Vernal Express | 1979-12-20 | Page 16 | Regulations Bury Coal Industry

Regulations Bury Coal Industry Coal mine operators have had to function efficiendy in spite of the "hassle factor." That term, coined by Peter Petkas, director of the administration's regulatory council, is best explained with these examples: A coal mine operator is required by both federal and state regulations to take ventilation readings at least four times a day. The state rqeuires these be taken at one place in the mine, the federal rules at another place. So the operator takes and sends out two sets of readings. Four separate federal agencies require mines to furnish records on coal production, each in different units and with different breakdowns. At one mine, four inspectors from four different federal and state agencies arrived one day simultaneously in four separate Ford Broncos to check on the same problem." These are only a few of the more flagrant duplications that present government regulations impose on coal mine operators. Such redundancies ;0 need to be re-examined if we are truly to become What President Carter calls the "Saudi Arabia of the coal industrv."