far enough. so congressman george miller did the responsible thing. he introduced a bill known as the s-miner act, which passed the house but, of course, was killed by coal state senators like west virginia's jay rockefeller over on the senate side. if miller's bill would have passed we can only imagine, speculate. there is strong speculation these 29 miners might be alive today. the s-miner act would have done this. hike the penalties for safety violations. strengthen requirements for sealing mined-out chambers to prevent methane from leaking into active sections and require studies into the effectiveness to curb the combust blt of coal dust and the health administration to close problem mines more easily when patterns of safety violations are found. of course, that was the case with massey at this mine. the massey energy's upper big