If you\u2019ve spent any time around MSHA cases, you already know that jurisdiction is one of those issues that never quite stays settled. Every few years, a case comes along that forces everyone \u2013 operators, contractors, inspectors, and lawyers \u2013 to rethink what \u201cmine\u201d actually means under the Mine Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Secretary of Labor (MSHA) v. KC Transport, Inc. is one such case, and it has real implications for anyone who thought that staying a mile or two off the mine site kept them safely in OSHA-Land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dispute started the way so many MSHA cases do: with a routine inspection that, as it turned out, wasn\u2019t quite so routine. An inspector was at Ramaco Resources\u2019 coal prep plant in West Virginia when he decided to take a short trip down the road to KC Transport\u2019s truck maintenance facility. KC Transport is an independent trucking company that hauls coal for Ramaco and other coal operators. Significantly, the maintenance facility wasn\u2019t on mine property, and it wasn\u2019t at an extraction or processing site. It was about a mile from the prep plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once there, the inspector saw two haul trucks undergoing maintenance without (according to the inspector) being properly blocked against motion. (Oh, come on. That never happens, does it? Kidding! I was kidding!) MSHA wrote citations, of course. KC Transport pushed back, contesting the citations on jurisdictional grounds and arguing that MSHA had no business being there in the first place. This wasn\u2019t a mine, KC Transport said; it was an equipment maintenance shop. And since it wasn\u2019t a mine, if anyone had jurisdiction, it was OSHA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Administrative Law Judge Lewis sided with MSHA, finding that the maintenance facility and the trucks were part of mining operations and therefore fell under the Mine Act. The Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission disagreed in a split decision. Marco Rajkovich and Bill Althen took a narrower view of MSHA\u2019s reach, concluding that MSHA jurisdiction stops at extraction sites, processing facilities, and roads directly appurtenant to them. Because KC Transport\u2019s shop wasn\u2019t located on or immediately adjacent to any of those places, the Commission vacated the citations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That should have been the end of it \u2026 but it wasn\u2019t. The Secretary of Labor appealed to the D.C. Circuit. While the case was pending, the Supreme Court decided Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, overruling the old Chevron doctrine, which granted nearly complete deference to a federal agency\u2019s interpretation of the laws it enforced. Now, after Loper Bright, courts no longer simply defer to an agency\u2019s reasonable interpretation. Under the Loper Bright doctrine, courts have to decide for themselves what the statute says. That mattered here, because MSHA has long taken an expansive view of what exactly qualifies as a \u201cmine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In reviewing the Commission\u2019s decision, the D.C. Circuit didn\u2019t just resurrect MSHA\u2019s interpretation. Instead, it walked through the Mine Act\u2019s definition of \u201cmine,\u201d which includes not only extraction and processing sites, but also \u201clands, facilities, equipment, machines, tools, or other property \u2026 used in, or to be used in\u201d mining or mineral preparation. The Commission had read that language as implicitly limited by geography. The D.C. Circuit didn\u2019t buy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the majority, the statute isn\u2019t about where a facility sits on a map; it\u2019s about whether the facility is necessarily connected to mining operations. That phrase \u2013 \u201cnecessarily connected\u201d \u2013 does a lot of work in the court\u2019s analysis. The maintenance shop in this case existed largely to service trucks hauling coal from extraction sites to a prep plant. The facility had been built with the mine operator\u2019s permission. Around 60% of its business served nearby coal mines, and the trucks being serviced at the time of the inspection were actively engaged in coal hauling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Put all that together, the appeals court said, and this looks a lot like mining infrastructure, whether it\u2019s technically a part of the mine\u2019s geographical footprint or not. The court emphasized that Congress intended the Mine Act to be broad and protective, and that close cases should be resolved in favor of mine safety \u2013 in other words, in favor of MSHA, not OSHA, jurisdiction. On that basis, it vacated the Commission\u2019s decision and reinstated the citations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what\u2019s the takeaway? If you\u2019re a contractor, particularly one involved in hauling, maintenance, or support services closely tied to mining, physical distance alone is no longer a safe harbor. The same is true if you\u2019re an operator looking for ways to keep aspects of your operation (say, a man camp) off MSHA\u2019s radar screen. If your facility is functionally intertwined with mining operations, MSHA could well try to assert jurisdiction \u2013 and the agency now has solid appellate authority backing that claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One more thing that\u2019s kind of related. This is not good news: as this column was going to press, we learned of a shake-up at the Commission. Until recently, there were four Commissioners over there, although Congress created the Commission with the intent that there would always be five. In the first week of May, however, we learned that the Trump administration had fired one of the four, Commissioner Marvit, whom President Biden appointed in March 2024. Commissioner Marvit\u2019s term was supposed to expire on August 30, 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That leaves just three Commissioners. Two of those, TJ Baker and Mary Lu Jordan (also Biden appointees), are still on the Commission, but their terms expire on August 30 of this year. Once they\u2019re off the Commission, and assuming that nobody replaces them by then (a very fair assumption, given the political climate), the only remaining Commissioner will be Chair Marco Rajkovich. In other words, there will be only one Commissioner, with no fewer than four seats remaining vacant. The problem is that the Mine Act also says, explicitly, that the Commission needs two Commissioners for there to be a quorum. Without a quorum, they won\u2019t have the authority to take any action on any of the cases that are pending or that might be brought before they\u2019re back up to full strength. (Commissioner Marvit has already sued to get his job back. Not sure yet how that\u2019s going to play out.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if that wasn\u2019t enough, at the same time, the administration fired Commissioner Marvit, Administrative Law Judge Lewis (you know \u2026 the one who decided the KC Transport case above?) was laid off, along with at least a dozen staffers. Simultaneously, the Commission closed the Pittsburgh office entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, here\u2019s the state of play: one Commissioner out of five, leaving the Commission without a quorum and, thus, unable to act on anything. Only two ALJs, plus an acting chief ALJ, remain, down from a high of about 24 total. The Pittsburgh office shuttered altogether, leaving only the headquarters in D.C. and the Denver office. As you know, I\u2019ve tried to stay apolitical in my columns over the past few years, but \u2026 well, I have a feeling I\u2019m going to have a lot more to say about what\u2019s happening over at the Commission in future columns. These are (in the words of the ancient Chinese curse) interesting times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Willa Perlmutter If you\u2019ve spent any time around MSHA cases, you already know that jurisdiction is one of those issues that never quite stays settled. Every few years, a case comes along that forces everyone \u2013 operators, contractors, inspectors, and lawyers \u2013 to rethink what \u201cmine\u201d actually means under the Mine Act. Secretary of Labor (MSHA) v. KC Transport, Inc. is one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"If you\u2019ve spent any time around MSHA cases, you already know that jurisdiction is one of those issues that never quite stays settled. Every few years, a case comes along that forces everyone \u2013 operators, contractors, inspectors, and lawyers \u2013 to rethink what \u201cmine\u201d actually means under the Mine Act.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[4649,158],"coauthors":[1649],"class_list":["post-12755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law","tag-kc-transport","tag-msha"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
<\/strong>Willa Perlmutter is chair of Stoel Rives\u2019 OSHA group and co-chair of the firm\u2019s mining group. She can be reached at \u2028willa.perlmutter@stoel.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"