That high-powered public relations and lobbying firm hired by Massey Energy to help the company after the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster is pushing the idea that federal lawmakers should hold off any reform legislation until the entire investigation is completed — which could be a year or more from now.
Officials from the firm Public Strategies (whose principals include former Bush White House counselor Dan Bartlett) are circulating copies of yesterday’s Daily Mail editorial, “Let’s not grandstand on mine safety laws” on Capitol Hill. The editorial took on West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who dared to suggest that there were actions that could be taken right away that would improve mine safety, even if investigators don’t yet have all the answers about what caused the April 5 explosion that killed 29 miners and injured two others.
I asked Massey spokesman Jeff Gillenwater about his company’s lobbying efforts, and he sent me this e-mailed statement:
We agree with the overall premise of the editorial that there should be no rush to judgment by state or federal lawmakers on which legislative initiatives may be adopted until all of the facts are ascertained as to what caused the UBB accident. We feel it would be premature for Congress to act without first acquiring all the relevant information surrounding the UBB accident.
But in a letter to President Obama (oddly enough, released on the Sunday before Memorial Day), Rockefeller outlined what he said were recommendations made by families of the Upper Big Branch victims, including:
– Requiring each mine to have a certified mine safety team comprised of miners;
– Requiring inspectors to choose miners to accompany them on safety inspections;
– Improving rock dusting standards;
– Requiring inspectors to conduct inspections during evening and weekend shifts, rather than just during day shifts; and
– Piercing the corporate veil to hold upper management, Directors, and CEOs accountable for the safety of miners.
No one is saying that all of the answers are in about what caused the Massey disaster, but Sen. Rockefeller told President Obama:
The MSHA investigation of the Upper Big Branch tragedy will provide critical information about this tragedy, and may require further state and federal action, but there is a great deal of information that has already come to light. There is no reason to wait to take action to address known problems.
Sen. Rockefeller’s letter aside, the only real action so far in Congress has been efforts by Rockefeller and Sen. Robert C. Byrd to add some shareholder accountability for coal industry safety to the financial regulation overhaul bill. Nobody has introduced any major, multi-faceted reform bill — and MSHA hasn’t really proposed anything like this, either through administration sponsored legislation or regulatory changes.
Four years ago, the state of West Virginia acted within a month of the Sago Mine Disaster … but it took another tragedy at Massey’s Aracoma Mine to get Gov. Joe Manchin and the Legislature really moving.
On the federal level, the West Virginia delegation introduced its major mine safety bill on Feb. 1, 2006, just less than a month after Sago. But, Congress didn’t act until after Aracoma and then a third disaster, the five deaths at Kentucky Darby … This weekend, we’ll be marking two months since the Upper Big Branch Mine blew up …
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I’m not optimistic about meaningful action as long as the industry and the country have this attitude that miners and Appalachian communities are acceptable sacrifices for cheap extravagant consumption. The “stuff’ happens” mentality is deadly.
I’m with you Vernon. Big business always wins over the health of the little people. We’re seeing the same smoke screens that were thrown up after the last mining disaster. Just as we are on the oil spill in the gulf. Big business knows that congress knows we can’t live without them so they just bide their time.
Sen. Rockefeller’s submittal at this time seems to be more of an interim recommendation than the long term changes that Massey wants to drag out.
There are measures that should be taken immediately. These include changes to law that allow significant safety items to be tabled under the umbrella of administrative ‘protests’. Dangerous mines should be fixed and no coal production should be allowed until the safety concerns are mitigated.
There are other changes that should occur once all the facts are known, but the response from the state and federal government, the citizens, and the mining communities indicates that big changes are coming. Massey will want to draw these changes out, and take any advantage of our short memories to reduce the high spirits surrounding the incident(s).
Our citizens, our economic future, and our health is at stake. Calm, firm and intelligent decision makers must enact strong safety laws and never let the enforcement of these laws ever be marginalized as during the Bush/Cheney administration. The corruption in the mining industry is being uncovered, within the industry and within the agencies that regulate the industry, at least from the reports of this newspaper. Hopefully, change will be made and it will change the way WV miners and its citizens are respected.
What a shocker. There has yet to be a coal operator (or coal trade association) which went to Congress and said, “please pass more laws to make us operate safely.” You can bet that once the investigation is finished and legislative action is proposed, Massey will be working to kill it then, too. Remember who runs this company — the same guy who said legislative and regulatory efforts to keep miners safe were “silly.”
Public Strategies may have been able to get an editorial placed in the Daily Mail, and they sure are working hard to change Blankenship and Massey’s image…but Don is who he is and ain’t changing his spots over the long haul.
You all must remember one very important thing. ALL coal mines are always going to be, by their nature, very hazardous places to work regardless of any laws placed to oversee them. Coal miners are very well trained in the hazards of their occupation and how to deal with them and keep themselves and their fellow workers safer. They know about all these things and are continually reminded, and retrained once a year according to State and/or MSHA law. All mines post signs all over the bathhouse, offices, and underground areas remnding all to “Work Safely”. No coal company gains a thing by blowing the mine up and killing people! It makes no sense for them to do so.
As to the story that workers are afraid they will be fired if they voice safety concerns, I say BS. If a worker is afraid to talk to the mine people about a safety concern, MSHA has had a toll-free number for 30 years, manned 24/7, that any miner can call ANONYMOUSLY to report his safety concerns. MSHA must respond to each and everyone of these calls and investigate them.
The bottom line is: No regulator, no Board, no CEO, no union, no politician, no President is going to keep the miners safe. No matter what the former does; It’s the WORKERS THEMSELVES that must be responsible for this as much, or more, than any one above. This may sound hard, cold, and unfeeling to a non-coal miner; but any coal miner will understand that what I say is absolutely true.
Rex B
It is premature to pass any sort of knee-jerk legislation in response to this disaster. Let the investigation proceed and then see what needs to be done.
Please note just how many of the “rescue chambers” (new law after Sago) were in this mine. Sadly, they saved not one man.
Mines do disagree with some of the violatons that inspectors cite them for. (Just as you might disagree with the speeding ticket you just got.) So, mining companies and you both get your day in court. MSHA, in the MINER Act, replaced the old methods of dealing with these, and instituted a more cumbersome method. This alone has create the infamous “backlog” of cases that are still undecided. Mining companies didn’t do this; our legislators and MSHA did. In the interest of coal miner safety.
MSHA could, however, speed up the backlog of contested violations and put these to rest. That ball is in their court.
Saddest part of all this is number of politicians trying to use this horrible disaster to make political points.
Rex B
Doing more of the same will just get more of the same.
There’s no doubt that conditions underground can change quickly.
Inspections, violations, penalties and administrative actions have shown themselves to be ineffective.
Presently, the only measure that matters is produced coal tonage per hour or per workshilft. That has to change.
Massey Energy is still producing coal and making money — many individuals and communities are dependent upon this continuing.
Maybe Massey’s profits should be escrowed until the findings show the company not to be at fault.
Mining mishaps and deaths will continue although making those more costly to the companies (and stockholders) — not just to the miners and their communities — will be the best regulatory approach.
P.S. Both the state and federal governments have the ability to quickly revoke a company’s permits thereby forcing the company into court to provide its ability to comply. Doing that requires political will which continues to be lacking.
Rex: The MINER Act did not institute a more cumbersome method for hearing cases — it just raised the penalties for violations. The companies, in protest, started appealing just about every one that was over $500 to $1000, depending on the company. THAT is the reason the backlog of cases has come about — not because of anything MSHA did.
The ball is in the operators’ court. They are the ones who can withdraw their frivolous challenges.
Taking off on somewhat of a point that Bob Mooney made above, the UMWA proposes that penalties for violations be assessed and paid into an escrow account while any appeal takes place. If the company is successful in their appeal, they get their money back. If they are not successful, then they’ve already paid their fine and there won’t be millions out there unpaid — including for uncontested fines and where challenges have failed — like we do now.
Phil,
You are only partly right … The MINER Act made some changes in the penalty structure, increasing fines for D citations and D orders, and adding the language for flagrant penalties. But, MSHA regulatory changes also increased penalties (see their final rule here, http://www.msha.gov/REGS/FEDREG/FINAL/2007finl/07-1402.pdf ).
However, MSHA under Richard Stickler also did away with the informal conferences that the industry was fond of using to appeal penalties without actually contesting them before the commission. As I recall, it was this specific action that really sent the number of formal contests sky-high.
It’s also important to remember that as these contests and the backlog of cases affect the Pattern of Violations process, fixing that is directly in the hands of MSHA’s Joe Main — and he wouldn’t even have to go through rulemaking to do it. All Joe has to do is rewrite MSHA’s internal Scoring Formula (http://www.msha.gov/POV/POVScreeningCriteria.pdf ) so that final orders aren’t needed. Neither the statute nor the existing regulations require final orders for MSHA to put an operator on a POV.
Yet, Joe Main and everybody else in the Obama administation talk about this as if it’s some complicated thing to fix — something that needs rulemaking or legislation … If it was a problem that MSHA wanted to fix, it could have done so many months ago by fixing this screening formula.
Ken.
Again, the inspection/violation/penalty DOES NOT work — thousands of violations and millions in penalties has not changed the behaviors or performances.
Continuing the present process won’t accomplish anything.
Personally, I believe in positive approaches which would be to monetarily reward companies and miners who perform safely more so than others.
What happened to Massey at the Upper Big Branch Mine could have happened at many other mines — many underground mines have those types of conditions.
Waiting until violations exist or until miners lives are lost is the wrong approach.
Also, there needs to be a greater governance of safety in every mine and workplace — somehow.