By JENNIFER TALHELM
The Associated Press

More scrutiny? Leveled at a Bush recess appointee? You’re doin’ a heck-of-a job, Sticky!

WASHINGTON - As hopes for a rescue dim at Utah’s collapsed Crandall Canyon Mine, critics looking for someone to blame are focusing on the stern-faced director of the government agency that oversees coal mine safety.

Members of Congress, union officials and worker advocates were skeptical before the Aug. 6 accident that Richard Stickler was dedicated enough to worker safety.

The former mine executive faced so much opposition when he was appointed to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration, President Bush had to bypass critics and install him during a congressional recess last October.

Now all three groups are pointing out mistakes they say Stickler has made in handling attempts to rescue six trapped miners. The situation grew more grim last week when three rescue workers were killed in a subsequent cave-in.

Stickler’s career at MSHA will be defined by the Crandall Canyon accident and his next big decision: whether to call off the rescue effort and entomb the six missing miners forever.

“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” said Davitt McAteer, who headed MSHA during the Clinton administration and now is vice president of Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.

Critics think any investigation of the accident will ultimately ask why MSHA signed off in June on a mining plan for the area where the collapse occurred.

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