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A happy Don Blankenship, President and CEO of Massey Energy wrote late last year
Pleased that Massey won 3 Sentinels of Safety Awards from MSHA – 2008 was our safest year ever.
Blankenship was referring to this award program, sponsored by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). The MSHA, part of the US Department of Labor, administers mine safety by enforcing
"provisions of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Mine Act) to enforce compliance with mandatory safety and health standards as a means to eliminate fatal accidents, to reduce the frequency and severity of nonfatal accidents, to minimize health hazards, and to promote improved safety and health conditions in the nation’s mines."
As described on MSHA’s website, the Sentinels of Safety award program "recognizes achievement of outstanding safety records, to stimulate greater interest in safety and to encourage development of more effective accident prevention programs among the Nation’s mineral extractive industries."
The Massey Energy press release celebrating the awards states that "Massey is the first mining company ever to receive three of the mining industry’s most prestigious safety awards in one year".
In contrast to MSHA’s apparent deep admiration for Massey Energy, Tim Huber of AP recently reported:
The coal mine rocked by an explosion that killed at least 25 workers in the nation’s deadliest mining disaster since 1984 had been cited for 600 violations in less than a year and a half, some of them for not properly ventilating methane — the highly combustible gas suspected in the blast.
While scrutiny is being justly leveled at Massey Energy Company to assess exactly how important safety is to them, the same might be done for the MSHA. One might want to question how, and why, the federal government could heap safety awards on a company cited 600 times for safety violations–in just one of its operations. The one that just blew up.
The question might be asked of their board of directors here, or perhaps this fellow might know something.
6 Comments
Our Government is just as guity for the deaths as the coal company.
They promote and bend the rules for the coal companies, and promote the use of coal.
They also bend over backwards for Corporations like Massey Energy, and think people like Don Blankenship are great Americans.
So the Government had it’s finger on the trigger that killed these men.
Yet the American People will hate the coal company, love the coal they produce, and vote back into office the same people in Government who allowed this and much more to happen.
Did you check the link that lists their directors? Bobby Inman, former Director of NSA. And then there’s:
Think these guys are on the board due to their intimate knowlege of coal production, or because they know how government works, in our corporate age?
This is prevalent in everything in this Country not just coal.
The watch dogs end up working for the people they were to watch.
The revolving door is the Government Officals Gold mine.
Probably twenty percent of our defense budget is because Ex Government Officials lead the companies around the Government.
The people have been told of all of this for decades and never even complain.
They vote back in the same people who appoint the people, and support all of this by allowing it to happen.
Thanks, great catch. The MSHA was in bed with Big Coal during the Bush years. I’m not sure that much has changed under Obama. It is still pretty anti-regulatory. Cass Sunstein, for example, was put in charge of the regulations for government office at the OMB and he is an anti-regulationist.
Thanks. I agree MSHA needs a very close look. The potential for corruption is obvious, and Blankenship is just the man to fufill that potential to the hilt.
That said, neither party has a monopoly on corruption. It is now chronic and endemic to the whole system, regardless of who holds the majority at any given point in time. The same corruption that poisons the water wells in west virginia puts Blankenship’s man in the state supreme court, and keeps Obama’s secret meetings with Big Coal off the record.
Or did CREW finally get that released?
If we could nail Massey to Cass, that would be great.