State Rep. Tim Couch framed the current debate on coal mine safety succinctly and with more honesty than can often be expected from legislators during a hearing Thursday of the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee.

''You can regulate the business out of business,'' said Couch in the debate on whether the General Assembly should consider passing laws to improve mine safety.

One could interpret that line to mean that in order to preserve the coal industry, more coal miners may have to die because the industry can't afford more regulations.

The other side of the argument is that any industry that can't afford to do all it can to make working in it safe may not need to survive.

The legislation that's pending in Kentucky, according to the Associated Press, would increase the number of mandatory state inspections done at underground mines each year from three to six, require additional oxygen supplies along escape ways, provide methane detectors to every miner, put trained medics at each mine, and give grieving families direct access to information and testimony about deadly accidents.

"It has very commonsense things in it that are designed to protect safety," said state Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, who is sponsoring the legislation.

Committee chairman state Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence, said at the close of a hearing Thursday that he still hasn't decided whether to bring the legislation up for a vote in the natural resources committee, which he chairs.

Gooch, according to the Courier-Journal, is in the coal business, building heavy mining equipment.

The coal industry's money, according to those calling for safety improvements, has more influence with legislators than the emotional pleas of the widows who spoke at the hearing.

"They don't care about the common man," said Paul Ledford, the Dayhoit man who survived the explosion that killed five miners in Holmes Mill last summer.

Bill Londrigan, head of the Kentucky AFL-CIO labor group, said it appears the coal industry has been able to pressure certain lawmakers into not taking action on the legislation.

"It looks like it's being held victim to politics," Londrigan said in an Associated Press report. "We think that's unconscionable."

Steve Earle, a lobbyist for the United Mine Workers of America, said he had been assured that leading Democratic lawmakers would support the mine safety bill.

"If we don't get mine safety legislation through this session," Earle said, "we're going to hold people accountable."

Coal mine industry advocates insist that the current laws, if enforced, would be enough to protect miners.

But how some of those laws are interpreted appears to be part of the problem. Loopholes allowing coal operators who violate laws to escape punishment must be closed to clean up the industry.

Careless coal operators who cost miners their lives through negligence should not be allowed to escape punishment and certainly shouldn't be given an another opportunity to put miners' lives in danger by closing one operation and opening another.

Choosing between an industry and the men who put their lives in danger should be an easy decision for reasonable people.

It will be interesting to see how many of those are currently working in the General Assembly.

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John Henson can be contacted by e-mail at editor@harlanonline.net