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 LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTYDEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTERWeek of April 9, 2010
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Bulletin Board:
Massey Mine Cited for 450+ Safety Violations Before Deadly Blast, by Mike Hall
The Massey Energy Co. mine, where 25 coal miners were killed and four remain unaccounted following an explosion yesterday, was assessed nearly $1 million in fines for safety violations last year, including violations concerning escape routes and ventilation, according to federal records and news reports.
The mine is owned by Massey and operated by its subsidiary, Performance Coal Co.
Early indications indicate the blast was caused by highly explosive methane gas leaking from sealed-off areas of the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va.—the same cause of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster that killed 12 miners. New federal mine safety rules enacted after the Sago disaster included tougher new requirements for sealing off worked-out areas.
CNN reports that in 2009, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) proposed nearly $1 million in fines for more than 450 safety violations at the nonunion Upper Big Branch Mine, including penalties for more than 50 “unwarrantable failure” violations, which are among the most serious findings an inspector can issue. Among those were citations for escape routes for miners and air quality ventilation.
According to ABC News, Massey was fighting the MSHA fines, including those for
57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow the ventilation plan. The federal records catalog the problems at the Upper Big Branch Mine….They show the company was fighting many of the steepest fines, or simply refusing to pay them.
MSHA records also show that in at least six of the past 10 years, the Massey mine’s injury rate has been worse than the national average for similar operations.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a former Mine Workers (UMWA) president and third generation coal miner, says, “The thoughts and prayers of America’s workers are with the families” of those killed and for the safety of the “courageous” rescue teams. He adds:
However, this incident isn’t just a matter of happenstance, but rather the inevitable result of a profit-driven system and reckless corporate conduct. Many mining companies have given too little attention to safety over the years and too much to the bottom line.
In 2006, a fire at Massey’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine, also in West Virginia, killed two miners. Ultimately, Massey’s Aracoma Coal Co. subsidiary pleaded guilty to 10 criminal mine safety violations and paid $2.5 million in fines related to that fatal fire. According to ABC, the two miners “suffocated as they looked for a way to escape.”
Aracoma later admitted in a plea agreement that two permanent ventilation controls had been removed in 2005 and not replaced, according to published reports. The two widows of the miners killed in Aracoma were unsatisfied by the plea agreement, telling the judge they believed the company cared more about profits then safety.
Tony Oppegard, a lawyer and mine safety advocate from Kentucky, told The New York Times, “Massey’s commitment to safety has long been questioned in the coalfields.” The Times notes a 2006 internal memo from Massey CEO Donald Blankenship.
In the memo, Mr. Blankenship instructed the company’s underground mine superintendents to place coal production first. “This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills,” he wrote.
Last night, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), whose district includes the Upper Big Branch Mine, told reporters:
This is the second major disaster at a Massey site in recent years, and something needs to be done.
Meanwhile, the Charleston Gazette reports safety officials are looking at methane that built up inside a sealed-off area or leaked through the seals as the cause of the blast. In 2006, methane from sealed-off areas caused the explosions at a Sago, W.Va., mine that killed 12 miners and also at the Darby Mine in Kentucky where two coal miners were killed.
The new mine safety rules passed after the Sago and Darby disasters called for increased monitoring of air quality in active and sealed sections of the mines to avoid methane build up. The new regulations also required mine operators to install stronger barriers between active and nonactive sections of mines.
But, as Oppegard told the Gazette, “Seals can be deadly if they are not maintained and monitored properly.” In a statement today on the explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine, Rahall says:
We will scrutinize the health and safety violations at this mine to see whether the law was circumvented and miner’s precious lives were willfully put at risk, and there will be accountability.
THINK FAST
Federal officials are pursuing an indictment of Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) on charges of "structuring" -- "a broad term that refers to the crime of creating financial transactions to evade reporting requirements," the Las Vegas Sun reports. Ensign allegedly laundered payments to his mistress through a trust controlled by his parents.
In a speech before a group of supporters yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took a jab at former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. "I was going to give a few remarks on the people who were over here a week ago Saturday, but I couldn't find it written all over my hands." He added, "You betcha."
Democrats and Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) "traded barbs" Monday over who was responsible for the expiration of unemployment benefits for thousands of Americans. Bunning insists that Democrats are responsible for not paying for the extension, while Democrats claim the benefits qualify for "emergency spending" that does not need to be immediately paid for.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) "vowed to block all future spending bills in the Senate that aren't fully 'paid for' with cuts to other spending programs." Coburn is already blocking an extension of unemployment benefits for 200,000 Americans, and he told The Hill newspaper yesterday that if blocking bills "earns us consternation, so be it."
New legislation intended to curb the impact of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case may also outlaw secret funding of ads run by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A bicameral bill expected to be introduced soon "would require nonprofit groups, unions and trade associations including the Chamber to identify who pays for ads designed to sway opinion on candidates for federal office."
Americans lay the blame for the rough economy at the feet of President Bush, according to a new Harris poll. Thirty-one percent of respondents said Bush bears responsibility, followed by Wall Street at 25 percent. Only 14 percent blamed President Obama. Pollster Louis Harris wrote that Bush and "the state of the economy he left as part of his legacy still sticks in the craw of Americans."
Republican Party leaders, including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), former senator Rick Santorum, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), will be traveling to New Orleans for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. "The weekend event, expected to draw several thousand activists from key southern states," may also pose a test for Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, who will address the crowd on Saturday.
YOUR COMMENTS
Recent Senate Votes
ON RECESS
ON RECESS
PAID-FOR POLITICAL PROTECTION:
Blankenship is not just a coal baron, he's also a
right-wing activist millionaire who sits on the boards of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association. He's "a
highly active GOP fundraiser and bankroller who is known for his
outspoken opposition to labor unions." The Center for Responsive Politics
has calculated "that individuals and PACs connected to Massey Energy have
contributed more than $300,000 to federal candidates in the past two decades,
91 percent of which went to Republicans." "Blankenship contributed the
federal maximum of $30,400 last year to the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, and he has supported
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and GOP Senate candidates
Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio," the Washington Post
reports. After the Marin County Coal spill, then-U.S. Secretary of Labor
Elaine Chao, who oversaw the MSHA, "put
on the brakes" on an agency investigation into the spill by placing a
staffer to her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), in charge. In 2002, a
Labor Department judge levied a $5,600 fine. "In September 2002,
Massey's PAC gave $100,000 to the National Republican Senatorial
Committee," which McConnell had previously chaired. Overall, McConnell
has been one of the top recipients of Massey-related contributions,
collecting $13,550 from Massey-connected contributors. Blankenship's
closeness to prominent Republicans helped him land allies at the highest
levels of the federal mine safety system during the Bush administration.
Massey COO
Stanley Suboleski was
named a commissioner of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review
Commission in 2003 and was nominated in December 2007 to run the Energy
Department's Office of Fossil Energy. Suboleski is now back
on the Massey board. After being rejected twice by the Senate, President
Bush put one-time Massey executive
Dick Stickler in charge of the MSHA by a recess appointment in October
2006. In the 1990s, Stickler
oversaw Massey subsidiary Performance Coal, the operator of the deadly
Upper Big Branch Mine, after managing Beth Energy mines, which "incurred
injury rates double the national average." Bush named Stickler acting
secretary when the recess appointment expired in January 2008.
EXTREME RHETORIC:
Bachmann led
the anti-Census charge last year, declaring that she would
illegally refuse
to answer any question beyond the number of people living in her home. Even
though Bachmann has since
voted for a House resolution
urging Census participation, she returned to fearmongering last month,
saying "there's some very
serious problems
with the census" because it is "counting illegal aliens." The
right-wing noise machine
-- from Beck, radio host Rush Limbaugh, and blogger Michelle Malkin, to new
CNN contributor and Red State blogger Erick Erickson -- is also getting the
message out. Erickson said recently he would "pull
out"
his wife's shotgun if authorities try to arrest him for not filling out the
American Community Survey -- a longer questionnaire conducted by the Census
Bureau that is sent to a small subset of Americans to collect
more detailed
demographic information. Beck has said that he refuses to complete the
Census form because the government is "out
of control."
Beck has also said that the survey is an attempt to "increase
slavery."
The Commerce Department
responded
to Erickson's shotgun comment, saying that precautions are being made to
"protect the safety of both census workers and the public."
BLOG WATCH
Fortune 500 firms turn to the Talx Corporation to
avoid paying unemployment claims.
Fox News' Neil Cavuto says it's "bizarre"
to enforce wage and hour rules benefiting undocumented immigrants.
DAILY GRILL
"Repeal and replace [the health care reform law] will be the slogan for the
fall [election]." -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY),
3/23/10
"I never considered myself a maverick." -- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ),
4/03/10
"I think what [Sen.] Harry [Reid] ought to do is get in a car and drive
around Nevada, where people are overwhelmingly opposed to hiring 16,000 IRS
agents as health police." -- Fox News' Newt Gingrich,
4/06/10
"The Republicans have been getting criticized lately with this, this
mistaken concept, I guess, sort of surrounding Republicans right now that
they're the Party of No. That we're the Party of No." -- Former Alaska
governor Sarah Palin,
4/07/10
HUMOR
"Well, earlier this week,
President Obama kicked off the baseball season by throwing out the
ceremonial first pitch. They said President Bush did a better job throwing
out the first pitch. But on the other hand, President Obama can talk." –Jay
Leno
INTERESTING
Here's one early contender for dumbest quote of
the year that may be hard to top:
Buy American Mention of the Week, By Roger Simmermaker The “All Three Editions” special is back
There seems to be evidence the economy is turning around these days, even though the jobless rate is still high and the U.S. is still drowning in twin deficits of budget and trade. Here is what a front page article in the Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday, April 6, 2010:
Stock and bond markets flirted with milestones on Monday, as the outlook for economic growth brightened following a string of reports showing signs of a pickup in the labor market, service sector and housing.
Companies like Toyota are offering incentives and special deals while American national champions GM and Ford give them a run for their money. Even though there is no real competition for a book like How Americans Can Buy American (since no other book actually shows you how to buy American) like Toyota has with GM and Ford, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense to offer specials from time to time. After all, wouldn’t that just make it easier for the right information to get in the hands of the right people? In my opinion, the “right” people are the ones who use their dollars as a patriotic statement, put their money where their mouth is, and go the extra mile to make positive difference for the United States and its economy.
So now I’m bringing back the “All Three Editions” special I ran briefly before Christmas last year. Everyone knows that Christmastime isn’t the only time we need to be concerned about buying American, so if the labor market is really showing signs of recovery, let’s reward the right kind of labor now to help push it along; the labor that takes place right here in America by American workers employed by American-owned companies!
Right now, by ordering the regularly-priced $18.95 third edition of How Americans Can Buy American ($22.90 with shipping), you can get all three of my How Americans Can Buy American editions for that same $18.95 with FREE shipping. That's a savings of almost 20 percent, and you’ll get the historic first and second editions for free as well.
With all three editions, you'll have the complete collection of what many have called the Bible of buying American. Even though the first edition was written in 1996 and the second edition in 2002, these earlier two books will give you a historic perspective of buying American through the years. You'll also discover foreign brands and companies you probably thought were American all along.
Did you know Chef America Inc., the creator of Hot Pockets, used to be an American brand (you’d think it still would be with that kind if name) until Swiss-owned Nestle bought it in 2002? Did you know that also in 2002 the Ralston Purina Company of St. Louis, Missouri used to be an American company until Swiss-owned Nestle bought them too?
Swiss-owned Nestle is the biggest food company in the world, and one of the American acquisitions that helped them get there includes several brands of pet food that you might be feeding your dog or cat! If you already have a copy of the most-recent third edition of How Americans Can Buy American, by ordering all three you can keep the first two editions for yourself, and give the third edition as a gift to that person you know would “Buy American” if only they were armed with the right information. This is one of the best deals I've ever offered, and you can take advantage of it by going here and clicking on the All Three Editions link.
Thank you for your dedication to unlocking the power of consumer patriotism by buying American and for encouraging others to do the same. If our economy is truly recovering, and even if it’s currently not, we can do our part to get it where it should be much sooner and more Americans back to work sooner as well. And that will be welcome news for all Americans, regardless of the industry or sector you work in.
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Roger Simmermaker is the author of How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism and writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website www.howtobuyamerican.com. Roger is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, has been a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Business Week among many other publications.
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