Senators rip mine watchdog

WASHINGTON -- Legislators pledged to step up federal oversight of coal mines yesterday and accused the agency that has that job of not preventing the deaths of 14 miners in West Virginia.

''Fourteen men in the span of three weeks. These deaths, I believe, were entirely preventable," said Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia.

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, chaired the hearing on the accidents at the Sago and Aracoma mines. He expressed anger after the acting head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, David Dye, left the roughly two-hour hearing halfway through.

''I can't recollect it ever happening before," Specter said of Dye's departure. Dye said he had to tend to urgent agency business.

''We'll find a way to take appropriate note of it," said Specter, who heads the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the agency, part of the Labor Department.

An agency spokesman, Dirk Fillpot, said that Dye had to deal with issues involving the West Virginia accidents, among other things, but that Dye appreciated the hearing's importance.

''It is very common for committees to submit follow-up questions to witnesses after they leave, rather than requiring them to stay," Fillpot said. ''At the same time, two of the department's top mine safety experts stayed behind."