MINE HEALTH AND SAFETY STATE GRANTS

Description

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 encourages grantees to address, in their training and education programs, mine emergency preparedness, mine rescue, electrical safety, contract and customer truck drivers, improving training for new and inexperienced miners, managers and supervisors performing mining tasks, pillar safety for underground mines, and falls from heights. MSHA also encourages state training programs to prioritize health and safety training for new mines and small mining operations. MSHA is interested in supporting programs that emphasize training on miners’ statutory rights, including the right to a safe working environment and the right to refuse an unsafe task. Applicants are encouraged, where applicable, to propose activities that support the President’s goals. The President has declared a National Energy Emergency to discover and mine critical minerals. Exec. Order No. 14156, Declaring a National Energy Emergency (2025). To increase the response, on March 20, 2025, the President also directed the appropriate federal agencies to take immediate actions to increase mineral production. Exec. Order No. 14241, Immediate Measures To Increase American Mineral Production (2025). In response, the mining industry may experience increases in the reopening of idled mines and developing new mines in the search for these critical minerals. With these increases, new and innovative programs to train new miners or retrain miners for extracting specific critical minerals are vital. MSHA is also recommending that grantees, as applicable, develop or create training and compliance assistance programs to assist operators extracting critical minerals. The Department of Energy published a list of critical materials for energy, Federal Register :: Notice of Final Determination on 2023 DOE Critical Materials List. The Department of Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, in consultation with other federal agencies published the list of critical minerals, What are Critical Minerals? U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov). Moreover, on April 8, 2025, the President amended Exec. Order No. 14241 and declared coal a critical mineral. Exec. Order No. 14261, Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241 (2025).

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