Senate staffers insisted that they left the SNAP benefits themselves intact, cutting only from the add-on. In reality, they created a situation where in 2014, a number of families receiving the benefits — and poorest-of-the-poor families, three quarters of them with children, are the recipients — will face a “cliff.” One month, they might get a few hundred dollars, enough for $4.50 per person per day. The next month, the extension will end early, and they will get less.

And now, the House wants the Senate to fix that problem. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has said she is looking for a way to ensure that there is no cliff in benefits before 2014.  What’s more, 50 House liberals are urging Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) not to move on the Senate child-nutrition bill, and to have the House vote on its own version, without the SNAP cuts, instead. Here is the letter, via David Dayen:

We write to express our concerns with several bills that have been recently referred to the House by the Senate. H.R. 1586, funding for Medicaid and education jobs, as well as S. 3307, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, both use improvements made by the ARRA to the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) to pay for the programs included in each bill. While we are strong supporters of the programs funded in these bills, we are disappointed that the Senate used SNAP, a safety-net program that literally keeps families from going hungry, to pay for programs to help provide healthcare for low income individuals and to help teachers keep their jobs. As you know, prior to this vote on H.R. 1586, the Democratic majority has provided historic increases in the SNAP program; yet we are now forced to choose between jobs and healthcare or food for hungry people. This is one of the more egregious cases of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and is a vote we do not take lightly.

While we did not oppose H.R. 1586 because of the critical need for immediate action on state Medicaid funding and education jobs, we respectfully request that the House not consider S. 3307 either during the special recess session or when the House returns for the post-recess session. Instead, we strongly urge the Leadership to schedule H.R. 5504, the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act, for floor consideration in September. This bill provides critical improvements in the school and summer meal programs and will help reduce hunger and obesity in children around this country. The House Education and Labor Committee has completed the mark-up on this bill. We recognize that H.R. 5504 must be offset, and we urge you to work with Chairman Levin, Chairman Peterson and other relevant committees during this recess to identify proper offsets so that the House can consider Chairman Miller’s bill upon return from recess.

We look forward to working with you on this important bill.

Stanley "Goose" Stewart, right, testifies alongside relatives of victims of the Upper Big Branch explosion before the House Education and Labor Committee in Beckley, W.Va., on Monday. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/ZUMApress.com)

A coal miner working at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine when it exploded last month, killing 29 colleagues, described the operation this week as “a ticking time bomb,” where the management valued production over safety and workers didn’t protest for fear of being fired.

“The ventilation system they had didn’t work,” said Stanley “Goose” Stewart, a 15-year veteran of the UBB mine who was 300 feet underground when the blast occurred. “With no air moving it gave me the feeling that area was a ticking time bomb.”

[Environment1] There was plenty of warning that the conditions in the UBB mine were dangerous, Stewart told House lawmakers. The mine had experienced “at least two fireballs” prior to the April 5 blast, he said, suggesting not only that the vent systems were faulty, but that there were also problems with the mine’s methane sensors.

“How could methane build up to that point where a fireball could start?” he asked during a field hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee in Beckley, W.Va., near the site of the UBB blast.

The allegations — which are strikingly similar to those coming from a growing number of Massey workers, both veterans and active miners — arrive just four days after Don Blankenship, Massey’s bellicose CEO, told Senate Democrats that miner safety is the company’s top priority.

“Massey does not place profits over safety,” Blankenship testified before the Senate Appropriations Labor Subcommittee last Thursday. “We never have and we never will. Period.”

Although the UBB mine had been cited for safety violations more than 600 times since the start of 2009, Blankenship argued that the mine’s safety history is irrelevant because “abatement [of hazards] is mandatory.”

“At Massey, we always fix the problem,” he said, “even if we disagree with the penalty.”

But Stewart, along with a number of relatives of UBB victims, had a dramatically different story, telling lawmakers that Massey managers frequently cut corners to maximize production, even when it came at the expense of the workers’ safety.

Steve Morgan, for instance, father of 21-year-old Adam Morgan, who was killed during the blast, testified that it was common for workers in UBB to pull down the ventilation curtains — the plastic sheets that direct the flow of fresh air and prevent methane gas from accumulating — because those curtains can get in the way of heavy equipment, slowing down production.

“Ventilation was so bad he was sent home early several times, including once about a week before the explosion because they weren’t getting enough air,” Morgan said.

Gary Quarles, a Massey miner whose son, Gary Wayne, was also a victim of the UBB disaster, told lawmakers that Massey foremen in the mines are warned when inspectors arrive on the site — a system lending workers some time to get the place cleaned up before the inspectors get underground. “When the word goes out,” Quarles said, “all effort is made to correct any deficiencies or direct the inspector’s attention away from any deficiencies.”

And Stewart said that his crew was once asked to switch out a ventilation system without evacuating the affected section of the mine, as required by law. “I’m not sure MSHA was aware of the whole situation,” he said, referring to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Workers didn’t complain, Stewart said, because “we knew that we’d be marked men and the management would look for ways to fire us” — a message echoed by most of the other witnesses to Monday’s hearing.

As a sign of how highly Massey values efficiency, UBB miners were denied vacation last summer after they failed to meet production targets, Stewart said.

“I felt like I was working for the Gestapo at times,” he said. “We did some things right, but were forced to do some things wrong.”

If the allegations were isolated, they might be easy to ignore. But there’s a pattern emerging from all the scrutiny of Massey that’s followed last month’s disaster. Chuck Nelson, another former Massey miner who spoke with TWI from his West Virginia home last month, said the trends are hardly limited to the UBB mine.

“I worked at six different Massey mines and every single one of ‘em operated the same way,” said Nelson, who now volunteers for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

Massey, which was quick to issue a statement following last week’s Senate hearing, has so far been silent in the face of the more recent allegations.

What’s striking is how closely today’s testimony from UBB miners and their families resembles the damning stories about Massey’s corporate culture that we’ve been hearing about from former Massey miners since the April 5 tragedy.

For instance, Stanley Stewart, a UBB miner for 15 years who was underground during the blast, told lawmakers today that the ventilation system inside the mine suffered constant problems, and — worse — that Massey higher-ups never really cared to fix them.

“The area of the mine [where] we were working was liberating a lot of methane,” Stewart said. “Mine management never fully addressed the air problem when it would be shut down by inspectors. They would fix it just good enough to get us to load coal again, but then it would be back to business as usual.”

My experience in the mines showed me that the ventilation system they had didn’t work. And with so much methane being liberated, and no air moving it gave me the feeling that area was a ticking time bomb. I was told prior to the April 5th explosion, that they had experienced at least 2 fireballs on the drum of the shearer.

This leads me to believe the methane was indeed building in that area, showing lack of air and ventilation problems. One question that I have is how could methane build up to that point where a fireball could start? How could this happen if the methane detectors had been working?

A longer piece on this to follow.

It’s unclear how many lawmakers will make the trek (Beckley is about 300 miles southwest of Washington). But those visiting for the first time will quickly recognize that local residents are no strangers to the perils of coal mining. Indeed, here’s a shot of a placard on the lawn of Beckley’s courthouse, where the hearing will take place:

Photo by Mike Lillis

The health care reconciliation bill, while predominately made up of health-focused reforms, also included language to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan program, under which the government subsidizes private lenders that cater to students — and guarantees those loans so the private companies assume no risk when loans default. Instead, under the Democrats’ bill, all loans would originate directly from the U.S. Treasury (though private lenders would still compete to service them).

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the changes would save the government $61 billion over the next decade, most of which would fund an expansion of scholarships for low-income college students.

The reconciliation bill, of course, still has to clear the Senate to become law. And while the Democrats say they have the 51 votes to pass it, they’ve been reluctant to release the names of those supporters. The focus of the Senate debate is sure to be on the health care side of things, with conservatives on both sides of the aisle blasting provisions like the new 3.8 percent tax on unearned income. But it’s worth mentioning that a good handful of Senate Democrats might also oppose reconciliation based on the lending reforms.

Neither group will be pleased that the $894 billion health reform bill released yesterday by House Democratic leaders cuts the provision out altogether. Indeed, here’s Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who sponsored the Education and Labor amendment, reacting yesterday to the news:

If a state wants better health care than can be provided by the federal government in the health care bill we are seeing today, the federal government should not stand in their way. The removal of the Kucinich amendment constitutes yet another capitulation to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries who are already reaping billions of dollars from the bill.

Not that many states have the budget surpluses at the moment to adopt single-payer health coverage for their residents, but that only makes the decision to pluck the provision from the final bill that much more inexplicable.

The House Education & Labor Committee voted today in favor of an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), eliminating legal barriers that might prevent states from adopting a Medicare-style system of health coverage.

The vote was 25 to 19, with support coming from an odd mix of liberal Democrats who support single-payer on its merits and conservative Republicans who want to preserve the rights of states to regulate themselves.

The vote is largely symbolic. Cash-strapped states likely won’t be able to rustle up the funding to cover all their residents without federal help, even if they did support the concept politically. Still, some health care groups are cheering the House vote nonetheless. The California Nurses Association, for example, issued a statement calling the vote “a historic moment for patients.”

If the provision were to become law, CNA argues, single-payer supporters could move their lobbying battle from Washington to state capitals.

Kucinich offered his own take on the significance of the push.

“By getting rid of the for-profit insurance companies,” the Ohio liberal said in a statement, “we can save $400 billion per year and provide coverage for all medically necessary services for everyone in the U.S.”

Taxpayers will remember that the first round of stimulus efforts came in the form of direct-to-the-door rebate checks — $600 for individuals and $1,200 for married couples. This time around, lawmakers are focusing on infrastructure projects, social services like unemployment insurance and direct aid to states, many of which are struggling with budget deficits. There’s even an emerging effort to have green-energy investment a central focus of the bill.

During a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee on Friday, Democratic leaders conveyed a sense that, given the current economic conditions, Congress will have little choice but to pass something soon.

“It’s clear that it has to be done,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Cal), chairman of the panel. “And it’s going to be done by the Congress in relatively short order.”

Not that it will be easy. In September, House Democrats passed a $58-billion stimulus package that included many of the same elements now under discussion. Senate Republicans blocked the measure, and President George W. Bush had vowed a veto.

The cost of the evolving package remains up in the air, but economists are floating figures ranging from $150 billion to $400 billion.

This week, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino indicated that Bush would be open to some form of stimulus, but she seemed to reject the ideas included in the House-passed bill. That could set the stage for a post-election partisan showdown.

With that in mind, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has already said that Democrats are prepared to push their efforts into January if they can’t move the bill in November, according to Associated Press.

Look here next week for a short series on what measures the Democrats hope to include in their package — including green energy, infrastructure and aid to states — and how those provisions might work to get the economy back on its feet.