29 Quotes by Tony Oppegard

That's very unusual and a red flag that there's some safety problems at that mine.

Most of the fines are not high enough to have a real deterrent effect. If the operators know they're not going to have to pay the fines, or that they will be minimal fines, they just factor that into the cost of doing business.

We're not getting everything that we think coal miners need in this bill.

There has to be enough of a fine to encourage compliance with the law.

You can mine 4 tons of coal in a couple of minutes. It's cheaper to exceed the dust limits, expose a miner to black lung and pay the fine than it is to do the right thing.

To me, if you're under-capitalized and don't have the financial means to operate a safe mine, you shouldn't be in the mining business.

Far too many mines receive the minimum assessment of $60, which is less than what a ton of coal goes for these days.

I've been criticizing them for 20 years for doing it that way. It's not good government.

The Bush administration ushered in this desire to develop cooperative ties between regulators and the mining industry. Safety has certainly suffered as a result.