Of Foxes, Chickens and Chickencoops

In the continuing spirit of bi-partisanship, President Bush has renominated some of the worst of the worst nominees to head safety, environmental and regulatory agencies.

Former coal industry executive Richard Stickler was renominated for the -- hell, I can't even remember how many times the White House has sent him to the Senate (only to have him sent back again.) Stickler received a recess appointement last Fall.

Along with Stickler came the return of former Wal-Mart lawyer Paul DeCamp as wage and hour administrator at Labor. DeCamp has a record urging the weakening of the Fair Labor Standard Act’s (FLSA’s) overtime pay and other protections.

Also returning from the bureacratic dead is right-wing anti-regulatory zealot Susan Dudley, who we've written about here and here.

And then there's former mining industry executive John Correll who was re-nominated as director of the Interior Department’s Office of Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Correll, you may remember, was involved improper contracting while at MSHA, and was instrumental in the firing of an MSHA whistleblower.

Needless to say, it's highly unlikely that any of these nominations will be confirmed by a Democratic Senate. (They were too controversial to even make it through a Republican Senate.)

But there is one piece of good news for the chickens. Steven Griles, a former mining lobbyist who was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Department of Interior (the number 2 position in the Departmetn) until he resigned in 2005, has apparently been notified by federal prosecutors that he will most likely be indicted for lying about his relationship with the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Apparently Abramoff referred to Griles as “our guy” at the Interior Department.

Score one for the chickens.

Who's Sleeping With The Secretary Of Labor?

John Cheves at the Lexington Herald Leader has an fascinating article about Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and the man she sleeps with, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who also happens to be her husband. Most of it has been reported before (much of it on Confined Space), but Cheves manages to pull it all together in a devastating package.

How does this relationship work in practice?

Millionaire coal magnate Bob Murray knew the name to drop in September 2002, when Mine Safety Health Administration inspectors confronted him about safety problems at his mines: Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Murray, a large man with a fierce temper, is a huge donor to Republican senators. McConnell, R-Ky., rose through the ranks by raising money for those senators. And McConnell is married to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, whose agency oversees MSHA.

Shouting at a table full of MSHA officials at their district office in Morgantown, W.Va., Murray said: "Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss," according to notes of the meeting. "They," Murray added, pointing at two MSHA men, "are gone."

Murray, in a recent interview, denied that he referred to McConnell "sleeping with" Chao.

But nobody disputes that district manager Tim Thompson, at one end of Murray's jabbing finger and the man whose notes recorded the meeting, was transferred to another region, away from Murray's mines. He appealed the transfer for three years until he grudgingly took retirement in January. Labor Department officials refuse to discuss his transfer.

"The ironic part is, I'm a Republican," said Thompson, now a private mine-safety consultant. "But I don't think you should bring up politics at a meeting like that, involving safety."

Probably not, but it was obviously effective.

The Chao-McConnell relationship is of particular interest for workers, particularly mineworkers and farmworkers:

When it comes to workplace-related issues such as mine safety, the McConnell-Chao marriage presents an intriguing target for industry donors. At the Labor Department, Chao has taken what some reports say is a relaxed attitude toward the regulation of coal mines and an approach that labor unions perceive as hostile.

Sometimes Chao achieves what her husband cannot in the Senate, such as a wage freeze her department instituted on certain farmworkers.

And her job has been a perfect vehicle to put her conservative political philosphy into action:

Chao is staunchly conservative. Speaking at a Washington event in May, she said, "Often, people come into public service with a zeal to take immediate action. But, sometimes it's not what you do but what you refrain from doing that is important."

And we've certainly seen plenty of "refraining" from doing anything over at OSHA and MSHA during her reign. But the important people are happy.

Few industries were happier to see Chao bring that philosophy to the Labor Department than mining, which has given more than $400,000 to McConnell's Senate campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In early 2001, industry magazine Coal Age listed the various mining executives invited to shape the agency's agenda and wrote that they were "benefitting from high-level access to policymakers in the new administration."

At the Mine Safety and Health Administration, Chao named Utah coal operator David Lauriski as director, assisted by former McConnell aide Andrew Rajec. (Lauriski resigned in 2004, citing family concerns, after the Labor Department's inspector general questioned no-bid MSHA contracts that went to firms connected to him.)

His deputies for policy and operations, John Caylor and John Correll, had been executives at Cyprus Amax Minerals Co. of Englewood, Colo. The company's PAC gave $17,000 to McConnell and $15,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee while McConnell and Law, now Chao's deputy, ran it.

"They stacked MSHA with executives who came straight from the coal and mining companies," said Tom Kiley, a Democratic aide to the House Education and Workforce Committee. "Sure, it's good to have some expertise, but there was no effort to balance that with people from the workers' side. It's totally the fox guarding the henhouse over there."

Other "accomplishments" of the dynamic duo?

The Food Marketing Institute lobbied the Senate and the Labor Department after President Bush took office in 2001 to kill the mandatory ergonomics rules that President Clinton had intended to protect workers from repetitive-stress injuries. The institute says it represents 26,000 grocery stores.

At the urging of the institute and other business groups, in 2001 McConnell and the GOP Senate narrowly approved a resolution declaring that Clinton's safety rules "shall have no force or effect."

But it was Chao, after the food institute's officials approached her, who sealed the deal by replacing Clinton's safety rules with "voluntary guidelines," the institute told its members in a newsletter.

"The proposed voluntary guidelines will give our member companies helpful suggestions," the group's chief executive, Tim Hammonds, said in a statement thanking Chao for "the new spirit of cooperation."

The institute, which had contributed at least $13,000 to McConnell in the 1990s, upped its donations, giving him nearly $13,000 more during Chao's first two years as labor secretary. Officials of the institute declined to comment

And then there's the firing of Jack Spadaro for blowing the whistle on Massey energy due to a massive coal slurry spill in Kentucky. (We've written about that before, here and here.)

The Chao/McConnell Team's philosophy even affects the front line workers who are supposed to be protecting workers' health and safety:

Some MSHA officials talk of being pressured to go soft even when they uncover serious problems.

In April, MSHA inspector Danny Woods told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that colleagues wanted to shut down part of a Massey coal mine in West Virginia in January because spilled coal and dust had accumulated along a belt line, raising the risk of a fire. The request was denied. Woods said inspectors were told "to back off and let them run coal, that there was too much demand for coal."

Days later, on Jan. 19, a fire in that part of the mine killed two miners. MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere recently said MSHA is investigating Woods' allegation, so she cannot discuss it.

And like any good marriage, when one partner drops the ball, the other one is there to pick it up and run:

Sometimes Chao picks up the ball and runs with it at the Labor Department when McConnell fails to reach a similar goal in the Senate.

For example, McConnell filed legislation for three years, starting in 1998, to curb the mandatory annual raise in wages of legal immigrant farmworkers under the government's H2A program. By 2001, the wage in Kentucky was $6.60 an hour, which struck some agricultural businesses as too high. (Agribusinesses have given McConnell more than $1 million for his campaigns -- out of $21 million from all donors over 22 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.) But the bills kept failing.

In 2001, Chao ordered an indefinite delay in the release of an annual Labor Department wage report that triggered the farmworker raise. It was an insider move, not noticed by most Americans, but praised by McConnell's Republican congressional colleagues and business groups in letters obtained from Chao's office.

Farmworker Justice sued Chao on behalf of immigrant workers, and in 2002, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered her to resume publishing the wage report in a timely fashion.

And it's always a pleasure to see couples working together toward a shared goal:

In 2002, McConnell filed an amendment to a corporate ethics bill that would force unions -- whom McConnell criticizes for supporting Democrats over Republicans -- to file far more detailed public reports on their spending. His amendment drew protest from unions, and four Republicans joined with Democrats to defeat it.

The next year, Chao announced stricter rules on unions' expense disclosures through the Labor Department's mandatory reporting system. Unions now must itemize every expense of $5,000 or more. The unions protested, but her order was upheld.

What a team. Although Chao and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are Bush's only two original cabinet members, Chao is generally thought to be his least effective Cabinet secretary. But it helps to be married to the right people. McConnell is generally thought to be the next Senate Majority Leader when Bill Frist retires in January.

Mine Safety: Bush's Failed Nominations and Changing The Political Calculus

The Louisville Courier Journal is just about fed up with the Bush administration. "You'd think," the Journal write, that after 37 coal miners deaths this year, the Bush administration would try to "nominate the best possible candidate for assistant secretary of Labor handling mine safety and health."

Think again.

Instead, the White House insists on promoting Richard Stickler, whose record in both industry and government, while not automatically disqualifying, certainly will not give miners and their families confidence that the administration has their best interests at heart.

The same can be said for the nomination of John Correll to head the U.S. Office of Surface Mining. The Sierra Club warns that installing what they see as an industry friend (he was a honcho with Amax Mining and Peabody Mining, both of which have had operations in Kentucky) would crush any hope for better oversight of this most environmentally destructive form of coal extraction.

Bush didn't even get the hing after the Senate sent both nominations back to the White House. He just renominated them both again.

And then we have the Kentucky Coal Association (KCA) which is addressing the ongoing mine disasters with, what else? -- a public relations campaign.

In May the KCA board of directors, in a historic vote, cited mine deaths and mountaintop removal when it ordered up a public relations campaign to improve the industry's public persona -- a $2.5 million PR campaign run by Meridian Communications.

One mine company, at least, seems to be getting serious:

Even the egregious Massey Energy, which has appeared ever more irresponsible and callous in the operation of its 31 underground mines and 16 surface mines in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia, is making an effort to look less like some 19th Century industrial throwback.

Massey announced last week that it would go beyond the requirements of federal law, in order to improve fire suppression, install better safety technology and adopt better preparation for mine evacuation. CEO Don Blankenship, who is viewed by industry opponents as a living version of the Coal Baron caricature, is out there making the case for Massey's record in mine safety.

He could have been content to argue, as he did, that "until this year, Massey Energy had not had a serious mine fire or mine explosion during my 24 years with the company."

Instead, in the aftermath of two deaths in an incident at one of its Aracoma Coal Co. mines, Massey will install belt line sprinklers, modify escape training and equip rescue teams with thermal imaging systems. All of which is more meaningful than $2.5 million worth of sloganeering and public-education-through-TV-commercial.

And finally, as we never stop emphasizing here at Confined Space, don't forget the relationship between politics and death on the job:

The President calculates that, having twice scared coalfield voters into supporting him with pledges to protect scarce mining jobs against the threats of responsible regulators, those voters will stick with him, and with his party, no matter who he puts in charge of mine safety and strip mine enforcement.

Clearly, the Republicans in the Kentucky congressional delegation believe that, too. So, obviously, does Kentucky's Elaine Chao, who runs the Labor Department. They're with the President as he stubbornly continues to put industry types in charges of regulating the industry.

How many deaths and injuries will it take to change the basic political calculus of federal oversight? How many decapitated mountains and dead streams?

Amen.

Mine Disaster Publicity Brings Good News and Bad

Louisville Courier Journal columnist David Hawpe says all the news about coal mine hazards this year brings good news and bad news.

All the publicity, all the pressure, all the potential for political damage came to bear earlier this month when something extraordinary happened:

The Republican-controlled Senate sent back to the White House the Bush nominations of Richard Stickler to be assistant secretary of Labor for mine safety and John Correll to be head of Interior's Office of Surface Mining.

Like so many Bush nominees, Stickler came from the industry he was supposed to regulate. He managed mines that, according a United Mine Workers' analysis, had injury rates double the national average. As a Pennsylvania agency head, the UMW said, he oversaw an operation that failed to prevent the Quecreek mine disaster.

Correll, as described by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, was part of the Mine Safety and Health Administration leadership that preferred cooperating with industry to confronting its bad attitudes and practices, that undercut the inspection system, that sabotaged safety rules and that turned MSHA's investigation of the Martin County spill into a coverup. The Bush White House thought he was just the man to oversee the nation's surface mines. The Senate said no.

The bad news?

The folks who want industry-friendly regulation and sent those nominations to the Senate are still in the White House.

But come next January, we may at least have better oversight into what they're doing if all goes well on November 7.

Senate Returns Stickler, Correll, Other Nominees Back To White House

Senate To Bush: "Return To Sender"

In a rare move, the US Senate sent two mine nominees back to the White House before adjourning today.

The nominations of Richard Stickler to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety, and the nomination of John Correll to head the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining were sent back to the White House over concerns about their mine safety records.

"It's our hope that the president will take the opportunity to come up with more suitable candidates," a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. Under Senate rules, nominations are returned to the president before the start of any congressional recess that lasts more than 30 days. But this rule is usually waived by unanimous consent, though exceptions can be made for specific nominations.

Stickler, as we have written, was manifestly unsuited for the job of ensuring the safety of American miners during the current safety crisis. Most of his career was spent in industry where the mines he managed had injury rates that were double the national average, according to government data assembled by the United Mineworkers. And while serving as Pennsylvania’s director of the Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, his role in not preventing the Quecreek mine near-disaster has been told. The mine had flooded to to errors in mine maps. Following the flood, which resulted in the amazing rescue of trapped miners, a grand jury determined that the bureau, which had been headed by Stickler for 5 years at that point, should have noticed the mapping problems sooner.

The United Mineworkers and the AFL-CIO opposed Stickler's appointment, and Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., also challenged Stickler's nomination, while Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., questioned his record as head of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety. In June, strong opposition to Stickler forced Senate Majority Leader Frist to cancel a vote that would have shut off debate on Stickler's nomination because Republicans didn't have enough votes to overcome a filibuster by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd and move the nomination foward. Stickler has since been working as a mine safety advisor to Labor Secretary Chao.

The Senate also returned the nomination of John Correll to head the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining. Correll, as we have written before, was deeply involved in improper contracting while at MSHA, and was responsible for the firing of an MSHA official who revealed the coverup of "the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States."

Byrd had a hold on Correll's nomination to provide more time to consider his nomination but had not decided whether to oppose him, his spokesman said. Byrd met with Correll this week. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., had also placed a hold on Correll.

The Senate also sent back to the White House the nominations of William Wehrum to be the Environmental Protection Agency's assistant administrator for air and radiation, Tracy Henke to be executive director of the office of state and local government coordination and preparedness at the Homeland Security Department, and James O'Gara to be deputy director for supply reduction at the Office of National Drug Control Policy and five judges.

Normally, when Congress goes out on break, Presidential nominations are automatically carried over to their return. The fact that these nominations were returned to the White House is an indication of the Senate's deep dissatisfaction with Bush's nominations.

Bush must now either renominate them, nominate new candidates, or make recess appointments while Congress is out.

Related Articles

• VICTORY: Senate Sticks It To Bush Mine Safety Nominee, June 13, 2006
• MSHA: Faith-Based Mine Safety?, May 24, 2006
• Bush's Surface Mining Nominee Up To His Neck In Improper Behavior While At MSHA, May 21, 2006
• Bush Should Withdraw Mine Safety Nominee, May 21, 2006
• Croneyism Still Alive And Well In Bush Administration, May 18, 2006
• More on MSHA Nominee Richard Stickler, September 25, 2005

MSHA Appointees Failed to See The Future

Remember a long time ago, in another era, when no one paid much attention to what was happening in American coal mines, when so few miners were killed in the workplace that the media didn't even report them, and so few people had ever heard of the Mine Safety and Health Administration that you could fill it with industry hacks who knew little about how to make a coal mine safe, and no one would even notice?

In case you're having trouble remembering, a kind reader has sent me a time capsule from those long-forgotten days. It's a copy of the Society Review: A newsletter devoted to helping the world become a safer place to work, published by the International Society of Mine Safety Professionals, in Fall 2005.

The issues highighted articles by Dave Lauriski, who had recently resigned as head of MSHA, and MSHA Deputy Assistant Secretary, John Correll, who is currently a very controversial nominee to head the Department of Interior's Office of Surface Mining. Listening to these learned professionals discuss the state of mine safety in late 2005 is like listening to the captain of the Titanic boast of how his ship is unsinkable as it left Southampton in the Spring of 1912.

How's MSHA doing?

Lauriski:

People have to stop talking about rates. “Whenever we have a rate, we’re basically saying it’s OK for people to get hurt.” Five years ago, who would have thought only 5 coal miners would lose their lives in the first 5 months of 2005? “That’s an incredible improvement. But it’s not enough.

Correll:

Mining fatalities have dropped 40 percent in the past four years. Fatalities are on course for a 50 percent reduction in five years.

The injury decline, although not as steep, is in decline.

“We think that’s because we’re working together,” said John Correll, MSHA deputy assistant secretary. “We’ve developed a culture and collaboration. We’ve walked away from a culture of confrontation. MSHA and the industry are on the same road to ZERO accidents.

And to what do we owe this great record?

Lauriski:

“Some people say it’s not about disciplining people,” Dave said. “Well, by golly, sometimes it is. Maybe that discipline will save somebody’s life. If you want to have ZERO, you have to have ZERO tolerance.”

Correll

Now the focus incorporates the human aspects of safety and health. “The vast majority of accidents we investigate deal with behavior,” John said. “I’m not talking about blame. I’m not talking about disciplinary action. I’m talking about why people do the things they do.”

Yeah, if only those miners at Sago -- and the other 21 who have been killed this year -- had been punished more, they'd probably be alive today.

MSHA: Faith-Based Mine Safety?

Seems that George Bush's Mine Safety and Health Administration didn't need no stinkin' regulations or enforcement because they were on a mission from God.

I wrote earlier this week about the shady behavior of John Correll, the Bush administration's nominee to head the Office of Surface Mining while he was Deputy Assistant Secretary at MSHA. One of his many problems at MSHA was his connection to not-for-bid contracts that went to longtime friends and associates Gerry Silver and Ben Sheppard. Sheppard obtained a series of contracts worth about $190,000.

And who is Ben W. Sheppard?

Ben W. Sheppard & Associates, LLC are a Christian organization that has unlocked the secrets to achieving continuous improvement. Their behavioral based unique processes have produced results that to date, are unequalled by their competition.

Now that's quite a combination: a faith based organization combined with behavior-based programs (as well as bad grammar).

But Correll apparently isn't the only faith-base safety practitioner at MSHA. Kathy Snyder at Mine Safety Watch noticed a rather strange phrase in an MSHA press release -- strange for a government document, at least in the old days when there was still a separation between church and state in this country.

“We continue to pray for the family and friends of the five miners who lost their lives this past weekend," said acting assistant secretary of MSHA David Dye in making the announcement.

Not "our hearts go out to," the families, not "our sympathies," not "we are profoundly sorry for their loss."

I'm going to step way out of line here, recognizing that the separation- of- church- and-state thing is a silly outworn notion that no public official takes seriously any more. But in my opinion, such a quote in this situation amounts to a tasteless advertisement for the piety of the speaker and -- amazingly -- a whole federal agency.

The place to tell someone you are praying for him or her is in a personal communication, not a press release.

Amen.

Snyder notes that shortly after she wrote her piece, the phrase was dropped from the press release on MSHA's website.

(Thanks to the kind reader who tipped me to the Sheppard information and photo.)

Bush's Surface Mining Nominee Up To His Neck In Improper Behavior While At MSHA

I published a piece last week about the Bush administration's appointment of John Correll to head the Office of Surface Mining at the Department of Interior and how the press release boasted that he “has been responsible for management of all aspects” of administration's Mine Safety and Health Administration (as if that was supposed to be a positive recommendation.) I also mentioned that like many Bush administration officials who have jobs in watchdog agencies, he came out of the industry he was supposed to be regulating, in this case from management positions at Amax Mining and Peabody Coal Co (pdf).

But it turns out that incompetence and cronyism is the least of Correll's problems. A bit more research reveals also was deeply involved in improper contracting while at MSHA, and was instrumental in the firing of an MSHA whistleblower.

What does OSM do?

The OSM's primary objectives are to ensure that coal mining activities are conducted in a manner that protects citizens and the environment during mining, to ensure that the land is restored to beneficial use following mining, and to mitigate the effects of past mining by aggressively pursuing reclamation of abandoned coal mines.

And what recent experience does Correll have in protecting citizens and the environment during mining?

You may recall the case of Jack Spadaro, former superintendent of MSHA's National Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beckley, W.Va -- and whistleblower -- who was fired in retaliation for uncovering of the fact that Martin County Coal (owned by Massey Energy) knew about problems that eventually resulted in a massive toxic coal slurry spill -- "the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States," according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Far more extensive in damage than the widely known 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, the Martin County Coal slurry spill dumped an estimated 306 million gallons of toxic sludge down 100 miles of waterways.

Spadaro was a member of the team investigating the spill and blew the whistle on the whitewashed investigation, accusing Bush administration political appointees of cutting the investigation short, playing down the coal company's responsibility and not holding federal regulators accountable for weak oversight. He also blew the whistle on former Assistant Secretary of Labor for MSHA, Dave Lauriski and MSHA's two deputies -- Correll and John Caylor -- for their connections to not-for-bid contracts that went to longtime friends and associates Gerry Silver and Ben Sheppard. Sheppard obtained a series of contracts worth about $190,000. Silver received more than $100,000 from MSHA. One of these contracts, totaling $200,000 for educational training, had been recorded at MSHA as just 180 small contracts for $1,025 each. (More details about that in this anonymous comment to the previous piece.) Lauriski resigned shortly after an Inspector General report confirmed the wrongdoing.

But you can't fire someone for whistleblowing, so Spadaro was accused of a number of minor violations of government rules, including providing free room and board at the mine safety academy to two disabled instructors in a mine rescue competition. He was also accused of making unauthorized cash advances on a government credit card when he needed money to entertain dignitaries and students at the academy, and failure to follow supervisory instructions and appropriate accident procedures. Spadaro had paid his credit card bills on time, but chalked up a whopping $22.60 in processing fees.

And who was given the responsibility to make the final decision on Spadaro's fate at MSHA? None other than John Correll. Spadaro was fired. Correll upheld 13 of the 15 allegations against Spadaro, saying he had "flouted government regulations and agency policies in a variety of issues." He was then reinstated, put on administrative leave, demoted and transferred. Finally,

Just two months shy of his 28th anniversary as a federal government employee--he resigned. A serious case of high blood pressure, lawyer's fees of over $20,000, and frustration with how long it was taking for his appeal to be decided by the Merit Systems Protection Board contributed to Spadaro's decision to throw in the towel. "I'm just very tired of fighting," he said. "I've been fighting this administration since early 2001. I want a little peace for a while."

According to Spadaro,

"I've been in federal government for 27 years, and this is the most lawless administration I have ever seen," he said. "They care nothing for the rights of their employees. They certainly care nothing about enforcing the laws they are charged with enforcing, and they run roughshod over anyone who might try to get them to obey the laws."

So, the man soon to be in charge of the safety of America's surface mining activities was responsible for the firing of an MSHA official who revealed the coverup of "the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States."

The only word that comes to mind is: "typical."

Incidentally, Jack Spadaro recently won the 2006 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for his personal achievement in defending the First Amendment.

Related Articles

• Croneyism Still Alive And Well In Bush Administration, May 18, 2006
• MSHA Whistleblower on CBS 60 Minutes, April 5, 2004
  
• One of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history: Anatomy of a Coverup, December 17, 2003
• Better than a Political Novel, November 9, 2003

Croneyism Still Alive And Well In Bush Administration

Beth Daley at the Project on Government Oversight's Pogo blog points out that the appointment of John Correll to direct the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement at the Department of Interior seems to indicate that "Being qualified and effective at your job apparently seems to be a quaint and outdated notion in the world of political appointments to our federal government."

His main qualification? Correll has “has been responsible for management of all aspects” of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

And that is supposed to be a good thing?

Daley excerpts a speech by West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall on Correll's appointment:

Mr. Correll has been part of the leadership at MSHA during a time when the policy floor fell out. Under his leadership the philosophy at MSHA changed from one of oversight and compliance to one of partnership and complicity.

Rulemakings were abandoned. Opportunities to improve coal miner safety were closeted away. And Mr. Correll and others within the Bush Labor Department advocated partnering with industry to address safety concerns, rather than to enforce the law.

In fact, in 1998, Mr. Correll testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protection advocating fewer inspections, incentives over penalties, and cooperation over regulation.

While other Nations soared ahead in mine safety, incorporating new technologies to ensure and improve protections for their most precious mining resource -- their workers – this Nation, through a cultural shift at MSHA, remained in the dust. It has been a shameful record that I would loath to see carried over to OSM.

Oh, and before MSHA? Daley notes that he held management positions at Amax Mining and Peabody Coal Co (pdf).

I'm sure he'll do a hell of a job over at OSM.

Mine Safety: Bush Administration to the Rescue?

You'll be happy to know that the families of the miners killed in the Sago Mine explosion are in the President's prayers and that the Mine Safety and Health Administration has announced that it will begin "an in-depth investigation of the accident....As always, the purpose of MSHA's investigation will be to improve mine health and safety and prevent such tragedies in the future."

That's nice. I suppose we can all move on now. Surely this is no time jump to conclusions and play the "blame game" or "politicize" this tragic event. Right?

Wrong.

First, the MSHA investigation will investigate the direct causes of this incident, and I hope, do a good job. But MSHA won't investigate the deeper root causes of this incident because they lie in the agency itself and deep into the Bush administration and Congress. For those findings, we already have all the evidence we need.

But we also need to remember that by passing the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Mine Safety and Health Act, this country made a solemn promise that everything possible would be done to ensure a safe workplace for American workers. These promises weren't made because a bunch of reasonable politicians thought it was a reasonable thing to do; they were a product of struggle and organizing. They were literally bathed in the blood of millions of American workers who were been maimed and killed building this country and putting food on the table for their families.

And if it takes embarrassing our current crop of politicians into doing their constitutional duty; if it takes "politicizing" the issue and "playing the blame game" to make people live up to their responsibilities, then so be it.

So it is with the utmost respect for the evidence at hand and our system of government that I say that White House Press Spokesman Scotty McClellan is totally full of shit when he argues that the Bush administration is a friend of workers' friend and defender of their safety:

McClellan said mine safety has been a priority for the Bush administration. "In fact this administration proposed a fourfold increase in fines and penalties for violations of the Mine Safety and Health Administration rules," he said.

Now that's one I haven't heard. The Bush Administration proposing increased MSHA fines?

Turns out there was such a proposal -- but it seems never to have gotten beyond window dressing. In the 2005 and 2006 Fiscal Year Labor Department budgets, the administration actually proposed increasing MSHA fines. In her FY 2005 testimony, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said:

The Administration will seek to strengthen existing enforcement by asking Congress for higher civil monetary penalties. Legislation will be pursued to increase the fine for mine safety violations from $60,000 to $220,000.

Then she said the same thing in the FY 2006 testimony.

The problem is that words are cheap: the administration never actually submitted a proposal to raise those fines.

And while we're talking about putting one's money where one's mouth is, let's follow the money.

Fo back a few years to the last bit (near) mining disaster at the Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania where 9 miners were "miraculously" rescued from a flooded mine. Bush staged a photo op after the rescue where he gushed about the American spirit, sticking together, helping neighbors in trouble and all kinds of other feel-good stuff.

But as David Corn wrote in the Nation at that time,

That spirit, though, was not present earlier this year when the Bush administration proposed cutting the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) by $7 million. The administration defended the 6-percent reduction by noting the number of coal mines has been decreasing. Yet coal mining fatalities have gone up for three years in a row. There were 42 mining fatalities in 2001, 29 in 1998. In March, Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, maintained the funding cut would cause a 25 percent reduction in the government's mine-safety inspection workforce. As of March, 612 federal mine inspectors were responsible for enforcing safety regulations in 25 states, and there were signs the system has not been functioning well.

Blogger David Sirota, who worked for the House Appropriations Committee at the time recalls a Fact Sheet that House Democrats put out questioning why the same President who made that speech had made so many cuts to mine safety programs.

The Fact Sheet noted that Bush proposed cuts in the FY 2002 and FY 2003 MSHA budgets (which were restored by Congress.) It also cites an Department of Labor Inspector General's report that found that "MSHA is unable to complete statutorily mandated inspections of Metal/Nonmetal mine operations because of the rapid growth in mine operations, reductions in number of inspectors and shifts toward compliance assistance." The memo no secret; itwas quoted in a Chicago Tribune article. But the Bush administration never responded.

Sirota concluded that

The 2002 fact sheet and the Chicago Tribune article shows that Bush knew full well that mine safety was suffering - and now we know he didn't do anything about it, to tragic consequences. They can put out GOP hacks and administration spokespeople to deny this reality - but the facts are there.

But who will tell the people?

Congressmen George Miller (D-CA) and Major Owens (D-NY) called today for immediate Congressional hearings into mine safety "to examine the events that led up to this terrible tragedy at the Sago Mine."

The lawmakers also cited alarming statistics that show that the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has been downsized by 170 positions since 2001. Congress has cut MSHA's funding by $4.9 million, in inflation-adjusted terms, for the 2006 fiscal year, compared with 2005. Moreover, Miller said, the Bush Administration has appointed numerous officials to the agency who have close ties to the mining industry. These officials, in the last five years, have rolled back a number of regulations aimed at improving mine worker safety, Miller said.

The letter also calls upon the Committee to investigate whether the numerous MSHA officials who have come directly from the mining industry can effectively oversee the industry and protect its workers.

The United Mine Workers has compiled a list of MSHA officials’ connections to the mining industry. For example, President Bush’s first appointment to MSHA was Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health David Lauriski, a long-time management official in the mining industry. In addition, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for MSHA John Caylor held management jobs with Cyprus Minerals Co., Amax Mining Co. and Magma Copper Co. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for MSHA John Correll served in management posts at Amax Mining and Peabody Coal companies. Special Assistant for MSHA Mark Ellis served as legal counsel to the American Mining Congress. And Chief of Health for Coal Melinda Pon was a management official at BHP Minerals-Utah International.

The Congressmen highlight another serious problem that I've also written about: When one party controls all branches of government, there is no effective oversight of government functions:

Miller and Owens also wrote that Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibilities on worker safety issues. It has not held any hearings on mine worker safety since 2001, and has held just two hearings related to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration - and both of those hearings focused on alternatives and weakening OSHA enforcement.

Will Bunch in the Philadelphia News's Attytood Blog brings all of the budget cuts, industry influence and rank hypocricy together describing the connection between the Sago mine disaster and the Abramoff influnce peddling scandle currently gripping Washington:

Don't look past the big picture. The roots of the horrific events underneath the earth in timeworn West Virginia, and the scandal on the tony sidewalks of Washington's K Street, are as deeply intertwined as those aspens out west, maybe more so. It's a connection that can be summed up in three simple words:

Republicans gone wild.

The confluence of big business and too-powerful lobbyists, including the revolving door between K Street and federal government, the casual and cynical selling-off of the safety net for blue collar and low wage workers, the arrogance and secrecy that come with unchecked political power in one party -- these are all the hallmarks of Abramoff and his alleged influence peddling on Capital Hill.

But a review of the way that Washington has treated the coal industry in America since 2001 -- and the Sago mine in particular -- show all of these exact same problems coming to roost in the steep hills of West Virginia.

And finally, let's take one more step back and take a look at the even bigger picture. This administration has been obsessed with one thing since it took office: tax cuts and favor for its friends. What that translates into is "Shrinking government..." -- at least the part that provides protections for workers -- "to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" as Bush Administration ideolouge Grover Norquist says.

Well "government" isn't some abstract thing. Shrinking government means that agencies like OSHA and MSHA have less power to enforce the law and maintain safe working conditions. So, while drowning government in a bathtub, we're also asphyxiating workers in a coal mine.

As Will Bunch concludes:

These struggling work-a-day people look and seem a million miles away from the white linen tableclothes of K Street restaurants and the plush corporate jets where lobbyists like Jack Abramoff and revolving-door bureaucrats and well-fed lawmakers are making the cold policy decisions that affect their lives.

But until people make that connection between the corruption on one end of the American political pipeline and the human misery on the other end, these problems will linger in the air like toxic coal dust.

Amen


Related Articles

• More on MSHA Nominee Richard Stickler, September 25, 2005
• Changes to MSHA Diesel Rules Threaten Miners' Health, June 7, 2005
• Note to MSHA: Workers’ Deaths are NOT "Mishaps", January 3, 2005
• Miners' Plight Condemned Far and Wide, August 20, 2004
• Post & Times (Finally) Figure It Out: Bush Making OSHA, EPA, MSHA, DOT, DOE, Interior, etc. More Business Friendly, August 16, 2004
• Miners' Lives for Sale?, August 09, 2004
• Kerry Criticizes MSHA Head; Promises Improvements, August 5, 2004
• One of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history: Anatomy of a Coverup, December 17, 2003
• GAO Finds MSHA Provides Lax Oversight of Mining Industry, October 8, 2003
• MSHA Issues Quecreek Mine Accident Report, August 13, 2003