CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - The lawyer for the only person convicted so far in the Upper Big Branch mine disaster predicts the Mine Safety and Health Administration will increasingly pursue criminal prosecutions.

At a Charleston mining symposium, attorney Bill Wilmoth said three bills in Congress all call for stiffer penalties.

He urged operators to involve lawyers early and often when there's word of an investigation, and to consider whether the company and employees need separate representation.

He says they should also consider whether to cooperate with investigators and turn over requested documents. He says that's what got his client, former security chief Hughie Elbert Stover, in trouble.

Stover was convicted last fall of lying to investigators and trying to destroy records after the explosion that killed 29 miners in West Virginia. He's awaiting sentencing.

West Virginia's coal industry is hoping federal coal regulators will have guidelines for approving more extended-face, or deep-cut, coal mining plans as soon as spring.

West Virginia Coal Association Vice President Chris Hamilton has been advocating the use of remotely operated continuous miners with a face operation as far away as 40 feet. Though most machinery is designed to operate at that distance, Hamilton said, approval for deeper cuts have not been approved often.

Hamilton said extended cuts are safer because they require fewer moves of the mining equipment.

"Extended cut mining also prevents upwards of 50 percent of equipment moves in an underground working section, which means not only the continuous miner, but the roof bolters, the scoop operators or the shuttle cars," Hamilton said. "It's aimed at reducing the exposure a lot of the miners have to these large machines being moved around from place to place in underground working conditions."

After the 2006 Sago Mine disaster killed 12 miners,West Virginia public officials vowed to crack down on unsafe practices in the industry.

But in April 2010, we were reminded how much work needs to be done to improve mine safety. It was then that 29 miners died in another Mountain State disaster, at the Upper Big Branch Mine.

During his State of the State speech, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin urged legislators to approve a new package of mine safety rules.

AKRON, Ohio (AP) — FirstEnergy Corp. said Thursday that new environmental regulations led to a decision to shut down six older, coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, affecting more than 500 employees.

The plants, which are in Cleveland, Ashtabula, Oregon and Eastlake in Ohio, Adrian, Pa. and Williamsport, Md., will be retired by Sept. 1. They have generated about 10 percent of the electricity produced by FirstEnergy over the last three years, the company said.

In a statement James Lash, head of the company's generation unit, indicated that a review of the company's coal-fired plants determined it would not be cost-effective to get the older ones into compliance with environmental regulations the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in December