Charged $1.8 billion, paid $1.27 billion

In an earlier note, The $1.8 billion paper trail, we flagged that the gap between what MSHA proposed and what mines paid was a research subject in itself. Here it is, decomposed, and there are two gaps in it rather than one.

Every violation record carries three money fields, and reading them in order tells the story.

Proposed. MSHA proposed $1.82 billion in civil penalties across the enforcement record (the proposed_penalty field). That is what inspectors put on the table at issuance.

Assessed. Operators can contest a penalty, settle it, or have it re-assessed, and most of those reductions happen without a formal contest. After that process, the proposed figure becomes the amount actually owed (amount_due), which comes to $1.46 billion. The roughly $356 million difference is what came off before collection ever began. Outright vacating is rare, with only 72 citations vacated in full, so this is reduction rather than erasure. Most of it lands on citations the operator never formally contested.

Paid. Of the $1.46 billion owed, $1.27 billion has been paid (amount_paid), or 86.8 percent. The remaining $193 million is assessed but unpaid, and most of that is long-standing: about three-quarters of it sits on citations more than five years old. Only a small share is recent enough to still be inside its payment window.

The takeaway. "$1.8 billion in penalties" is the headline figure. The settled bill is $1.46 billion, collection on it runs near 87 percent, and about $193 million sits in long-standing unpaid balances. All three numbers are on the record, citation by citation, for every one of the three million.

Every mine's compliance record now shows proposed, assessed, and paid side by side, next to its incident history.