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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah plans to start conducting its own safety inspections of coal mines -- a job long left to federal regulators.
The Utah Labor Commission was scheduled to convene Thursday to authorize the state inspections.
Labor Commissioner Sherri Hayashi, however, says the state won't be able to take enforcement actions, leaving that to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, which does its own inspections.
Hayashi says the commission is adopting a provision of a 2008 law that set up the Price-based state Office of Coal Mine Safety, which has a single employee and no regulatory powers.
The Utah Legislature created the oversight office in the wake of the twin cave-ins at Crandall Canyon that killed six miners and three rescuers.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
