The MINER Act stands for the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act and was promulgated recently in 2006. The Act was largely in response to the Sago Coal Mine disaster in Sago, WV on January 2, 2006, which was caused by an underground explosion, trapping 13 miners underground. This disaster resulted in a lot of national attention because the public, including the miners' families, were initially told that 12 of the 13 miners had been found alive. In actuality, only one miner survived the accident.

The MINER Act required operations in underground coal mines to improve accident preparedness and readiness. This legislation requires all underground coal mines to develop an emergency response plan, specific to each individual mine. The act also requires two trained mine rescue teams to be located within an hour of the mine. Moreover, it increased the criminal and civil penalties for violations and gave MSHA the ability to temporarily close a mine that fails to pay there fines. This act also called for several studies to be conducted into ways to enhance mine safety, underground communications, and atmospheric monitoring (some of this research is being done currently at Virginia Tech).