Violations include failure to follow the approved roof control and mine ventilation plans and problems concerning emergency escapeways and required pre-shift safety examinations.

"[10] Davitt McAteer, Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety during the Clinton administration, told the Gazette, "The numbers don't sound good....[they are] sufficiently high that it should tip off management that there is something amiss here.

"[11] On January 3, 2006, Bruce Watzman of the National Mining Association, interviewed by Tom Foreman for Anderson Cooper 360, was asked whether any of the violations "leaps out at you as endangering miners' lives?"

After being stabilized there, McCloy was transported by ambulance later that morning to a level 1 trauma center at West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital, 50 miles (80 km) away in Morgantown.

On the evening of January 5, McCloy was transferred to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh to receive infusions of oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber to counteract the effects of carbon monoxide.

[citation needed] Even after the gases abated, rescue teams had to proceed with caution, continually testing for hazards such as water seeps, explosive gas concentrations, and unsafe roof conditions.

He remembered that on January 2, 2006, just after exiting the mantrip, "the mine filled quickly with fumes and thick smoke and that breathing conditions were nearly unbearable...." At least four of the emergency oxygen packs were not functioning.

[31] Governor Joe Manchin announced on January 9 that he had appointed J. Davitt McAtteer, Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health during the Clinton administration, to oversee a state probe of the disaster.

[32] The Charleston Gazette named the committee to the Sago probe as including former miner Mike Caputo, D-Marion; Eustace Frederick, D-Mercer; and Bill Hamilton, R-Upshur; and Sens.

"[36] MSHA issued its own release, announcing an independent eight-member team that would conduct the investigation including the cause of the explosion, compliance with regulations and the handling of information on the trapped miners' condition.

She stated that the previous week, "Ed Clair, the U.S. Labor Department's Associate Solicitor for Mine Safety and Health, disclosed that, without public comment or input, MSHA secretly changed its long-standing policy of routinely releasing inspector notes under the Freedom of Information Act."

[50] In that same April 22, 2006, Charleston Gazette story, "Details of ICG's inquiry into Sago disaster sought", Ken Ward Jr. reported that investigators from MSHA and the West Virginia Office of Miners Health, Safety and Training were negotiating with ICG to release company's internal investigation, as well as testimony, for a Manchin administration public hearing on the Sago disaster scheduled to start May 2, 2006, at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon.

[52] The Republican members of the subcommittee were Arlen Specter (Chairman; PA), Thad Cochran (MS), Judd Gregg (NH), Larry Craig (ID), Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Ted Stevens (AK), Mike DeWine (OH) and Richard Shelby (AL).

He announced he had written a January 5, 2006, letter to Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao requesting "regular and comprehensive briefings on the progress and preliminary findings" of the MSHA investigation and enforcement efforts at the Sago mine.

[56] On January 4, 2006, Representatives George Miller (D-CA) and Major Owens (D-NY) wrote a letter posted on Miller's website to House Education and Workforce Committee: Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) asking for a hearing, saying Congress had abdicated its oversight responsibilities on worker safety issues, while the Bush administration filled worker safety agencies with industry insiders.

On January 5, 2006, Representative Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) wrote Chairman Boehner requesting him to schedule a hearing at the earliest possible date and posted the letter on her congressional website.

Dr. Martin Chapman, PhD, a Virginia Tech research assistant professor, found that two independent sensors recorded a minor seismic event, possibly from the explosion, 2 seconds later at 6:26:38 a.m.[59] In his January 13, 2006, story in the Charleston Gazette, "Sago blast area was recently sealed", Ken Ward Jr. reported that state officials approved the use of "Omega blocks", a dense foam product, to seal the mine, rather than the required concrete blocks.

Deputy director of the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training told the state board of that group that, "the seals, made with foam, could withhold pressures of five pounds per square inch."

Mine Safety and Health Administration rules seals to be built using "solid concrete blocks" or alternate materials that will withstand 20 pounds per square inch of pressure.

Former MSHA official Davitt McAteer said restarting operations after a holiday weekend may have caused sparks to ignite an excess buildup of methane gas and coal dust in the mine.

At approximately 11:41 a.m. on January 2, during CNN Live Today, anchor Daryn Kagan, announced, "This just in, news out of West Virginia, an underground explosion at a coal mine there.

"[64] Hundreds of media, reporters, camera crews, satellite trucks and photographers descended on the small community, taking over yards and setting up camp outside the Sago Baptist Church and at the mine's coal processing plant.

Shortly before rumors started spreading that the miners were found alive Tuesday night (and then reversed Wednesday morning), a reporter there posted a description of the scene on his blog, My West Virginia (now defunct) Sago Road, where the mine is, follows the Buckhannon River and a set of railroad tracks.

Asked by reporters why the company allowed rumors to circulate for several hours, Hatfield said officials had been trying to clarify and verify information before putting family members on an even worse emotional roller coaster.

"[68] Critics suggested that the severity of the accident's aftermath was related in part to inadequate safety standards endorsed by the MSHA under David Lauriski, a mining industry executive appointed to head the agency by George W. Bush.

[73] A second editorial in the Times, on January 6[74] discussed budget cuts to the MSHA and "the Bush administration's ... [appointment] of a raft of political appointees directly from energy corporations to critical regulatory posts" in the context of the disaster, suggesting that the Sago 12 "might have survived if government had lived up to its responsibilities.

Jack Spadaro, a former director of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy who was fired after participating as a whistleblower in a prior case involving the MSHA,[78] made similar statements, referring to the current Bush administration's "reluctance to take the strong enforcement action that's sometimes necessary" in an appearance on the show Hannity & Colmes.

"[80] On February 13, 2006, West Virginia University's Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism convened a panel of six journalists for a forum titled "Searching for a Miracle: Media Coverage of the Sago Mine Disaster".

The bill created a new mine emergency-response system and required coal companies to provide miners with additional emergency air supplies, communications equipment and tracking devices.

The West Virginia Division of Homeland Security proposes a rule that requests filed under the state FOIA "shall be held in abeyance until appropriate notification of next of kin of any deceased or victims that are grievously injured".