
By being receptive to new technologies, important safety innovations have occurred such as CO monitoring of belt lines to provide early detection of potential combustion situations, the development of Automatic Temporary Roof Supports, coal bed degasification in advance of mining, or the application of digital technologies, to name a few.
While being receptive to technology-driven shifts in the safety paradigm, I am not suggesting that we always be first-adopters. Like all businesses, mining companies keep a close eye on costs. And we are understandably reluctant to invest millions of dollars in technologies that are unproven.
For example, there is little doubt that wireless communications systems underground would be highly desirable – provided that they work reliably.
In conjunction with MSHA and other parties, we tested over the last 18 months many of the technologies available for communication both within the mine and between the mine and the surface. What we found is that no single technology completely satisfied the intent of the new regulation, and none was effective in all applications. The varying geologic conditions that exist in U.S. coal mines have precluded, thus far, the adoption of a single communication technology standard that will work reliably in all mines.
It would be a mistake for government, in the emotional aftermath of a mine tragedy, to mandate unproven technologies in the name of “doing something.” But, at the same time, companies should not use the fact that a technology is still emerging as an excuse to do nothing. We must be willing to entertain a certain amount of capital risk to quicken the pace of the development and deployment of technologies that enhance safety.
As managers, we have an obligation to engineer our mines to eliminate, to the extent humanly possible the risk of accidents caused by physical conditions underground. That includes deploying technology effectively.
Even with the best crafted statutes and regulations, and with well engineered mines and the application of the best technologies, mine accidents will continue to occur unless we address the third, and most important element of the safety triad, that of the human element. At CONSOL, we refer to it as the culture of safety.
When we talk about the culture of safety, we talk about it in very broad terms.
Certainly, it includes a discussion of the role of the individual and the need for each employee to make safety a core value in their lives. Individual work safety is a condition of employment at CONSOL Energy. We hold every employee – salaried and hourly alike – responsible for working safety.
It also includes discussion of the culture as created by the company, including a consideration of signals we send everyday by the manner in which we run the business. Does production trump safety, or does safety trump production? At CONSOL Energy, our commitment is to a culture where safety trumps production, where it trumps profits, where it trumps all other rules, policies or procedures.
We are committed to a culture of safety that empowers every employee, whether hourly or salaried, to stop the normal course of operation if he or she believes that safety is being compromised. And it makes every employee accountable for his or her actions.
There are, of course, some challenges in living this commitment.
It will take a constancy of effort to convince employees that they have the right, without suffering a consequence, to interrupt work in the name of safety.
It will take steadfastness of commitment to convince managers that subordinate employees should be empowered in this way.
And it will take power of persuasion to convince customers that they are better served buying coal from a mine committed to the culture of safety even if it adds a few pennies to the cost of the fuel.
However, we believe that you cannot create the culture of safety nor invest every employee with both the authority and the responsibility for safety unless we give them the tools that they need. Not just the physical tools, but the tools that allow every employee to reach his full potential as a safe and productive contributor to CONSOL Energy.
We believe that creating the culture of safety comes, in part, from engaging in a constant conversation about safety. And it is not a one-way conversation. Our culture of safety demands the recognition that there is no monopoly on good ideas when it comes to eliminating accidents. Everyone should be engaged in the conversation.
A culture of safety is a culture of constant analysis and observation of job procedures and processes. The goal is to root out any action that could lead to an accident and replace it with a better one.
A culture of safety requires that we submit ourselves to the discipline of constant training and evaluation rather than just the periodic training required by law.
And a culture of safety demands a commitment on the part of every employee to work accident free. As part of our ZERO accidents program, we ask employees to identify the reason why they are personally committed to being at ZERO. Not surprisingly, many say, “so I can come home to my family” or “so I will be around to teach my son to fish”. Every one of us has a reason – maybe even several reasons – to be at ZERO accidents. By asking each employee to identify, articulate and visualize that reason, we hope to create a constant reminder on a deep, personal level of why this is important.
There is room for government to be a part of our culture of safety.
Unfortunately, events like Crandall Canyon or Sago often elicit from government an attitude of greater sternness – to write more violations, to levy more fines, to create, if you will, the culture of punishment. But are we really naïve enough to believe that increasing the level of a fine is the best way to eliminate accidents? If the road to ZERO accidents were paved with higher fines, then the road to zero highway accidents would long ago have been built.
I certainly understand that a proper function of government is to enforce the law. What I am asking is whether there is a role for government beyond that of antagonist or opponent. Can government be more than just policeman?
At the individual level, we reward those who work at ZERO accidents. Every employee, even those who work in office settings, has the opportunity to enhance his or her pay by working safely as an individual. Greater rewards can be achieved if their work site and if the company work safely as well. But it is important to note that the requirement is ZERO. Nothing else will meet the “reward” standard.
We don’t view this as “paying” for safety. We view it as one of several ways in which we acknowledge, reward and encourage safe work.
Should we not then have a serious discussion about how government might acknowledge, reward and encourage safe work? Should we not have a serious discussion about the government’s objective? Is it to enforce the law, or make the mines safe? As I said earlier, compliance and safety are not necessarily synonymous.
I am offering no particular prescriptive actions here. Government has a role, though not the sole role, in safety training. While some aspects of training can be standardized, some elements must be customized to fit the needs of the individual mines.
Government most certainly can help with tax incentives or funding to accelerate the development of new technologies that improve safety and to provide incentives for their rapid deployment.
But I also hope that all of us – this commission, the companies who operate here in Utah, the employees and their representatives as well as other elected officials – will explore how government can provide positive incentives to advance mine safety in Utah.
Make no mistake. This will take courage, because there will be those who will be, at best, skeptical, or, more likely, highly critical of any effort to change the government’s role from policeman to partner in this matter of mine safety. But those who take that approach must answer the question – what is the goal: to enforce the law or to make the mines safe?
As CEO, I do interviews with reporters from time-to-time. Several have asked me what I hope will be my legacy at CONSOL. My answer is the same every time. I say that I want to be remembered as part of the generation of miners who eliminated accidents in coal mines.
I hope this commission will approach its task the same way.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here this morning, Mr. Chairman.