Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 83.djvu/771

 83 STAT. ]

PUBLIC LAW 91-173-DEC. 30, 1969

industry must be the health and safety of its most precious resource—the miner; (b) deaths and serious injuries from unsafe and unhealthful conditions and practices in the coal mines cause grief and suffering to the miners and to their families; (c) there is an urgent need to provide more effective means and measures for improving the working conditions and practices in the Nation's coal mines in order to prevent death and serious physical harm, and in order to prevent occupational diseases originating in such mines: (d) the existence of unsafe and unhealthful conditions and practices in the Nation's coal mines is a serious impediment to the future growth of the coal mining industry and cannot be tolerated; (e) the operators of such mines with the assistance of the miners have the primary responsibility to prevent the existence of such conditions and practices in such mines; (f) the disruption of production and the loss of income to operators and miners as a result of coal mine accidents or occupationally caused diseases unduly impedes and burdens commerce; and (g) it is the purpose of this Act (1) to establish interim mandatory health and safety standards and to direct the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Secretary of the Interior to develop and promulgate improved mandatory health or safety standards to protect the health and safety of the Nation's coal miners; (2) to require that each operator of a coal mine and every miner in such mine comply with such standards; (3) to cooperate with, and provide assistance to, the States in the development and enforcement of effective State coal mine health and safety programs; and (4) to improve and expand, in cooperation with the States and the coal minin^g industry, research and development and training programs aimed at preventing coal mine accidents and occupationally caused diseases in the industry. DEFINITIONS

SEC. 3. For the purpose of this Act, the term— (a) "Secretary" means the Secretary of the Interior or his delegate; (b) "commerce" means trade, traffic, commerce, transportation, or communication among the several States, or between a place in a State and any place outside thereof, or within the District of Columbia or a possession of the United States, or between points in the same State but through a point outside thereof;

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