UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BEFORE THE MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT OF LABOR A PUBLIC HEARING In the Matter of: HIGH-VOLTAGE CONTINUOUS MINING MACHINES PROPOSED RULE Hearing Room B Sheraton Birmingham Hotel 2101 Ralph Arrington Boulevard Birmingham, Alabama Tuesday, November 16, 2004 9:00 a.m. MARVIN W. NICHOLS, JR., Presiding SALWA EL-BASSIONI BOB BORING RON STAHLHUT C O N T E N T S STATEMENT OF: PAGE Welcome and Opening, Mr. Nichols......................... 3 Mark Fuller.............................................. 8 Glenn Loggins............................................ 15 James Blankenship........................................ 17 Keith Flowler............................................ 38 Rob Dzorino.............................................. 51 P R O C E E D I N G S MR. NICHOLS: Good morning, everybody. My clock says nine o'clock, so let's start the hearing. My name is Marvin Nichols, and I am the Director of the Office of Standard, Regulations, and Variances, and on behalf of Dave Lauriski, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, I would like to welcome all of you today to this public hearing. This is the second of four hearings. The next two hearings will be held on the following dates at the following locations: November the 18th in Lexington, Kentucky, that's this Thursday; and November the 30th in Morgantown, West Virginia. The purpose of these hearings is to obtain input from the public on a proposed rule that was published in the Federal Register on July the 16th, 2004. A modified hearing location and date notice, as well as the extension of the post-hearing comment period was published in the Federal Register on August the 12th, 2004. We have copies of both of these documents at the back registration table if you need a copy. The proposed rule we are addressing today would include construction and design requirements for approval of high-voltage continuous mining machines under MSHA's Part 18, and mandatory safety and health standards for high-voltage miners in underground coal miner under Subpart (1) of Part 75. The proposed rule would also amend Subpart K of Part 75 to allow the use of such machines in permissible areas of underground coal mines. I would like to take a minute to introduce the others I have up here with me from MSHA. To my immediate left is Bob Boring. Bob is from our A&CC Technical Support Center; At the end of the table is Ron Stahlhut. Ron is from our District 8 office in Vincennes, Indiana; On my right is Salwa El-Bassioni. Salwa is a heath and safety specialist from the Coal Mine Safety and Health Division in our Arlington headquarters; and At the end of the table is Ron Ford. Ron is an economist from the OSRV office, my office. The hearing is being held in accordance with Section 101 of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. It is the practice of MSHA that formal rules of evidence will not apply. Therefore, cross-examination of the hearing panel will not be allowed, but the panel may explain and clarify provisions of the proposed rule. As moderator of this public hearing, I reserve the right to limit the amount of time each speaker is given, as well as the questions of the hearing panel. Those of you who have notified us in advance of your intent to speak will be allowed to make your presentations first. I will call the speakers in the order that the requests were made. Following these presentations, others who request an opportunity to speak will be allowed to do so. We will invite all interested parties to present their views at this hearing, and if you are sitting in the audience now and wish to speak, please sign in at the registration table. We will remain in session today until everyone who desires to speak has an opportunity to do so. Also, if you are not speaking today, we would like for you to sign the attendance sheet so that we have an accurate record of those in attendance. We will accept written comments and information at this hearing from any interested party, including those who are not speaking. When I call on you to speak, please come to the speaker's table and begin your presentation by identifying yourself and your affiliation for the record. If you have a prepared statement or any supporting documents that you would like to submit for the record, please leave a copy with me today. You can give written comments to us in this hearing today, or you can send them to MSHA's Office of Standards electrically, by fax mail, by regular mail, or hand-delivery using the address information in the Federal Register notice. The post-hearing comment period on this proposed rule will end on December the 10th, 2004, and submissions must be received by that date. A verbatim transcript of this hearing will be made a part of the record, and it will be posted on MSHA's Web site. If you would like a copy sooner, you can make your own arrangements with the court reporter. The company information for the court reporter is available at the registration table. Before the speakers begin their testimony, I would like to give you some background on the proposed rule we are addressing here today. The mining industry has been moving toward the use of high-voltage continuous mining machines to increase productivity. This efficiency can be accomplished with a minimal increase in machine size. When paired with more efficient roof bolting and section haulage equipment, a high-voltage continuous mining machine can increase production over a low- or medium-voltage continuous mining machine. These machines use less electrical current, and permit the use of smaller cables. Smaller cables are easier to handle, and can reduce injuries to miners. MSHA's existing regulation 30 CFR 75.1002 applies to the use of electrical equipment and conductors. This regulation does not allow the use of high-voltage conductors or cables, except for high-voltage long walls in or inby the last open crosscut, or within 150 feet of pillar working. Consequently, mine operators submitted 38 petitions for modification that MSHA has granted to use high-voltage continuous mining machines. Since the proposed rule was published, mine operators have submitted additional petitions, some of which MSHA has granted. In developing this proposed rule, we reviewed the granted petitions for modification. The proposed rule includes most of the provisions from granted petitions for modification, as well as some new safety provisions which enhance safety protection from fire, explosion, and shock hazards. The proposed rule would improve the design requirements for high-voltage continuous mining machines consistent with existing requirements, accommodate new design technology that is practical, and lessen burdens on the mining community associated with a petition for modification process, while preserving safety and health protection for miners. To date we have received five comments on this proposed rule. You can view these comments on our web site. And our purpose here today is to further receive information on this proposed rule. Our first speaker will be Mark Fuller with AmerCable, Incorporated. MR. FULLER: Thank you. I am Mark Fuller with AmerCable, Incorporated, and we manufacture the Tiger brand trailing cables, so everybody is clear on that. We of course have been involved very deeply with the 2300-volt miners, and as a cable manufacturer we were there initially when the very first ones came into use in Illinois, and I was an integral part of the specification-writing, and the materials design, and the cable design. And everything has been very specifically laid out in this petition RAN-1219-AB34, and the cable is described very nicely, and some of the steps we went through, so that's very good. One of the things I wanted to focus on, though, was an omission of a certain particular jacket, and the jacket described here has been very consistently used by most of the high-voltage miners, and that is a rubber jacket, or Thermoset material with a colored outer, that being orange, and a non-black and non-orange inner jacket layer. That's a two-pass rubber jacket. The two-pass rubber jacket represents the very best in the wiring cable business. Obviously we aren't the only ones in the wiring cable business, and there are other jackets of similar grade out there available. So the point is that the two-pass rubber jacket with the reinforcing is extruded in two layers with the reinforcing web in between, and that gives us a cut-through resistance with that just like a care tire might with the layer of steel in a car tire case. In the case of the old car tires way back it had polyester, which is very similar to what we apply for the cut-through resistance. So what I'm leading to us the introduction of a new material which was not addressed in this RAN-1219-AB34, and that's the thermoplastic polyurethane, and as its name implies it is a thermoplastic material, and it has a very, very high set of mechanical properties, and we would like to see that included. And the reason I expounded on the rubber jackets, whether it's CPE or Hypelon, is because those are in two paths. This TPU which we will call the thermoplastic polyurethane is extruded in a single pass, and it's simply because the material if we were to extrude it in a two-pass those two layers will not bond even with the very best of adhesives. So this jacket has over 5,000, this TPU jacket has over 5,000 psi tensile strength, which is approaching double that of any rubber jacket, and its tear resistance is over 100 pounds per inch. And these are measurable values, and are measured every day by Waring Cable Companies following the industry standard, Insulated Cable Engineers Association S75-381, which is also NEMA Spec WC-58. And so this is consistent from manufacturer to manufacturer; we all do the same things as far as the testing. The thermoplastic polyurethane material has a -- there are several suppliers of it. It is available to all wiring cable manufacturers, and I would like to see that that can be added into this document that we're discussing here today as certainly an acceptable alternate jacket in a single-pass, and in a certain color, non-black. And then it would be uniform, if you looked at the cross-section of that cable with the polyurethane jacket, or TPU, you would see instead of the green or blue inner jacket and the orange outer jacket you would just see a solid color. That could be red, you know, it could be any color that the customer desires. And so we would like to see that included. That was my first point on the cable itself. On the second point I would like to discuss on the cable handling, if we're ready to go ahead with that -- MR. NICHOLS: Yeah, go ahead and finish your testimony. Then I'll see if any panel members have any follow-up for you. MR. FULLER: All right. Fine. On the cable handling issues, the things, the items that I wanted to mention were that the design of the cables today are so superior in general, whether it's a TPU jacket, or a rubber jacker, a Hypolon, or CPE, over years ago that we have a high degree of confidence in this design as far as handling the cable. We have on this cable, this particular 2300-volt mining cable it's rated 5,000 volts, it has a 5,000-volt rating as listed in the Insulated Cable Engineers Association spec 75-381, it has 100 mils of insulation, which is rated for 5,000 volts and is routinely used at 4,160 in other mines, surface mines and underground, and here in this case of these 2,300-volt miners it's being used at 2,300 volts. And that is approximately 26 times, there's a 26-time safety factor in the insulation compared to where it's used as to where it's built, because when this cable is built, okay, because when this cable is built it's built to withstand 550 volts per mil per 1000th inch of insulation. That's the way we build it. This cable is tested to 13,000 volts AC before it ever leaves the factory, every reel. So you can see there is a very high degree of electrical integrity, and a high degree of mechanical strength also which I haven't mentioned yet. This insulation has 1,700 pounds-per-square inch tensile strength, which is well above the requirements in the ICEA specification, S75-381, and it has a very good elongation, you know, so it's not as tough as the jacket obviously, but yet it's very, very good in that regard, and the insulation has been improved electrically over the years also as well. So we have that built into the cable. On the shielding, we have a semiconductive tape, and that was part of the original design years ago in Illinois when we worked up the first cable, and the particular mine had asked me what's the one thing we could do to assure the best coverage over the insulation, and immediately I said "Well, there's two things, you could go to a full copper braid," and most mining cables, most trailing cables us a nylon/copper or cotton/copper braid over each individual phase conductor. We could use a full copper braid, and that would get us from 60 percent copper coverage up to 84 percent copper coverage, or we could maintain this copper and textile braid and use a semiconductive tape which would give us 100 percent coverage, and this particular tape is a fabric-backed tape, and it's laminated with a layer of semiconductive rubber, and it's wrapped on helically over each phase with a 10 or 12 percent overlap. So anyway, with those things all incorporated it's my opinion as we look at all these things that in the design and rubber materials, and special shielding, and manufacturing processes make this cable capable of withstanding the extremely rigorous environments of mining, and this coupled with the extremely sensitive ground fault protection described throughout Document RAN1219-AB34 indicates the mine operator should be able to handle this 2,300-volt continuous miner cable without the use of high-voltage gloves or other special equipment when desired. In other words, what I'm saying is I would hope it could be up to the mine that, you know, viewing what we have today built into the cable as opposed to what we had 20 or 30 years ago built into a 480-volt continuous miner cable, that they are light years apart. MR. NICHOLS: Does that complete your testimony? MR. FULLER: Yes. MR. NICHOLS: I'm sorry I mispronounced your company name. It will be correct in the record. It is AmeriCable rather than American Cable. MR. FULLER: Actually it's AmerCable; there is no I. MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Salwa. MS. EL-BASSIONI: I am Salwa El-Bassioni, I have a question for you. I understand your cable, that TPU is used in Shoal Creek Mine. Is it used anywhere else to your knowledge? MR. FULLER: We have the TPU material used in a number of different mines on the 950. In fact, many mines are using TPU and are 950-volt miners, and have for several years. I believe Shoal Creek is the only one currently using the TPU on the 2,300-volt miner. MS. EL-BASSIONI: You also mentioned it's used the 4,160-volt equipment. Where is it used? MR. FULLER: Yes. We have Longol Shores [?] with the TPU jacket right here in Alabama, also at Shoal Creek, and then one other mine. MS. EL-BASSIONI: Okay. MR. NICHOLS: Anyone else? MR. BORING: Mr. Fuller, I only have one question. You discussed like a technical comparison between the colored cable and the TPU cable. MR. FULLER: Uh-huh. MR. BORING: Would you care to offer the technical data to the committee and for the record for us to consider? MR. FULLER: Oh, absolutely. Yes, I can leave a copy of that. MR. NICHOLS: Anyone else? [No response] MR. NICHOLS: Do you have anything you want to leave with us? MR. FULLER: I'll go get it out of my briefcase. MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Thank you. MR. FULLER: You're welcome. [Witness excused.] MR. NICHOLS: Our next presenter will be Glenn Loggins with the United Mine Workers of America. MR. LOGGINS: My name is Glenn Loggins with UMWA, health and safety representative, Jim Walter Resources Number 4 Mine. I'll go back to kind of how I got what I've got today. On July the 15th, 2003 we had wrote comments on that high-voltage petition, and we had six pages of comments, and then we met with Jim Walters and agreed on all of our comments, and worked out our concerns. It was sent to MSHA, and they took all that we had met with basically out of it, and said that the regulations that Jim Walter wouldn't have to meet with all that we felt that it would take to make a safe high-voltage petition. So then it rocked on, we met with Bob Phillips on February the 19th of 2004 to try to work out our concerns that MSHA felt like wasn't concerns. And basically what he told us was that Jim Walter wasn't no need meeting all we felt it would take to make it safe, that the regulations, you know, that they wouldn't have to do that with the new regulations. Then you go on and read now in the general discussion Part 75, high-voltage continuous mining machines, safety standards, it states moreover to our knowledge there have been no electrical fatalities resulting from using high-voltage equipment under granted petition. Now, why you want to wait to have someone killed to say that there's more that we could do to make it safe for miners. You know, that's the thing can't basically understand. MSHA knows there's more out there that we can do to make it safe. I feel that they should listen to what all the miners have had to say in the past, and consider everything that's been sent to MSHA. That's all I've got. MR. NICHOLS: Okay, Glen. Thank you. Hold on, Glen, Salwa has a question. MS. EL-BASSIONI: The comments you sent in 2003, does this have to do with high-voltage long wall, or the continuous miner? MR. LOGGINS: Continuous miner. MS. EL-BASSIONI: Continuous miner. MR. NICHOLS: Anyone else? [No response] MR. NICHOLS: Thank you, Glen. [Witness excused.] MR. NICHOLS: Our next presenter will be James Blankenship with the United Mineworkers of America. MR. BLANKENSHIP: I am James Blankenship, I'm a safety committeeman with the UMW Local 2245, District 20, United Mine Workers, employed at Jim Walter Resources Number 4 Mine. Bear with me, because I got notification about this late yesterday, and I tried to put some comments together. I'm going to try to walk through it as quick as possible. Start on Page 42813 under the right-hand column it says -- almost at the bottom of the column it says: Although the proposed include most requirements that were in the granted PFMs allowed by the high-voltage continuous mining machine, it does not include all the requirements. When I read that I wondered why not, because when I turned the page I saw what you had left out. You know, I felt like if the operators and MSHA at some point in time thought those were undoubtedly needed things in the petitions, why would MSHA take them out now. I couldn't figure that one out, and I'm asking MSHA to put them back in, and I will address why later on in my talk. You know, somebody somewhere thought that was safety parts that needed to be there. And if you turn to Page 42814, it lists the things that you took out, limiting operating voltage, it's not limited to the manufacturer's specification of 2,400 volts, it allows it to go to 4,160 at the drop of a hat. I've got a problem with that for the fact is, you know, an individual one day is handling 2,400 volts, and the next he's handling 4,160 without any procedure to make sure that we've got everything covered, safety aspects or whatever, without us going back through the petitions, or back through a hearing, or whatever we have to do to make sure that the miner, the individual that's handling the cable is protected. And Part 2 of that was the splices. You didn't limit any splices on high-voltage cable. I don't know how many of you all have been underground lately, or this gentleman back here, but splices just by dragging them up and down the entries are damaged, and the more we have in that cable the more likely we're putting a miner into hazard conditions, into a shock hazard of being electrocuted. I think that there should be a number. In our petition I think it was three permanent splices in that high-voltage cable. Allowing a tape splices -- I know it says MSHA-approved kit in here, high-voltage kit and all that. Again, I'm an electrician, I've used MSHA splices every day, approved splices on other cables. And at first they look real good if you leave them sitting on the bucket that you make them on, but when you drag them up and down the entry day after day -- and we run between shifts, the miners continuously run them every day, we don't slow down except to be worked on -- and you're going to have a lot of damage to those splices. It needs to be a vulcanized splice, one that's less likely to be damaged. Our feeder cables are hung from the power center to the feeder on the ribs. They don't lay on the ground except for the slack at the power center. I did an inspection the other day on one of our feeders, found three splices that leads were exposed, that you could see through, for the fact is when they move the feeder up they've got to put the cable down on the ground and drag it, and in time those three splices were damaged. That's what we're doing here to high-voltage cable. We're going to allow it to be damaged, we're going to allow individuals to be handling it, and if we do what this gentleman says we're going to allow individuals to handle it with no protection. That's wrong, that's totally wrong. The next part that was left out was the training requirements. You mentioned the training in the regulations already. It's not sufficient to train an individual on high-voltage. I looked through some of it here, and it talks about new and modified machines. It says equipment and machine operators shall be instructed in safe operating procedures applicable to new and modified machines or equipment to be installed or put into operation in the mines which requires a new or different operating procedure. It says the operator. It doesn't talk about the general inside labor that gets sent up there that day because the operator is on vacation, or a roof bolter, or whoever gets sent up there that day to work on that machine. It needs to be the people, the workers at the mines all need to be trained on high-voltage miner, because we don't know from day to day due to absenteeism, due to running more shifts, or more miner sections that day -- if we've got a lot of extra people and less absenteeism they might run another section, and they make that section up from individuals, general inside laborers, belt people, whoever they've got left over, not specifically a miner operator or a miner helper. Anybody could be on that miner, so we need to train them all, every one of them on the high-voltage miner and the hazards and what you have, and the safety things you have to do when you run that miner. That needs to be part of the annual retraining. Every year you get that, everybody, not just the miner operator and the electricians, everybody at that mine site -- union, company, salaried, whoever needs to be trained on that thing, because we don't know who's going to handle that cable, we don't know who's going to be down looking at it, who could get killed, who could be around that machine. Those things that was left out I really think you need to really consider strongly putting them back in. And Page 42818 talks about the training in here. Again I go back to I think it's not adequate what you've got in here, and I really hope you do consider making some changes and having some more training for the individuals out there. If you'll turn to 41820, you talk about an on-board power circuit. It says proposed Paragraph (c) of 75.824 would require mine operators to implement certain procedures if a ground phase indicator light was provided on a high-voltage continuous mining machine, and it indicates a ground fault phase. It says if it's provided. We need to make that that it is provided, mandatory that it's provided on there. It can be added to the machine, there's no big to-do to do that. Some machines have them, I know that already. I don't know of any machine that don't have them. But this says if that machine don't come with it they don't have to put it on there. We need that on there for the protection of the miners. If you read on through there it talks about what they'll do if that light comes on, they'll back it into a supported top, and then find the repairs, find out why that light came on. Without that light, that miner is still possibly going to run, and you've got individuals up there that could possibly come in harm's way due to that fact. It's simple. Make them have the light, and if the light comes on they do what you say in the regs as far as the procedure to take care of it. If you turn to 42821 you talk about an interlocking device, it's on the third column, second paragraph down, you talk about -- it says if possible in Paragraph (f) we would also consider revising the requirements that the interlock de-energize high-voltage circuits when covers and barriers are removed by adding an exception for trouble-shooting control circuits. I don't think any exception should be made that interlocks jumped out or whatever. In this article you talked about a switch that you could turn to do away with the interlocks and take the covers off and whatever. It don't need to be on there, because if it's on there it's going to be run like that. Not intentionally, it could be by accident or whatever. Somebody could forget to turn the switch back, and then an individual goes over there and pulls the covers off thinking that when he pulls it off even though he got the power off the equipment already anything could happen. He could pull his covers off, and the power could actually be still in that box. We don't need that. If an individual has to go in a box to trouble-shoot, he needs to lock and tag it out, he needs to take the cover off, make sure there's no power, then he can put the power back on under a controlled situation where he can trouble-shoot what he has to. We don't need to allow an individual to pull a cover off with power in there. If he drops that cover and it slides taking it off, it could slip out of his hand, fall in the box, he's got the cover in his hand and the cover touches energized wires he's electrocuted. We don't need that. We don't need to take that chance. We need to make sure that all power is off the machine, and there's no way to do away with the cover interlocks, that they will work, if the cover is removed it will also make sure that there's no power in that box. We do it now. I mean all the equipment we've got now we have to knock the power lock tag out, take the covers off, make sure there's no power, everything is right, we put the power back on and then we trouble-shoot. We find the problem, we kill the power, we fix it. It's no different than this. Why take the chance. Don't do it, please. If we go to 42822 it talks about cable guarding. In our petition at Jim Walters from the miner, where the cable enters the miner back we asked for, and the company said they would be glad to do it, a guard on that piece of cable. 75 feet is what we asked for. That's the piece of cable that's going to be handled the most by miners from the miner about 75 feet. Why can't we require management, or require the operators to put a guard, a rubber, a piece of gasket or whatever on that first 75 feet. That's the part that goes across -- when the miner is moving across the heads, that's the part that the miner helper or the miner operator is standing around when they're working that's the part they're move with their hands most of the time. Probably 80 percent of the time that'll be what they handle. Why can't we cover it with something else, conduit or whatever for the first 75 feet. That way we're assuring that there's some extra protection there. That's the part that's most likely to be hit by a ram car, or the miner is going to back up on, that's the part that's going to be damaged. Why take the chance. With something so simple we can require that it's guarded -- it's simple. We put a little bit more protection on an individual's life. And if you turn to 48823 it talks about handling cable. I totally, totally disagree with this gentleman about handling any high-voltage cable, no matter how good they build it, without protection, because for one thing it's man-made and it will fail. Everything down in that mine is man-made, and there's a likelihood at some point in time it will fail, it will not do what it's supposed to do, and we all know that. I mean we're all human, we can't make anything that's perfect, so we need to make sure that if that incident does occur that an individual has got some more protection, and that's way beyond rubber gloves. In reading this last night I saw -- and you read it today, Mr. Nichols -- about the cables would be smaller. We don't have a high-voltage miner in our mines, but I have talked to some individuals from Jim Walter Number 7 mines that their miner cable was actually bigger, not smaller, bigger than the 995 miners. I'm a pretty big fellow, I can probably take a pair of rubber gloves and pick that cable up and do what I want to with it at arm's length, but there's a lot of people in the mines, women, men that's not as big as I am, not as strong as I am who are going to have to have that cable in close to them to pick it up, supporting it against their chest, their shoulders, or whatever to get that cable to where they need to put it, whether they're hanging it, putting it on the miner head, or whatever. We need to make sure that those individuals are protected. We need to require management to have chest protectors, face protectors, the rubber gloves, hooks, prongs, whatever we've got to have to be there available for the individuals to use when they need them. Not just be there to have, require them to have them. In our plan that we had that was the only stick we couldn't, the only thing we couldn't agree on. We agreed on everything else, the guarding and everything except the handling the cable. We've got a lot of women that works in our mines. There's no way on earth they can pick that miner cable up out here with gloves and do what they've got to. They've got to get it in to them, it's got to touch their body, and let them do what they've got to do with it. We need to protect them. We need to protect them, we need to require management to have all that stuff there. It's out there. I mean I'm not claiming to be an expert on what's out there to protect them, but I know some stuff is out there. So we need to get it, we need to require management to have it; we need to require them to have people to use it. It's going to protect their life some day. Hopefully nobody ever gets hurt with this thing, but there's always that possibility. Like Glenn said, Mr. Phillips, we met with him and every time we brought up the issue his thing was "Well, nobody has been killed so far." That's great. Let's don't wait until they are, let's don't wait until we've got a death and say "Oh, yeah, let's change this law and put this protection in here." Let's do it now. It's not going to hurt anybody, it's not going to cost a lot of time or trouble. It's not going to cost a lot of money. Once the initiation of getting everything in there, we take care of it and we're okay, we can do it. On the same page, 48823 you introduce high-voltage diesel generators into the mines with this to move the miner. In the other regulations I was reading last night it was talking about low- or medium-voltage diesel generators. I'm not sure about why we're doing high-voltage in here. We're giving management the opportunity to -- and I know in this thing it says typically high-voltage generators can't run the miner to produce coal and all that, and that's true, but all management has got to do is make a phone call and say "Make me one that does," and somebody will make it for them. If there's a need, somebody will make it, somebody will make that money, and we'll have a diesel-powered generator down there that's capable of running that miner. And I'll give you a good example. The hurricane that came through Alabama a month or so ago, I was standing talking to Fred Cozul, vice president of operations of Jim Walter Mines, and Keith Shelby, the mine manager at Jim Walter Number 4. Everybody was predicting power outages and all that stuff for the state of Alabama through our area, and out of their mouth, out of Fred Cozul's mouth "If I only had a diesel-powered generator that would run everything would be okay." That's his thinking. So if you give him the opportunity in this law to get a high-voltage diesel-powered generator he will get one. The man wants to make money, he wants to make that mine make a lot of money which is fine. I agree with him on that a hundred percent, but not this way. This is dangerous. We need to really consider this and how it's going to be implemented. There's no language in here that restricts them. It just says they can't do it because it won't do it now. There's nothing in here that I can find -- like I said, I didn't get this until yesterday, and I was up at three o'clock this morning trying to read through it, but I don't find any language in here that says you cannot do this. It just says it won't do it. Somewhere out there somebody will make one that will do it. We need to make sure that that's covered. And if I missed it, I apologize, but I couldn't find it in there. We'll move on to Page 42824, again that's where it talks about the diesel generators and typically they won't run a miner enough to produce coal and all that stuff. That's the other part of the page. And on the same page it talks about on-board set-up transformers. It says proposed Paragraph (c)(2) of 75.829 -- this is on the right-hand column, bottom paragraph -- is derived from granted PFMs for the use of high-voltage continuous mining machines. It will allow the use of a temporary on-board set-up transformer. The transformer would convert low- or medium-voltage to power the continuous mining machine. There's nothing saying how that's going to be attached, how it's going to be done safe to the miner. When you look back at the drawings at the back of the regs there you've got the set-up transformer setting on the boom of the miner. Is that really safe? Is that a good location for it? I don't think so. There's a possibility of that boom swinging and it could get knocked off or whatever. You also talk on Page 48825, it says that the generator will be securely installed on board the continuous mining machine preventing it from falling off the machine to maximize vibration. How's that going to be done? We need to specify that. I mean sitting on the back of the boom, I just don't see that being a safe place to put it, I don't see it being where it cannot be knocked off, or drug off, or whatever. We need to specify in a section where it be bolted to, strapped to, some way that we're going to guarantee it doesn't come flying off there. Okay. Move on to on that same Page 825 again we talk about the high-voltage generators. We need to look hard at that. I mean it's mentioned in here several times that they can use it, and what they can do with it, but it don't say what they can't do with it. We really need to look at that hard, because if there's money to be made and that's the way they can do it it will be done. If it can be done safely, then let's go it safely, but there's nothing in here that says that. If that's something we're going to look at, let's redo the thing and look at it on what safety aspects we have to do. On 42826, again this is the splices that we talked about, I talked about earlier. Again, like I said there's no limit, and it talks about how they're made as the MSHA-approved high-voltage kit, but there's no talk, no language in here about training. It says in the kit there's instructions. There's instructions in every kit down there, but not everybody looks at them. This is where some more training needs to come in to the electricians in their annual retraining. Before the equipment comes underground the people that's going to be making those splices need to be trained on how to make that splice. If that's what we're going to stay with, we need to make sure that we get that done as proper as we can, and as safe as we can. I hope we don't do that. I hope we go to a strictly vulcanized splice. We do on the long wall, they come in and vulcanize it. Actually our electricians vulcanize it now. We can do that on our side, I mean our electricians are capable of doing that. We've got the equipment, and we've done it on the long walls. So we need to make sure we need to do that part of it, but if we don't, if for some reason it doesn't get to that we will need to make sure that there's training, and it's addressed, and it will way you'll do it, and it'll say when you'll do it, and you'll do it prior to the machine going underground, you'll do it in every annual retraining, every electrical refresher training, or whatever. It needs to be done. If we move on to 42829 it talks about trailing cable inspections. It says that a qualified person once each production day will de-energize the cable and make the visual checks from the power center to the miner, and it says each production shift a responsible person designated by the operator will check the cable 150 feet from the miner back, from the miner back 150 feet. Well, that's good, but there needs to be some more added to it. You're talking about production. They're not the only people handling that miner. Let's talk about idle shifts. They come in, you run that miner two shifts, they come in to do the setup, do the maintenance on the miner, you know, set the section up for the next shift. They have to move that miner from 4 entry to 1 entry. That cable still needs to be checked that time. It needs to say when the miner is being moved, when the miner is being worked on, or some language like that, not just a production shift, because there's more people around that miner than just production people. There's more times that miner is moved and handled than just production. We need to make sure that's covered. And the production shift a responsible person, I would like to see a qualified person, an electrician or somebody that knows what they're actually looking for, that will recognize a bad splice if they see one, "I know this is bad and we need to do something about it," that knows -- This gentleman talked about the colored cables, and I understand that they'll change colors if there's a bad place in it, or something like that, that they'll know what they're looking for. Not just a responsible person, somebody that's qualified to do that job. Again, please consider the idle shifts that have to handle that cable and handle that miner. They have to handle the cable just as much as the operator does when they move it across the sections. We need to address that with them, not just production. And, you know, once each production day walking the whole cable, I know it probably won't happen, but I'd like to see it once each shift they walk the whole cable and check it, because if I check it at seven o'clock Monday morning and I don't check it again until seven o'clock Tuesday morning, and all the slack we've talked about either hanging or putting in a barricade in the unused entry or whatever could have got damaged in those 24 hours since I was there the last time as an electrician. So why not every shift? It wouldn't take that long for an electrician to start the power center and walk the miner cable, visually look over it and make sure everything is okay. That's something I would like for you to consider. Okay. Let's go to 42830 which is where the section was that talks about the gloves, the protective equipment. Like I said earlier, we need more than gloves, and we definitely, definitely don't need to have nothing. And I understand this gentleman is proud of his work, and I appreciate that, and I'm glad he's doing good work, because my people are the ones handling that. Friends of mine are handling those cables. My son works at Oak Grove, he handles those cables; I don't want him killed. But it's man-made, it will fail. Everything in this system will fail at one time, we know that, and I know there's all kinds of backups, and all kinds of circuits and all this stuff built into it, but again it's man-made, it will fail. It might be ten years, but it will fail. So we need to make sure when it does, or if it does the people that's handling that cable are protected fully with protective equipment as far as gloves, chest providers, shoulders, face guards, whatever it takes to make sure if something happens they don't get electrocuted, or burned, or whatever down there. I guess I've kept you long enough. In closing I'd just like to reiterate a little bit about there's better plans. I know our location in Jim Walter Number 4 management sat down and worked out a better plan than what you've got here to protect the miners and get what the company wanted as far as the high-voltage miner. It can be done. It can be done safely, and it can be productive for everybody. I'm asking you to consider what I've said today. A lot of what I've said is in our plan, or was in our plan before it got destroyed by Mr. Phillips or whoever done it. And don't wait to what Mr. Phillips said, "Show me somebody that's been injured or killed with high-voltage and then we'll look at it." I had a good friend killed at 4160, it shot out of the cable, hit him in his partial, killed him. Never tripped the power. That was in the '70s I grant you. I know things have changed, but in the '70s at that time with that technology we didn't think that would happen, and it did. Well, times have changed, technology has got better. We don't think it will happen, but it will. I mean it will happen. We need to make sure that we protect them. One problem I had with this petition and the generator petition, we had a cost savings thing in there. I don't understand that really why MSHA is worried about the cost to operate. I can't put a price on a life, and I hope y'all can't either. Trust me, I want Jim Walter to make a fortune because I've got a job, I've got kids in college, or actually I've got bills to pay because they've graduated from college, but I don't want that at the expense of somebody's life. And I can't put a price on life. Our contract does only $40,000. That's not good. So we need to make sure that -- we've got the power here to make sure that there's other things in this thing, in this petition that says, okay, we're going to give you every protection humanly possible that you don't get hurt, or don't get killed. And I appreciate your time, and I wish I could have been a little bit more, but it was just kind of short notice on me. MR. NICHOLS: That's okay, James. This comment period does not close until December the 10th, so if you come up with additional thoughts or comments, send them to us. MR. BLANKENSHIP: Sure will. MR. NICHOLS: Does anyone have any questions? Yes, Salwa. MS. EL-BASSIONI: I just wonder if you're going to submit any of your comments that you covered today in writing, because you've covered a lot of ground. MR. BLANKENSHIP: I'm not prepared today, but I will. I will mail them to you, because like I said I was up until three o'clock this morning trying to read this -- both of them actually, the diesel and this, and I just made some notes and highlighted some stuff in the plan here, and talked from the heart a lot of it. But I will, I'll get my wife to write it and type it up so she'll get it to you. MS. EL-BASSIONI: Thank you. MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Anybody else? [No response] MR. NICHOLS: Thank you, James. Keith, how tight is your schedule? MR. FLOWLER: I'm fine. MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Let's take a break until 10:10. Be back in at ten after. [A brief recess.] MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Why don't we get started back. Our next presenter will be Keith Flowler from the United Mineworkers of America. MR. FLOWLER: Good morning. MR. NICHOLS: Good morning. MR. FLOWLER: My name is Keith Flowler, I'm chairman of the health and safety committee for the United Mineworkers Local 2397, District 20, employed by Jim Walter Resources Number 7 mine in Brookwood, Alabama. I would like to start off by saying I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, even though it was yesterday morning before I got notice of hits hearing today. I guess you can look around and see there's not many people here, so even though we know it was posted on the Internet, okay, we didn't receive anything, I guess any mail-outs or anything. We knew about the one that had got canceled prior to the election that was scheduled. MR. NICHOLS: What happened was we had a request from the Mineworkers to schedule a hearing in Morgantown, and they weren't opposed to us switching that one in Pittsburgh, so that's what we did, but we had to rearrange the schedule. We sent out a separate notice, and we also notified the UMW headquarters. MR. FLOWLER: Okay. So some of the fault might lie on our headquarters ourself. But I appreciate the local MSHA, some of the local MSHA inspectors. That's how we found out about it yesterday morning notifying us. But anyway, needless to say, I'm here today first off to tell you that as a representative of the Mineworkers we strongly oppose this regulation as written. We do not think that it provides the level of safety that some of the current petitions for modifications that's already out there in existence. I happen to work at a mine where we currently have a petition for a high-voltage miner, and even though maybe there might be some parts, small parts of it that we disagreed on, we pretty well worked out most of the language between management and the union on that petition. I guess it's been working pretty fairly for us without many complications. We've had some minor problems that we've addressed on a local basis and had them took care of. In the new regulations that's proposed I see that you all haven't took into account several of the safeguards that was in the original petition, and it appears to me today that MSHA is coming out trying to have a one-size-fits-all regulation instead of what I think the Mine Act's intentions was from the 101(c) petition that was put in there was to address mine-specific regulations, or mine-specific mining methods. And I still think that's the right way to do it is to be back to the mine-specific instead of having one total regulation out there, because conditions in mines change drastically from the same height to types of coal seams that they mine throughout the nation. And one of the I guess other concerns I have was with this regulation along with some of the last few regulations that's been proposed and put into law by MSHA is that it seems like the only regulations that MSHA is looking at now is the ones that's industry-driven. And when I say industry-driven, I mean that's established to make profits for the coal companies, and not looking at extreme safety for the miners that work down there. You know, there's no doubt that we need to produce coal, there's no doubt that we should move forward as technology moves forward out there. But also at the end of the day I think it's MSHA's responsibility to look at safety number one prior to production, and I think that they have not done that in this proposed rule. That is my opinion. Also before I forget I will assure you that we will be addressing comments in written form later on. I do not have them today. I know the Mineworkers and I might myself attend some other hearings that you've got scheduled, I think in Lexington there's one. So we'll be maybe more familiar to address some more of our concerns at that time. But I am prepared today to address some of the concerns that we have outlined, and I'll try to do that. Bear with me as I read some of this out, but I do want it into the record so I'm going to read it. The proposed rule does not continue the practice of limiting the voltage, and instead permits operators to increase voltage up to 4,160 volts with input from MSHA or the miners' representatives. This creates an extremely hazardous situation. To the union's knowledge there are no trailing cables that contain this amount of current. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the effects that routine wear and tear will have on such energized cables. Further, handling cables on a continuous basis as will be required by the very nature of the equipment being energized containing such high voltages has never been a practice because of the obvious danger it presents to miners. Finally, site-specific safety enhancements which are extremely important will be eliminated in favor of the one-size-fits-all approach contained in the proposed rule. One of the things that the new regulation does not address is the specific height from the mine floor that the cables can be suspended while traveling under them. It talks about guarding cables, or hanging cables to travel under them or over them, and I know the -- I guess if you go back to your regular high-voltage regulation it talks about the six and a half feet above the mine floor for people to travel across under. Well, this regulation does not specifically address that, and I know from dealing with the various operators and agencies that I've dealt with are going to say if you've got this regulation it does not pertain to your regular high-voltage regulations. So I think that needs to be definitely added into there with the height requirements that the cable has to be suspended where you can travel under it. Another thing, due to miners having to handle the high-voltage cable on a regular basis I'm going to read out some of the following language that's strictly straight out of our petition that should have been adopted, and I haven't seen it in the regulations. This guy talked about the cable, the two layers, and I haven't seen a lot of it talked in this new regulation, and some of the things that's in our petition says a protective jacket shall consist of two layers, an outer and an inner protective jacket insulation. The single-jacketed cable suitable for use in underground mines may be permitted by the district manager when the tear strength of the outer protective jacket is more than 100 pounds per square inch. The color black shall not be used for either of the two protective insulation layers, and the innermost layer of the two-layer insulation jacket shall be colored a distinctive color from the outer jacket to allow easy recognition of the danger areas to the outer protective jacket. And we just feel like that that's been of good use for us in our petitions and it should be added into the regulations as stated. Another thing, on the splice that we feel like should have been added to the regulations or the petition is each splice or major repair shall be made so that all cable components are in place with similar components. Repairs should be considered major if there is any damage to the metallic shielding, the semiconductor tape, inner conductor insulation, or the conductors. And I don't think the regulations really spell out in detail what would consist of a damaged cable having to be repaired or spliced, and I think that was some pretty good language in our petition that we got through from negotiations between management and union to try to put in there to identify when it has to be in place. Also I think one of the other guys has already addressed one of the things about the regulations not addressing how many splices are allowed in this miner cable. Anyone that's ever worked in the mining industry knows that whether you vulcanize a splice, or make a splice, no matter how good you do it's not going to be to the same added protection that you get when you get the cable from the manufacturer. If you did, they would come in with splices all the time. So why would MSHA set up a program where you could put unlimited amount of splices. You've got to realize that miners will be having to handle this cable from time to time, so there should be a limited number of splices, and our petition did have a limited number of splices in it. And I think the regulation did address how close to the entrance to miner the splice could be made, but did not address how many, or how often they could be. So there should be some limit on how many splices you're going to have down there. You don't want a miner cable down there with just an unlimited amount of splices with miners handling it all the time. Another thing you talked about is handling this cable. We've got miners that's getting elderly, their strength is not the way it was. I think James addressed some of this. There are different types of miners down there, everything from a small miner, to ladies, to a strong miner, and some cannot lift this cable. We definitely need to look at either having something in the regulation of how it's going to be handled by what means, or how many people are going to handle it, or as some type of protection to keep them from coming in contact with their body handling this cable. You know, you get out here in the industry and you see a cable laying down through here, it looks pretty clean and everything else, but I assure you there's not a mine in Alabama -- and I can that because I've been in every one of them now in Alabama -- that does not have muddy conditions, the cable does not get clogged up with mud and everything else, which increases the weight of the cable while the miner is having to pick it up and handling it, so there should be something addressed in there, either another device to handle the cable when you're hanging it, or specified that it shall not come in contact with the body at any time, and therefore maybe we could have some type of regulation saying that we would have to have enough people to handle that cable so that one person wouldn't be coming in contact, lifting it and coming in contact with their body. There's nothing addressed in there about that. Another thing, it talked about hanging the cable on insulated hangers, and it might be in there but I didn't look -- if it was, I overlooked it while I was briefly going through, but this cable should not be hung from the power, or should be hung from the power center all the way to the last cross-cut on insulated hangers, and I think that's in the regulation. What I did not see is that I feel like the regulation should state that this cable should be hung prior to power being put on, or the cable being energized. Therefore, you're limiting the people that have to handle this cable while it is energized. Another thing it does not address is if the cable gets tore down, if you've got it hung on insulators and it gets tore down, or for some reason the hangers fall, can you just go back there with these gloves and hang it back up for a distance of 1,200 feet, 1,400 feet. So I feel like we should start off with it de-energized, hung up to the last double cross-cut, or within 150 feet of pillar workings, whichever one you're doing, and if it's retreat mining prior to it being energized. Once again I'll go back to training. Our petition specifically spells out miners being trained. Even though it doesn't go into as much detail as we would like for it to, we do not feel like depending on another section of the law to cover training is adequate. If you're going to set up new regulations pertaining to high-voltage miners, what's the problem with adding in the training part of it instead of relying on another section of the law. We feel like that anyone that's going to be working around that miner cable should have to be properly trained on the handling of the cable, all the parts of the regulations that deals with handling it, hanging it, and even checking it, and what you do and what equipment you have to wear. And I do not understand -- it probably wouldn't have taken another little paragraph to add this regulation to talk about the training and why we want to depend on another regulation. Why not add it in as we go with the new regulations. Another thing I didn't see is anything addressed in there -- and once again I apologize if I overlooked it -- but that talked about how long this cable can be, the total length of the cable. I know there's a lot of petitions I've seen out there that limits you to 1,200 feet length of cable, and I think that's very important so that you don't end up with cable laying all over your section or everywhere. So there should be some type of a total overall length that the cable can be provided on these miners. The more cable you've got, the more you've got to deal with storing it, and the more likelihood of increasing the damage to the cable with people running over it or coming in contact with it. Once again, prior to closing I just want to make sure that the record is clear that even though I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, I think we should go back to the drawing board on this regulation. The regulation should not be approved or written as is stated in the proposal, and that you go back and look at the petitions, there's a lot of safeguards that's been added into petitions over the years that miners out there working with the cable as miners' reps and as operators have sat down and worked out conditions, and as far as I know nobody has had any problem with I guess loss of production living within the petitions. So myself, I think you should leave it to a petition mine-site-by-mine-site basis, but at the very least if you're not going to leave it as a mine-site approval petition at least incorporate all the safeguards that's in the petition that's out there. That's all I've got. I appreciate your time. MR. NICHOLS: Okay, Keith, thanks. Salwa. MS. EL-BASSIONI: I just have a few questions or clarifications. You mentioned that we failed to address the specific heights for hanging cables. MR. FLOWLER: That's right. MS. EL-BASSIONI: Are there any provisions in the petitions that you're aware of regarding heights? MR. FLOWLER: Yes, ma'am. It addresses the six-and-a-half-foot, that the cable has to be hung six and a half foot if you're going to cross under the cable. MS. EL-BASSIONI: Okay. You also mentioned that we omitted from the petition some provisions regarding cable designs. Can you be specific on that? MR. FLOWLER: Would you ask that again? MS. EL-BASSIONI: You mentioned that we omitted from the proposed rule some provisions that were in the petitions regarding cable designs. MR. FLOWLER: My address I think on that was the layers, the two layers, inner and outer jacketed cable, the color-distinctive of the cable, it not being black where that you could tell if you had a problem with the inner jacket or outer jacket I think what I was addressing on the cable design. MS. EL-BASSIONI: Okay. Have you looked at Part 18? Are you aware that we addressed some of these provisions on Part 18? MR. FLOWLER: No, ma'am, I have not, I cannot say that I have looked over that. That's what I'm saying, I might have made a mistake on not seeing some of that. MS. EL-BASSIONI: I think most of them are addressed in Part 18. MR. FLOWLER: The distinctive colors, and having two layers, the outer and inner jacket. MS. EL-BASSIONI: And Bob maybe can elaborate on that. Do you have some of these provisions? MR. BORING: Yes, we do. MS. EL-BASSIONI: Okay. That's all I have. MR. NICHOLS: Ron, go ahead. MR. STAHLHUT: You mentioned the single jacketed cable in the petition. MR. FLOWLER: Yes. MR. STAHLHUT: Could you clarify? Were you recommending that be included in the regulation? MR. FLOWLER: No. I was saying a single-jacket should not be. MR. STAHLHUT: Okay. I just wanted to clarify what you were saying there. MR. FLOWLER: Should not be. I want to make that clear. MR. NICHOLS: Anybody else? [No response] MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Thanks, Keith. MR. FLOWLER: Thank you. MR. NICHOLS: Our next presenter will be Rob Dzorino, Jim Walter Resources. Rob. MR. DZORINO: Good morning. I am Rob Dzorino from Jim Walter Resources Number 7 Mine. I like the previous speakers didn't really find out about this until late yesterday afternoon, so we will probably submit some written comments or whatever at a later date, but I didn't have a whole lot of time to go through this. Just a few comments that I wanted to make about a few of the proposed regulations and a few of the sections. First off I guess under 75.828, or proposed 828, talking about the cable handling and pulling issue, as the gentleman earlier at the table spoke about how safe the cable is and the requirements for it. We currently use, in our petition we currently use high-voltage gloves, and we're not advocating that we don't, but I think the operators ought to be given the choice, you know, possibly given the choice whether to or not, depending based on the fact of the safety of the cable. As far as the gloves themselves, I wanted -- and I guess that goes into 75.833 I believe talking about the requirements of the gloves a little bit, Part (b) in 833 talks about Class I gloves 7,500 volts rated or greater, which we don't have any problems with that. The section talks about leather protectors saying that you've got to have the leather protectors, and the amount of time that you have to electrically test these every 30 days, the manufacturer of the gloves states in their recommendations that if you go up on a higher-class glove to a Class II glove the leather protectors are not needed, necessarily needed, the leather provides no electrical protection, it's there to protect the rubber glove. So, you know, we would like the rules to reflect that if you did go up to follow the manufacturer's recommendations and if you used Class II gloves you wouldn't necessarily have to use the leather protectors, that would be your choice to do that. As far as currently what's in our petition, under 75.818 I think where it talks about that these gloves, the rubber portion of the gloves will be tested every six months, the proposed petition is talking about every 30 days. Now, it's not just one individual that's handling these cables, there are several individuals that are handling these cables, so there are several sets of gloves that are out there per shift, you know, times three shifts a day, and depending on how many sections you've got with these types of miners on it. The other issue that comes into handling here I guess is the fact that you've got Miner A, you know, he's got his hands in a set of gloves, Miner B does not want to put his hands in the same gloves that Miner A did, you know, from a health standpoint, let me say it that way. So you've got numerous sets of gloves here. To turn these around to electrically test them, you know, they have to be sent off either in this area I think to Atlanta or Mississippi to be tested. That's generally a two- to three-week turnaround time to get these gloves, so we're talking a logistical problem here I think as far as testing these gloves on such a fast frequency. As far as the safety aspect of it, as safe as the cable is I don't think the testing on every 30 days is actually adding any enhanced safety ability to it on that. The six months I think is far superior, or is far adequate I should say as far as the testing on them. The other issue that I wanted to talk about a little bit, the requirements that the previous speaker talked about, the splicing and repair of the cables. The cable itself, there's no definition actually in the regulations under 830 that defines what a high-voltage splice is as opposed to a repair, and I think that that needs spelled out, you know, actually defined in the regulations, that this is what constitutes a splice, this is what constitutes a repair spot. And it's not very clear in there. As far as any of the other protective devices that have been brought up or talked about, first of all the cable was a one-ought cable, is actually smaller and weighs less than a 995 miner cable does, it's physically smaller, and does weigh, so handling is not any more difficult picking it up than it is a 995 miner which, you know, trailing cables, so from that standpoint we feel that the gloves are adequate to do the job. And I think those are the only comments that I'm really prepared today to talk about, and we will reserve any more for in writing in the future. MR. NICHOLS: Okay, Rob. Like we mentioned with the other presenters, the record closes on the 10th of December, so keep reading and keep commenting. MR. DZORINO: Okay. MR. NICHOLS: Does anyone have any questions for Rob? [No response.] MR. NICHOLS: Okay. Thanks, Rob. Is there anyone else in the audience that wants to give us comments on the high-voltage continuous miner rule? [No response.] MR. NICHOLS: Okay. What we're going to do here, and I have worked it out with Len, we're going to switch gears and go ahead and start taking comments on the portable diesel generator rule. What we will need to do is take about a 15-minute break, I'll need to switch panels here, and anyone that wants to give comments on the portable diesel generator rule go to the desk and sign our speaker's sheet, and we'll get started back -- we'll try to get started back at ten until eleven. [A brief recess.] MR. NICHOLS: This is Marvin Nichols, we are going back on the record for the high-voltage continuous miner rule. There have been no additional people show up to give testimony, so we will now close the record on the high-voltage continuous miner rule. We will reconvene at one o'clock to continue the hearing on the portable diesel generator rule. [At 12:00 noon the public hearing was concluded.] ??