Kennedy Knocks Labor Department Agency for Mine Oversight

A federal investigation found that the 2007 Crandall Canyon mining disaster in Utah was the result of a faulty mine design. Nine people died in the mine collapse, which had been blamed on an earthquake.

The investigation report, released Thursday by the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, called for the mine operator to pay $1.6 million in fines.

A spokesman for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said that the federal agency should have done more to prevent the mine collapse and to stop the mine’s operation.

Download the report here. See the statement by Kennedy spokesman Anthony Coley below and download Kennedy’s own investigative report here.