The House Committee on Education and Labor this afternoon advanced to the floor the second major re-write of the nation’s mine safety laws in the last five years.

We’ve got more background on the legislation here, here and here.

Committee members approved the bill by a vote of 30-17, after defeating efforts by Republican members to weaken language broadening criminal mine safety offenses and to strike language to reform workplace safety in other industries outside mining.

Oddly, some Republican members spent part of today’s committee markup complaining about language put forth by Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., (photo above) to apply parts of the bill only to gassy coal mines, exempting other types of mining operations.