WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Debbie Hamner says she can't believe how her life has changed.

For 32 years, Hamner was the wife of a miner, living in the small community of Gladyfork, West Virginia. Wednesay, she arrived in Washington, D.C., dressed in a two-piece brown business suit, clasping her darker brown purse.

Hamner sat in an armless, oak chair in the front row of a regal, Congressional hearing room in the Rayburn House Office Building. Hamner’s seat is one typically reserved for the most powerful of administration officials and the wealthiest of Washington lobbyists.

Hamner's late husband, George Hamner, was one of 12 miners killed in an accident at the Sago mine on January 2, 2006. In the months since, while coping with the grief of her husband's death, she's become an advocate for improved safety in the United States mining industry.

Wednesday, the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, who oversees all mine safety legislation in the U.S., asked Hamner to attend a hearing on mine safety initiatives.

The chairman, longtime California Democrat George Miller, didn't ask Hammer to testify. Instead, Miller wanted Hamner to be seated in front of the crowd when he quoted her in his opening statement.

He quoted Hamner’s testimony from a different Congressional investigative hearing last month, when she said "If I knew then what I know today, I would have begged my husband not to work at Sago."

Both Hamner and newly-empowered Democrats in Congress are asking the Bush Administration's Mine Safety and Health Administration, which sets all federal rules for U.S. mines, to beef up its safety regulations. They're demanding the administration deploy dozens more federal mine inspectors, add more safety equipment underground, and stiffen the financial penalties for mining companies who violate safety rules.

At today’s hearing, Richard Stickler, the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration said the federal government has already strengthened its safety rules and enforcement in recent months. He said MSHA issued 77,129 citations and orders in coal mines in 2006, up nearly 12 percent from 69,124 in 2005. Stickler said his administration has also begun issuing citations for “flagrant safety violations," six of which were recently issued against the R&D Coal Company for the October 23, 2006 death of one of its employees at its Tremont, Pa., facility. Stickler said the federal fines totaled $874,500.

Congressional Democrats, who are unhappy with the Bush administration’s enforcement of workplace safety laws, have seized the issue of mine safety to rail against the administration’s policies. In particular, they’ve shone a bright spotlight on the tragedy at Sago. After taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January, Democrats held multiple hearings into federal mine safety rules. In each case, Miller referenced the deaths at Sago. In two instances, the chairman has personally invited the relatives of Sago victims, including Debbie Hamner, to appear in person in Washington.

Hamner told WTOV9.com she embraces the opportunity to lobby on behalf of the nation’s current – and future – miners.

“We’ve had an opportunity to meet several young miners,” Hamner said. “We just want to do all that we possibly can to be sure those miners can come home from work (at night). We cannot allow what happened to our coal miners at Sago to happen again."

George Hamner’s daughter, Sarah Bailey, has also been actively lobbying for stricter safety regulations. Bailey sat alongside Debbie in the front row at Wednesday’s hearing.

Bailey told WTOV9.com, “We just take it day by day. It’s been difficult for us, but we don’t want to see it happen to anyone else."

The U.S. House is considering passing several pieces of new mine safety legislation, though none is scheduled for a vote. One, proposed in January by W.Va. Democrat Nick Rahall, would stiffen the standards for air ventilation in underground mines.

Last year, five months after the Sago tragedy, Congress passed the US MINER ACT, which required new safety communications equipment and emergency supplies of breathable air inside American mines. President Bush signed the bill at the White House, in front of many of the Sago families.

But Hamner said the administration has not yet done enough to protect U.S. miners.

Before Wednesday’s hearing, Hamner – who refers to herself as a “very shy person” – stood in front of a bank of cameras and demanded the administration require mining companies install safety shelters inside all underground coal mines. The shelters would include airtight chambers, individual oxygen tanks, and emergency supplies.

Then, in her brown business suit, she crawled inside the shelter and posed for photos. It was another vivid illustration of how life has changed for the families of the Sago miners.

- Scott MacFarlane, NEWS9 Washington Correspondent