WASHINGTON — Facing budget cuts under congressional sequestration, the federal agency overseeing mine safety is planning to severely cut back its efforts to litigate cases against companies that have been charged with breaking mine safety laws.

A backlog of fines issued by the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has persisted for years, with coal and mineral companies still owing the feds some $70 million for health and safety violations on their properties. MSHA has made strides toward clearing out that backlog recently, in large part because of millions of dollars in funding used to bring in more government lawyers to handle the cases.

But faced with the same across-the-board cuts now hitting federal agencies, the Labor Department plans to shut down or downsize three offices devoted expressly to litigating some 10,700 mine safety cases involving fines that companies are contesting, according to a letter sent from concerned Democrats to Labor Department officials earlier this month. Thirty out of 74 attorneys handling cases in those offices would be laid off, and others would be subject to furloughs, states the letter, signed by Sens. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.), as well as Reps. George Miller (Calif.) and Nick Rahall (W.Va.).

They noted that the cuts to the backlog efforts are more severe than most other cuts under sequestration.

“While the sequester is imposing hardship on multiple agencies within DOL, these staff cuts to the backlog effort are plainly disproportionate relative to other work carried out in the [Labor Department’s] Solicitor’s Office,” they wrote. “We find this decision to be unacceptable and instead we believe the Solicitor’s Office should apply only proportional cuts to this program activity, so that efforts can be maximized to reduce the backlog of mine safety cases.”

The additional lawyers working on the backlog cases are not full-time, permanent staff, but are instead working under contract. The steeper cuts to the backlog effort presumably help protect staff elsewhere in the agency from longer furloughs under sequestration.

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