Mine safety commissioner fired by Trump gives up legal fight, citing Supreme Court

The Supreme Court’s expansion of President Trump’s firing power is sweeping into mine safety.

Moshe Marvit, whom Trump sacked from the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (FMSHRC), moved to voluntarily drop his legal challenge on Wednesday. He disagrees with the high court’s decision but conceded it means the agency is no longer independent.

“I brought this case to protect an institution that miners rely on, that can literally serve as the difference between life and death for mine workers,” Marvit said in a statement.

“I hope that future presidents and Congress will again make miner safety a priority and actively improve the condition of miners, rather than using miners as a political talking point while in fact making their working conditions less safe,” he added.

Marvit is among a growing list of fired independent agency leaders who’ve thrown in the towel after the Supreme Court upended 91 years of precedent that had shielded them with firing protections.

In June, the 6-3 conservative majority ruled in Trump v. Slaughter that the protections infringe on the president’s constitutional authority to fire them at will. It has enabled Trump to move ahead with his ambitions to carry out firings at independent agencies across the government, including ones that oversee labor disputes, product recalls, credit unions, air crash investigations and more.

Marvit served on the FMSHRC, which adjudicates safety enforcement and civil penalties when mine operators break the law.

He’s an attorney known for his writings on workers’ rights and was appointed to the commission by former President Biden. Marvit sued after one of Trump’s aides notified him in May that he was being fired.

“While the Commission still exists, it is no longer independent and is now — thanks to the President’s firing of me and the Supreme Court majority’s decision in Slaughter — subject to the political influence that Congress deliberately sought to avoid,” he said in his statement.

Marvit was represented by the law firm Katz Banks Kumin.

“Now with the fear of removal hanging over Commissioners’ heads if they decide against the president’s preferred outcome, the FMSHRC will no longer be a trusted arbiter of disputes between industry and miners — and miners’ safety will suffer,” Hugh Baran, one of Marvit’s attorneys, said in a statement.

“Make no mistake: more miners will die or be seriously injured on the job because of the Supreme Court majority’s decision in Slaughter,” Baran added.