Republicans in the GOP-dominated Kentucky House of Representatives passed a bill Monday that a long-time coal mine safety advocate says would put miners at risk by weakening a key protection put in place nearly two decades ago.?

House Bill 85, sponsored by Rep. Bill Wesley, R-Ravenna, would reduce the number of required mine emergency technicians (METs) on a shift from two to one for underground coal mines that have 15 or fewer miners working at a time. METs are miners trained to provide emergency medical care and stabilize an injured worker’s condition.

Attorney Tony Oppegard, a former state and federal mine safety official, was part of a team that wrote a 2007 state law requiring two METs for all coal mining shifts. Oppegard previously told the Lantern the added protection was spurred by the death of a Harlan County miner, David “Bud” Morris.?

The one MET on site, along with other miners, failed to provide proper emergency care for Morris’ injuries after an accident involving heavy mining equipment, which was cited in a federal report as a cause of Morris’ death.?

Wesley on the House floor reiterated his past reasoning for the bill, arguing that letting smaller coal mining shifts have only one MET would keep such mines operating consistently.?

“There have been coal mining shifts or basically the whole coal production shut down based on because one MET did not show up for work,” Wesley said. “Nobody got paid. Everyone was sent home, and I think that this is a needed bill to help all the coal miners.”?

Oppegard had previously rebuffed Wesley’s arguments about coal mines shutting down due to a lack of required METs. The former mine inspector had said having two METs on a shift allows for a backup MET to be on site in case the other has been hurt or is unable to perform emergency medical care.?

A couple of Democrats spoke against the bill, including the only House Democrat currently representing Eastern Kentucky. Rep. Ashley Tackett-Laferty, D-Martin, said she appreciated Wesley’s intentions in preserving coal mining jobs, having supported other pro-coal policies passed by the state legislature.?

But she didn’t support HB 85, arguing it could eliminate “much needed safety positions currently available to our coal miners in an inherently dangerous work zone.”

“It truly troubles me to think that we could potentially be trading the safety of our coal mining families for what appears to be a nominal financial benefit, if anything at all,” Laferty said. “The safety practice of having an emergency medical technician on site is not what’s causing these mines to close.”

Laferty said she had reached out to coal miners and those in the industry when researching the bill, mentioning that one miner told her a shift had closed down just once because of a lack of METs over the course of a more than 20-year career.?

Rep. Chad Aull, D-Lexington, invoked the name of David “Bud” Morris in voting against the bill, saying he believed the House was “forgetting” the reasons why previous legislation was passed.?

Rep. Jim Gooch, R-Providence, reiterated his support for the bill, saying he had family in the coal mines when the original 2007 law had passed that required two METs.?

“We were having some experiences that some smaller operators might cut down to 10 or fewer employees,” Gooch said, who voted for the 2007 law. “I don’t think it’s any threat to the safety of our miners.”