Mine Health and Safety Grants

One of the Secretary of Labor's goals for the U.S. workforce is helping American workers gain and hold good, safe jobs. One of the Department's strategic goals is to "Promote Safe Jobs and Fair Workplaces for All Americans." MSHA's role in accomplishing this objective is to "prevent fatalities, disease, and injury from mining and secure safe and healthful working conditions for America's miners." The Secretary of Labor, through MSHA, may award grants to state, tribal, and territorial governments (including the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) to assist them in developing and enforcing state mining laws and regulations, improve state workers' compensation and mining occupational disease laws and programs, and improve safety and health conditions in the nation's mines through federal-state coordination and cooperation.

MSHA recognizes that state training programs are a key source of mine safety and health training and education for individuals who work or will work at mines. MSHA encourages state training programs to prioritize training for small mining operations. MSHA is also interested in supporting programs that include training on miners' statutory rights, including the right to be provided a safe working environment and to refuse an unsafe task. The Agency encourages grantees to address in their training and education programs occupational health hazards caused by exposures to respirable dust and crystalline silica (quartz), powered haulage safety, mine emergency preparedness, donning and transferring self-contained self-rescuers (SCSRs), mine rescue, electrical safety, improving safety among contractors, improving training for new and inexperienced miners, and falls from equipment.

The Agency encourages grantees to focus training programs on causes of fatal accidents that occurred in the mining industry. More information about fatalities can be found on MSHA's webpage at https://www.msha.gov/data-reports/fatality-reports/search.