CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Three weeks ago, federal mine safety chief Richard Stickler said his agency was too busy with other things to write a tougher coal dust standard that would help protect miners from deadly black lung disease.

"There's no way I'm going to get that done with what I have on my plate," Stickler said during an Aug. 27 interview.

A week later, Stickler's U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration published a proposed rule that would subject the nation's miners to random drug testing.

Now, mine safety advocates are furious. They can't understand why MSHA is pushing the drug-testing rule and ignoring what they say is a much larger problem for coal miners.

"It's frustrating that MSHA had time to draft a regulation for drug testing when there are much bigger health and safety problems facing the nation's miners," said Nathan Fetty, a mine safety lawyer with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment.

"For example, MSHA could have spent its time writing regulations to control respirable dust and finally eliminate black lung disease," Fetty said last week. "After all, we know that hundreds of former miners die every year from black lung. But those big problems just don't register with MSHA these days."

In March, Fetty filed a federal court lawsuit that sought to force the MSHA to tighten its coal dust limits for underground mines. He went to court after a series of media reports and scientific findings that black lung, after years on the decline, was increasing among miners in the Appalachian coalfields.

Black lung, or coal workers' pneumoconiosis, is a debilitating and often fatal lung disease caused by breathing coal dust.

In 1969, Congress placed strict limits on airborne dust and ordered coal operators to take periodic tests inside mines. The law has reduced black lung among the nation's miners. But, at least partly because of industry cheating on dust samples, the law has fallen far short of its goal of eliminating the disease.

Between 1993 and 2002, nearly 2,300 West Virginia miners died of black lung. West Virginia has the highest age-adjusted black lung death rate nationwide during that period, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

In September 2006, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study reported pockets where black lung was progressing rapidly, particularly in southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky. A year later, in September 2007, NIOSH researchers reported that black lung rates among U.S. miners had doubled in the previous decade.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Three weeks ago, federal mine safety chief Richard Stickler said his agency was too busy with other things to write a tougher coal dust standard that would help protect miners from deadly black lung disease.

"There's no way I'm going to get that done with what I have on my plate," Stickler said during an Aug. 27 interview.

A week later, Stickler's U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration published a proposed rule that would subject the nation's miners to random drug testing.

Now, mine safety advocates are furious. They can't understand why MSHA is pushing the drug-testing rule and ignoring what they say is a much larger problem for coal miners.

"It's frustrating that MSHA had time to draft a regulation for drug testing when there are much bigger health and safety problems facing the nation's miners," said Nathan Fetty, a mine safety lawyer with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment.

"For example, MSHA could have spent its time writing regulations to control respirable dust and finally eliminate black lung disease," Fetty said last week. "After all, we know that hundreds of former miners die every year from black lung. But those big problems just don't register with MSHA these days."

In March, Fetty filed a federal court lawsuit that sought to force the MSHA to tighten its coal dust limits for underground mines. He went to court after a series of media reports and scientific findings that black lung, after years on the decline, was increasing among miners in the Appalachian coalfields.

Black lung, or coal workers' pneumoconiosis, is a debilitating and often fatal lung disease caused by breathing coal dust.

In 1969, Congress placed strict limits on airborne dust and ordered coal operators to take periodic tests inside mines. The law has reduced black lung among the nation's miners. But, at least partly because of industry cheating on dust samples, the law has fallen far short of its goal of eliminating the disease.

Between 1993 and 2002, nearly 2,300 West Virginia miners died of black lung. West Virginia has the highest age-adjusted black lung death rate nationwide during that period, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

In September 2006, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study reported pockets where black lung was progressing rapidly, particularly in southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky. A year later, in September 2007, NIOSH researchers reported that black lung rates among U.S. miners had doubled in the previous decade.

The 1969 law set a limit of 2 milligrams of coal dust per cubic meter of air in underground mines. Under the law, the MSHA was to update this limit to a level "which will prevent new incidences of respiratory disease and the future development of such disease in any person."

For at least the last 12 years, NIOSH has recommended that the standard be tightened to 1 milligram per cubic meter. And in October 1996, a Labor Department advisory committee also recommended a tougher limit.

In April 1999, toward the end of the Clinton administration, then-MSHA chief Davitt McAteer announced plans to tighten the dust limit.

The rule was not completed before the Bush administration took office, and in December 2002, then-MSHA chief Dave Lauriski dropped the proposal from the agency's regulatory agenda.

During the interview last month in Charleston, Stickler said that he agrees the coal-dust limit should be tightened. But, he said, the agency has been busy implementing various other reforms ordered by Congress after the Sago Mine disaster and a string of other 2006 accidents.

"I've got the MINER Act to implement, and can't put more items on that regulatory agenda," Stickler said. "So there's no way I'm going to tackle respirable dust."

The Bush administration added the drug-testing rule to the MSHA's regulatory agenda in October 2005. The issue seemed to have been put on the back burner after the disasters of 2006 and 2007. But then, in early June, the MSHA submitted its proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget for its review. OMB approved the proposal on Aug. 26. MSHA announced the proposal on Sept. 5 and published it in the Federal Register on Sept. 8.

MSHA has announced a 30-day comment period, or about half as long as for other recent rulemaking proposals. And so far, MSHA has not scheduled a public hearing.

In a Sept. 11 letter to Stickler, United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts urged MSHA to withdraw the proposal.

Roberts noted that MSHA's own proposal acknowledges that 75 percent of coal miners report that their employers already subject them to random drug testing.

"While the union certainly does not condone drug or alcohol use that impairs a miner at work, we contend the agency's effort to implement a Final Rule on alcohol and drug use would constitute a grave waste of precious MSHA employee time, and taxpayer money," Roberts wrote. "Our membership - and all coal miners - simply cannot afford this distraction when, for example, black lung continues to ravage the health of coal miners, including young miners just now entering the industry."

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.