Cite as: 510 U. S. 200 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
but applies to all violations of the Act and its regulations. § 814(a). Contrary to petitioner's suggestion, Reply Brief for Petitioner 3, actions before the Commission are initiated not by the Secretary but by a mine operator who claims to be aggrieved. See § 815(a). The Act expressly authorizes district court jurisdiction in only two provisions, §§ 818(a) and 820( j), which respectively empower the Secretary to enjoin habitual violations of health and safety standards and to coerce payment of civil penalties. Mine operators enjoy no corresponding right 11 but are to complain to the Commission and then to the court of appeals.
B
The legislative history of the Mine Act confirms this interpretation. At the time of the Act's passage, at least 1 worker was killed and 66 miners were disabled every working day in the Nation's mines. See S. Rep. No. 95-181, p. 4 (1977), Legislative History of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Committee Print prepared for the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Human Resources), Ser. No. 95-2, p. 592 (1978) (Leg. Hist.). Frequent and tragic mining disasters testified to the ineffectiveness of
11 Petitioner points to § 960, which provides that "no justice, judge, or court of the United States shall" enjoin enforcement of interim mandatory health and safety standards, and to § 815(a), which provides that citations not contested in a timely manner are "not subject to review by any court or agency," as evidence that Congress expressly prohibited federal jurisdiction when it so intended. Petitioner misconstrues § 960, which bars a certain form of relief but says nothing about the appropriate forum for a challenge. Section 815(a) similarly provides only that failure timely to challenge a citation precludes review before the Commission and court of appeals; it does not suggest that district court review is otherwise available. In light of the Act's other provisions granting district courts jurisdiction over challenges brought only by the Secretary, §§ 818(a) and 820(j), petitioner's argument based on the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius is unpersuasive.
209
Page: Index Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007