By Ken Ward Jr.
Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- President Barack Obama on Monday nominated a longtime union safety director and a Pennsylvania regulator to run two key federal agencies that are charged with policing the nation's coal industry.
Obama nominated Joseph A. Main, a retired United Mine Workers safety and health director, to serve as assistant secretary of Labor in charge of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
And the president nominated Joseph G. Pizarchik as director of the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Main and Pizarchik were among 10 nominees for various administration posts announced by the White House late Monday afternoon.
Both nominees must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Since 2002, Pizarchik has been director of the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation within Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection. Before that, he was assistant director and general counsel for the agency for 11 years.
The administration called Pizarchik "a pragmatic innovator" and cited as a top accomplishment his work on a Pennsylvania law that gives legal liability waivers to companies and other organizations that undertake voluntary environmental cleanups.
Main is a Waynesburg, Pa., native who began working in the mines in 1967 and quickly moved into a spot on a local union safety committee. He joined the UMWA staff in 1974 and served as the union's safety director for 22 years.
The administration cited his "vast mine health safety experience" in nominating Main to the MSHA post.
Read more here.
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