MINE HEALTH AND SAFETY STATE GRANTS

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 State training programs to prioritize health and safety training for new and small mining operations. MSHA also encourages grant recipients to address, in their training and education programs, contract employee safety and occupational health hazards, powered haulage and mobile equipment safety, mine emergency preparedness, mine rescue, electrical safety, training for new and inexperienced miners, managers and supervisors performing mining tasks, and falls from heights. Applicants are encouraged, where applicable, to support the President’s goals of increasing the discovery and mining of critical minerals, by developing or creating training and compliance assistance programs to assist operators extracting critical minerals, including coal. The President has declared a National Energy Emergency to discover and mine critical minerals. Executive Order (EO) 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. EO 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. The Department of Energy (DOE) published a list of critical materials for energy, Federal Register :: Notice of Final Determination on 2023 DOE Critical Materials List. On May 29, 2025, DOE added metallurgical coal used for steelmaking to the Critical Material list, 90 Federal Register 22711 (2025). The Department of Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, in consultation...

Responses related to the following proposal criteria enable the applicant to show that the proposed grant is consistent with the purposes of the Act: (a) Programs, policies, and methods to be followed in administering the grant, (b) designation of the State mining agency as the sole agency with authority and responsibility for administering the grant throughout the State, (c) assurances that such agency has an adequate and competent staff of trained and qualified inspectors, (d) use of the grant will extend and improve mine health and safety in the State while providing for no advance notice of an inspection, (e) assurances that grant will supplement not supplant existing State mine health and safety programs, (f) period over which program will be pursued, (g) financial plan, (h) fiscal control and accounting procedures, (i) name and title of person who will direct the program, (j) approximate number of qualified personnel who will work on the program, (k) location or locations where program will be pursued, (1) assurance that matching funds from nonfederal sources will be forthcoming, (m) indication of whether the programs or any part have been or will be submitted to other organizations for the purpose of obtaining a grant, and (n) agreement that the official State mine agency shall make required reports.

Statutory Formula: Title 30, Federal Mine Safety & Health Act of 1977 (MINE ACT), Part 801-966, Subpart I-V,Public Law 30 U.S.C. Section 953 (h)..Section 503 of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Mine Act), Public Law 95-164 as amended, 30 U.S.C. � 953, authorizes this program.A maximum of 80 percent of the amount expended by any mining State for a fiscal year is paid from Federal funds and at least 20 percent are paid by the Applicant State.