From Saturday's Washington Post:

U.S. mine safety regulators failed to conduct inspections required by federal law at more than one in seven of the country's 731 underground coal mines last year, a year in which the number of worker deaths in mining accidents more than doubled to 47, a government report says.

The report is by the Department of Labor Inspector General, and it doesn't engender much confidence in the nation's premiere mine safety regulatory body. The IG report finds one major problem is a basic lack of documentation:

15 percent of the critical inspection activities we reviewed were not documented. This occurred because [MSHA's Office of Coal Mine Safety and Heath] did not require inspectors to document all critical inspection activities performed and Field Office supervisors to document their conclusions.

MSHA administrator Richard Stickler defends his agency by blaming paperwork, a favorite scapegoat of the anti-regulatory crowd. Stickler is quoted in the Post as stating, "Valuable and limited enforcement time by our inspectors should be placed primarily on identifying and abating hazards as a result of inspections rather than documentation and paperwork,"

That sounds nice, but what's the use of performing inspections if you don't write down the results? That's like trying to make a TV show with no cameras.

The IG report also discusses resource shortfalls at the agency. Much like we've seen with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, cuts in funding and staffing correspond with regulatory failures. Again, from the Post:

The number of MSHA coal mine inspectors fell 18 percent between 2002 and 2006, from 605 to 496, while mining activity increased 9 percent nationally. Funding for the coal safety and health agency increased 1 percent over that period, to $117 million, but that was not enough to offset cost-of-living salary increases for its personnel, which grew $6.1 million.