Trump administration reverses planned closures of 3 dozen US mine safety offices

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The Trump administration is dropping plans to terminate leases for 34 offices in the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the agency responsible for enforcing mine safety laws, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

Earlier this year, the Department of Government Efficiency, created by President Donald Trump and run by Elon Musk, had targeted federal agencies for spending cuts, including terminating leases for three dozen MSHA offices. Seven of those offices were in Kentucky alone. Ending the MSHA leases had been projected to save $18 million.

Musk said this week that he’s leaving his job as a senior adviser.

A statement released by a Labor Department spokesperson Thursday said it has been working closely with the General Services Administration "to ensure our MSHA inspectors have the resources they need to carry out their core mission to prevent death, illness, and injury from mining and promote safe and healthy workplaces for American miners.”

Some MSHA offices are still listed on the chopping block on the DOGE website, but the statement did not indicate whether those closings will move forward.

MSHA was created by Congress within the Labor Department in 1978, in part because state inspectors were seen as too close to the industry to force coal companies to take the sometimes costly steps necessary to protect miners. MSHA is required to inspect each underground mine quarterly and each surface mine twice a year.

Mining fatalities over the past four decades have dropped significantly, in large part because of the dramatic decline in coal production. But the proposed DOGE cuts would have required MSHA inspectors to travel farther to get to a mine.

A review in March of publicly available data by the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center indicates that nearly 17,000 health and safety inspections were conducted from the beginning of 2024 through February 2025 by staff at MSHA offices in the facilities on the chopping block. MSHA, which also oversees metal and nonmetal mines, already was understaffed. Over the past decade, it has seen a 27% reduction in total staff, including 30% of enforcement staff in general and 50% of enforcement staff for coal mines, the law center said.

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