Joe Main
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"Joe Main" is the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, and head of the United States Department of Labor/United States Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration. He was nominated to serve the position by Barack Obama and took office after being confirmed by the United States Senate on October 21, 2009.

Main was born and raised in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania/Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania/Greene County, Pennsylvania. He began working in coal mines in 1967. In 1974 he was hired as an assistant to the International President of the United Mine Workers of America. He later served as a safety inspector, administrative assistant and deputy director in the UMWA's Safety Division. In 1982 he was appointed administrator of the UMWA Occupational Health and Safety Department where he oversaw health and safety programs.

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Even with that, that's not enough air to get those miners out of these circumstances which we all know now they find themselves in.

Study all you want. That's good. That's healthy, but don't preclude action with study.

It appears that MSHA is trying to catch up with the state legislative activity on a number of these issues.

I'm a believer that we do not have enough air on these miners to get them safely out of harm's way. That's what the government should be guaranteeing.

All those issues, those were moving toward a regulatory conclusion. We think that was the wrong thing to do.

Work was in progress to implement some of these protections.

That's normally issued to mine operators that basically thumb their nose to the law, these unwarrantable failure violations.