Two miners were killed in a roof collapse in a West Virginia mine yesterday. The deaths occurred at the Brooks Run Mining Co.’s Cucumber Mine, in the town of Cucumber, about 25 miles south of Welch near the Virginia border

both said the miners were apparently performing “retreat mining,” a dangerous process where miners remove the last bits of coal possible from pillars meant to hold up the mine roof before abandoning that section of the mine.

These were the first two coal mining deaths in West Virginia this year. Another coal miner, Jeremy Garcia, 26, was killed in a Colorado coal mine last week.

The mine didn't exactly have a steller safety record, according to Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette.

Last year, the Cucumber Mine recorded an injury rate that was twice the national average for similar mines, according to MSHA data.

Mine officials reported seven nonfatal injuries in 2006, including one machinery accident that left a worker with permanent total or permanent partial disabilities, according to MSHA records.

In 2006, MSHA inspectors cited the mine for 65 violations, assessing it $5,051 in fines, and the company paid the total amount, the records show.

During the last two quarterly inspections in 2006, MSHA inspectors found 32 violations, including six related to roof-control problems, according to federal data.

***

In late October, a 49-year-old continuous-mining-machine operator, Thomas Channell, was killed in another Alpha subsidiary’s mine in Preston County.

Channell died when a mine wall fell, pinning him against a shuttle car. Federal officials issued no citations in that death at Kingwood Mining Co.’s Whitetail Kittanning Mine near Fellowsville.

Last month, MSHA chief Richard Stickler visited a Brooks Run coal preparation plant in Webster County to celebrate the operation’s receiving a prestigious Sentinels of Safety Award in 2005 for having no reportable accidents during its employees’ 122,000 hours worked that year.

But in 2004, two Brooks Run miners were killed in a five-week period, one at the preparation plant Stickler visited and another at a nearby underground mine. MSHA cited the company in both deaths, and Brooks Run paid a total of $66,000 in fines.

After his visit, Stickler said in an interview, “They had those two fatalities and they made a commitment that they were going to do something drastically different. Obviously, this company has made a commitment to safety. That’s the way they’re running their business.”

Or not.

47 coal miners were killed on the job last year, according to MSHA, the most since 1995. 22 coal miners were killed in 2005. 25 metal/non-metal miners were killed on the job last year, compared with 35 the year before. One metal/non-metal miner has been killed on the job so far this year.

Labels: Coal Mining, Richard Stickler, West Virginia

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.

Labels: Bush Administration, Foxes Guarding The Chickencoop, John Correll, MSHA, Paul DeCamp, Richard Stickler, Steven Griles, Susan Dudley, Wal-Mart

This is the fourth “Top Ten” list I’ve compiled. It’s always an educational experience for me because I get to look back at everything that’s happened over the past year. But something struck me this year: for thousands of people there was really only one top story of the year – the senseless loss of a husband or wife, daughter, son, father or mother, brother or sister, friend or co-worker. (See number 6 below). The rest is just commentary.

Nevertheless, as we here at Confined Space never tire of saying, workplace tragedies occur not as isolated, random incidents, but in a political and historical context. And if we’re going to change things, we need to understand those relationships.

So here goes…

1. Sago: What else? The Sago mine disaster of January 2, 2006, catapulted mine safety into the nation’s consciousness like no other workplace disaster in decades. Subsequent mine explosions and fires in the Aracoma and Darby mines, as well as numerous other coal mine accidents, largely stemming from increased mine activity (as a result of higher energy prices), neglected maintenance, crumbling infrastruture and insufficient training led to 47 coal mining deaths in 2006, a ten year high and more than twice as many as in 2005. Faulty respirators, poor communication between miners and the surface contributed to the tragedies.

   But more important, the coal mine disasters of ’06 revealed the Bush administration’s abdication of its responsibility to ensure safe workplaces for this nation’s miners. Investigations by aggressive reporters like the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward showed how the Bush administration filled MSHA with industry insiders, deep-sixed numerous regulations that would have prevented or reduced the consequences of the mine accidents, cut the number of mine inspectors, failed to cite safety violations and failed to collect fines from those mining companies that were cited. The mining tragedies of 2006 revealed to Americans the human toll of this administration’s close ties to the industries it is supposed to regulate. No longer able to deny that the Emperor was as naked as a jaybird, Congress overwhelmingly passed the MINER Act which started the process of implementing needed improvements in the nation’s mine safety law. New mine safety laws were also passed in West Virginia and Kentucky.
   
   

2. Richard Stickler: The Bush administration added insult to injury (and death) by nominating of Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Stickler, nominated a few months pre-Sago, was perfect for that long-gone (and never really existing) era when MSHA was a forgotten dusty agency that no one noticed or cared about. But after the tragic first few months of ’06 and Stickler’s less-than-impressive performance at his confirmation hearing, it became vividly clear to almost everyone outside the reality-resistant walls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that the former mine industry manager with a lousy safety record was manifestly unsuited for the job. Even the Republican controlled Senate couldn't stomach Sticker, forcing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to halt the vote on his confirmation. Then the Senate, in an unprecedented move, voted to return the nomination to the White House – a subtle hint that the President might want to consider a more qualified candidate.
   
   Bush didn't take the hint. In response, he launched the tennis game from hell, serving Stickler’s nomination back to the Senate, which duly returned it back to the White House for a second time. Bush then defiantly gave Stickler the job with a one-year recess appointment, and then for the third time lobbed his name back to the Senate for permanent confirmation where it rotted as time ran out on the 109th Congress and the Republican majority. Given the makeup of the new Senate, unless Stickler pulls some rabbit out of his hat, he’ll be heading back to retirement in West Virginia at the end of 2007.
   
   
3. Ed Foulke’s Unimpressive Debut At OSHA: Coming from a union-busting law firm, Ed Foulke had a lot to prove when he took the reins of OSHA last March. Would he be able to overcome OSHA's hard-earned image as a tired, ineffective, moribund, anti-worker agency that had become almost totally irrelevant to workplace safety in this country?
   
   Apparently not. Foulke blew his honeymoon almost immediately with a series of speeches that seemed to blame workplace injuries and deaths on dumb workers who "do the darnedest things." Blaming employees for on-the-job injuries and fatalities is an all-too-common myth for those who don't understand that unsafe working conditions actually cause workplace deaths and injuries, but such ignorant rhetoric was more than a little surprising and unforgivable coming from the man who is supposed to be leading the nation's effort to make workplaces safe. In fact, Foulke’s follies were so notable that they even made the “Regulators” column in the Washington Post.
   
   
4. OSHA’s Miserable Failure to Issue Standards: One of the jobs that Congress gave OSHA when it was created in 1970 was to issue standards that would protect workers from work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths. George Bush's OSHA seemed to have completely forgotten this role until, after years of regulatory infertility, the agency finally gave birth to its first major health standard in six years. But OSHA's new hexavalent chromium standard was not exactly the product of a loving and caring relationship between government and workers. In fact, it was conceived under duress by a union petition and lawsuit, and delivered by Caesarian section under a court order.
   
   The result, as might be expected, was a pretty darn ugly baby. The hexavalent chromium standard established a permissible exposure limit so high that it will allow hundreds of extra lung cancer deaths among exposed workers, and OSHA wrote the standard in such an obtuse and confusing way that it will be difficult for employers or workers to figure out exactly what must be done. Hardly a sterling effort for an administration that likes to complain about how difficult it is to understand government regulations. The new standard was issued less than a week after a report revealed that scientists working for the chromium industry had concealed data from OSHA that showed that even very low level exposures to hexavalent chromium can cause cancer.
   
   Meanwhile, unions have petitioned OSHA for two emergency temporary standards, one to protect workers against pandemic flu, and the other to protect workers against the lung-destroying effects of diacetyl, the ingredient used to provide butter flavoring for popcorn and other foods. OSHA has responded to neither petition. Oh, and then there’s the little matter of the proposed standard that would require employees to pay for workers' boots, gloves and other personal protective equipment required by OSHA standards. It was all ready to be issued at the end of the Clinton administration, but the deciders of the current regime have still not decided how to proceed. (Flash! Update here.)
   
   
5. BP Texas City Explosion Aftermath: The massive explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 180 in March of 2005 barely caused a ripple in the nation's consciousness compared to the 2006 Sago tragedy despite the record $21.3 million OSHA penalty. Yet revelations throughout 2006 about BP's faulty safety system have raised major questions not just about the giant oil company itself and how seriously it takes the safety of its workers, but also OSHA’s failure to enforce refinery safety regulations.
   
   Preliminary reports of the Chemical Safety Board (whose final report will be issued in early 2007), as well as documents released as a result of the settlement with BP of a lawsuit filed by Eva Rowe, who lost both of her parents in the explosion, revealed a devastating picture of a company that cut back on its safety budget, delayed maintenance, failed to conduct training and ignored warnings by refinery management that all was not well at the plant. The BP story has been highlighted in CBS's 60 Minutes as well as numerous media reports about other problems plaguing BP. All of this was topped off by a massive pipeline leak in Alaska, more OSHA citations at other facilities, and civil and criminal investigations into illegal energy market manipulation. None of this stopped BP's CEO Lord John Browne from pulling down a cool $11 million in compensation last year.
   
   
6. Families Go On The Offensive: From West Virginia and Kentucky to Texas, California and Maine, families of workers killed on the job are getting mad as hell and refusing to take it anymore. Frustrated by the small fines and weak penalties resulting from the preventable deaths of their loved ones, mine widows demanded better information about what happened to their husbands, picketed mines to keep their health care, and spoke truth to power by warning President Bush not to appoint Richard Stickler to head MSHA. Family members like Coit Smith, whose son was killed in a meat processing plant, Michelle Lewis, whose stepfather was killed in a trench collapse, and Tammy Miser, whose brother was killed in a factory explosion, and many others have launched campaigns to change the way workplace safety oversight works in this country, writing newspaper columns, putting up billboards, creating web pages, lobbying legislators and providing support to the families who have suffered similar losses.
   
   
7. Union organizing victories: The organizing victories of janitors in Houston and the University of Miami, the successful campaign to organize the nation’s hotel workers and surging support for the Employee Free Choice Act that would require unions to be recognized by card check, rather than the failed traditional system of workplace elections, are not – on the surface – health and safety stories. But while a strong and active OSHA is necessary, anyone who’s worked a hazardous job will tell you that the best tool to make the workplace safe isn’t an OSHA inspection; it’s a well organized and knowledgeable union. In addition, health and safety issues can be a major reason that workers decide to organize as we’ve been seeing in the University of Miami campaign and UNITE-HERE's campaign to organize and win better contracts for the nation’s workers.
   
   
8. Undercounting Injuries And Illnesses: OSHA broke open the champagne to celebrate a record low number of reported workplace injuries and illnesses last year, but the only thing bubbling to the surface is growing certainty that despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by OSHA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics on collecting workplace injury and illness data, no one really knows how many workers are injured and made sick on the job every year. One recent study estimated that the current national surveillance system for work-related injuries and illnesses may miss two-thirds of the total number of occupational injuries and illnesses. The reasons for undercounting are no mystery. Articles by ghost writer ERM Jr showed how and why companies cheat on their injury and illness reporting, and why OSHA prefers it that way. Meanwhile, a Confined Space series on KFM, the chief contractor on the San Francisco Bay Bridge project, revealed how companies are able to cook the books by discouraging workers to report injuries and illnesses.
   
   
9. Chemical Safety Board Takes Up The Slack: With OSHA and MSHA struggling unsuccessfully to pass the oversight laugh-test, the tiny Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board seems to be the only serious workplace safety game in Washington at the moment. Among the six reports that the Bush-appointed Board has issued this year was a study on combustible dust explosions that recommended that OSHA issue a standard to prevent the often overlooked hazard that killed 14 workers in 2004, and killed 119 workers and injured 718 over the past 25 years. The CSB also issued a timely report on an incident at a chemical manufacturing plant in Georgia that had major problems in the way the city and county handled the emergency response, and how the state oversees emergency response efforts of the cities and counties. More significantly, the Board revealed disturbing preliminary findings of its BP investigation including an appearance by its Chairman Carolyn Merritt on 60 Minutes. (See number 3 above) And in December, the Board held a hearing in Daytona Beach, Florida concerning an explosion in the city’s wastewater treatment plant that killed two public employees – public employees who are not covered by OSHA in Florida (and in 25 other states), have no right to a safe workplace, and can die like dogs -- which seems to bother no one, except possibly the Chemical Safety Board.
   
   
10. Confined Space Wins Koufax Award For Best Single Issue Blog: Yes, after a hard-fought contest, Confined Space won a convincing victory for the best single issued "lefty" blog, an award even more significant than being named Time’s Person of The Year. And Confined Space came in third in the running for LaborStart's Best Labor Website Of The Year.
    
    Bottom Line: You like me, you really like me!
    
    Real bottom line: There are a lot of angry people out there and Confined Space has helped them find a voice.
    

Related Stories

• Top 10 Workplace Safety Stories of 2005
• Top 10 Workplace Safety Stories of 2004
• Top 14 Workplace Safety Stories of 2003
  

Labels: Chemical Safety Board, Coal Mining, Richard Stickler, Sago, Top Ten Workplace Safety Stories

As funeral preparations get under way for the 47th coal miner of 2006 to die in the workplace, the Charleston Gazette once again takes down the Bush administration's sellout of American miners:

For example, at surface mines, monster trucks used to haul coal and rock are involved in numerous fatalities, often because their brakes are faulty and are not adequately inspected. In other cases, drivers cannot see other workers in the vehicles’ blind spots. Some safety equipment would help prevent these deaths. Video scanners can be mounted to the trucks and rigged to come on automatically when a driver shifts into reverse, giving the driver a view of what’s behind. But both federal and state agencies have dawdled about requiring this lifesaving precaution.

During the Clinton administration, Davitt McAteer, then head of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, asked mine operators to install such video cameras voluntarily. He sought industry opinions on a rule that would require them. But after President Bush took office, MSHA suddenly had other priorities, and the idea was dropped.

But the Gazette's editors are somewhat impressed with the words of controversial MSHA head Richard Stickler. Now if he can only put his money where his mouth is:

President Bush’s most recent appointment to head MSHA, West Virginia native Richard Stickler, has a chance to set these conditions right. So far, he’s saying all the right things. He speaks plainly and sensibly about safety and the need for change. He promises a crackdown on operators who chronically break safety rules. Where the state’s report on the Sago disaster is contradictory and leaves many questions unanswered, Stickler promises a complete report, however long it takes.

“My approach is to be very aggressive,” Stickler said during a visit to the Gazette, “particularly on the attitude that fines are just the cost of doing business.”

Safety starts at the top, Stickler said. Individual miners must have confidence that their employers support following safety rules and reporting problems so they can be corrected.

Less than a month on the job, Stickler sounds good. If he can deliver the action he has promised, miners and their employers will be better off, and President Bush will have made a good appointment and given the nation a good public servant.

Time will tell. Personally, I'd rather be proven wrong by a bad nominee proving himself to be surprisingly good than the other way around.

Labels: Coal Mining, Richard Stickler, Sago

I have been lucky enough never to have a tragedy in my immediate family. I've never lost a loved one in an accident.

But one thing I've learned after working many years in workplace safety is that families need some kind of closure when their loved is killed in a workplace accident, and they rarely get it, particularly from OSHA or other agencies that are tasked with investigating the incident and issuing citations. All too often I hear stories from parents or spouses that they never really got the whole story on what exactly happened to their husband or daughter, and what the real causes were. Too often they're just given a list of OSHA violations, a short summary of the cause of death, and whispered allegations that the victims themselves were at fault for being careless or negligent.

So it was completely understandable how upset the families of the miners killed in the Sago disaster last year were following the release of the state of West Virginia's report on the tragedy by Ronald Wooten, director of the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training.

On Monday, Wooten came under heavy criticism from families of the Sago victims after a private meeting that was billed as a briefing for families on the state’s new report on the disaster.

Families were upset when Wooten simply provided them with copies of the thick report, told them lightning caused the disaster, and asked for questions.

When families asked questions, they were told the answers were in the report and that they should read it.

Families had expected a more detailed — and understandable — briefing, similar to one that was provided a month ago to families of the two miners killed in the Aracoma Mine fire.

Also, families became angrier when they learned that Wooten’s agency had posted the report — or at least one version of it — on its Web site hours before the family meeting. Families had thought they would learn the report’s contents first, but by the time their meeting ended, the report was all over the news.

The report was then withdrawn, initially because it was to be re-written, but later Wooten said that they were only preparing a better briefing for the families.

Wooten came under significant criticism when he was appointed due to his controversial career in the coal industry as former vice president of safety for CONSOL Energy Inc. from 1983 until 1998, a lawyer and lobbyist for CONSOL before that, and a lawyer for the American Mining Congress, an industry group.

A couple of other things. Even if lightning was involved, it was only one cause of the disaster. To be more precise, it may have been the ignition source of the explosion. But the explosion itself only killed one of the miners, and then only because the seals behind the closed off part of the mine didn't hold. The others died from asphyxiation for a number of reasons: the respirators either malfunctioned or the miners were not trained to use them properly (or both), it took too long for the rescue team to enter the mine, rescuers had no way to locate the miners, and the miners had no way to communicate with the surface.

In other words, simply telling the families that "lightning caused the disaster" period, end and go read the report yourselves was at best insensitive, and at worst ignorent, incompetent and not a statement that someone heading up the state's mine safety office should ever have made.

To make matters worse, the Associated Press reported that Wooten

told relatives of the Sago Mine disaster victims that he "wouldn't want to be in there" if another electrical storm rolled over an active underground coal mine with a worked-out, recently sealed area, the brother of one victim said today.

Yet the state has taken no action to change its rules and regulations.

John Groves, whose brother Jerry was among 12 men who died in or after the Jan. 2 blast, said the comment came in a private meeting earlier this week as he and others questioned Ron Wooten, director of the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training.

The families asked Wooten a series of questions about how the state would respond now that its investigation report has blamed lightning for causing the Sago explosion. They then pressed the point on active mines with newly sealed areas, asking what he would do.

"I wouldn't want to be in there," Wooten allegedly replied.

Several other people who were in the room at the time told The Associated Press the same account of that conversation.

Wooten's comment prompted a response from the United Mineworkers:

"I think there are 14,000 coal miners in West Virginia that wouldn't want to be in there, either," said United Mine Workers spokesman Phil Smith, when told of Wooten's remark.

Since learning the state would join Sago Mine owner International Coal Group Inc. in blaming lightning, the UMW has called for new regulations that require miners to be evacuated when an electrical storm is approaching.

Wooten's simplistic explanation was even a bit too much for MSHA head Richard Stickler. MSHA is preparing its own report on the Sago disaster:

Stickler indicated a partial answer on the cause from his team would not be acceptable.

"If it was lightning, how did it get in the mine? If you don't know that, you don't know how to keep it out, do you?" he said. "There's questions there we need the answers to."

Stickler also seemed to learn a lesson from Wooten's presentation:

Stickler said he will be present when his agency's report is given to the Sago families, and that they will have the chance to question the investigators.

"We will give them copies of report, but not necessarily expect them to sit there and read the report and know what's in it," he said.

I'm sure the families would appreciate that.

Labels: Coal Mining, Richard Stickler, Sago

New information has emerged on the causes of the fire at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 mine last January that killed two miners. Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reports that because of understaffing, the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training did not complete its sheduled inspection of the mine in the quarter preceding the fire. By law, West Virginia mines are supposed to be thoroughly inspected four times a year. In addition the state inspector was not able to see many parts of the mine because Massey, the mine's owner, refused to provide transportation to the inspector, in violation of state law.

A report earlier this month found that a missing wall contributed to the deaths of miners Don Bragg and Ellery Elvis Hatfield

The missing ventilation wall, called a stopping, allowed smoke from a conveyor belt fire to enter the Aracoma Mine’s primary escape tunnel.

By law, such escape tunnels are supposed to be kept isolated from conveyor belt tunnels because of the dangers of fire and smoke that belts create in underground mines.

During the Jan. 19 fire, a crew of workers hit smoke during an attempted escape and had to find an alternate route

Brag and Hatfield became separated from the group and died of smoke inhalation.

In another Gazette article, Ward reveals that two Massey foremen knew about the missing wall before the fire. The two foremen, in addition to a number of other Massey supervisors received citations from state authorities for not evacuating the mine in a timely manner, allowing non-certified workers to perform safety examinations in the mine, failing to provide an accurate mine map, and not reporting the fire to state authorities for two-and-a-half hours.

Finally, a Charleston Gazette editorial explains how overlooking mine safety laws means we're forgetting the lessons from those who have died in the mines:

Richard Stickler, new head of MSHA, talks smart and tough on mine safety. He says America has more safety laws than it now uses, that it has tools to shut down unsafe mines, get the attention of bad operators and straighten them out. Also, Congress has added money to MSHA’s budget to restore inspectors that the agency needs. We hope Stickler carries out these strong plans.

Every safety rule was passed because of miners’ deaths. Every law about ventilation, roof supports, spreading rock dust to prevent explosions, building walls to block poisonous fumes — all were created after miners died by tens or hundreds.

Each time a mine operator or the larger society, represented by state and federal regulators, fails to practice these lessons from the past, they forget the people who died before.

More mine stories here.

Labels: Mine Safety, Richard Stickler

No, my computer is not stuttering. Welcome to "Night Of The Living Dead Bush Nominees."

Like a punch drunk fighter whose who thinks he's winning the fight even when he's lying bleeding on the mat, President Bush -- for the fourth time -- nominated Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Stickler, you may recall, is the former mine industry official with less than sterling safety record who was rejected by the Senate and twice sent back to the White House only to be renominated again.

Stickler was finally put into the position last month by a recess appointement, which the President is able to do when Congress is out of session. The only problem is that a recess appointment only lasts one year -- hardly long enough to unpack the boxes.

Stickler was joined in the same announcement by the renomination of Wal-Mart attorney Paul DeCamp to head the Wage and Hour Division at the Department of Labor. The only problem, as the AFL-CIO Today points out, is that DeCamp's record

includes urging the weakening of the Fair Labor Standard Act’s (FLSA’s) overtime pay and other protections. He even argues for changing the law to prevent millions of workers from becoming eligible for overtime pay. Strangely enough, he also said that it would not be “in the interest” of the workers to obtain overtime eligibility.

Stickler and DeCamp join the other doomed nominees like John Bolton (recess appointed to UN Ambassador) and Ken Tomlinson to head the Broadcasting Board of Governors which oversees Voice of America and other American oversees radio networks. Tomlinson, who was first apponted to the Board in 2001, was found to have abused his position and effectively defrauded taxpayers. Tomlinson was was forced to resign from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Corporation last year after he was found to have engaged in highly unethical behavior. Stickler's in good company.

As the AFL-CIO blog says, "this is a very puzzling and odd way to demonstrate bipartisanship. Isn’t it?"

Indeed.

Labels: Mine Safety, Richard Stickler

Well, that couldn't have gone much better now, could it? First time since '98 I've waken on election eve morning without feeling like going back to sleep for the next two years.

And, of course, although the pundits and prognosticators missed it totally, we know that the Democratic victory was all due to the workplace safety and health vote.

But seriously, with Democrats controlling both the Senate and the House of Representatives, we have some major opportunities, if not to actually pass legislation into law (there's still that guy in the White House for another couple of years), but we can:

Introduce and get votes on legislation in both houses of Congress

When Republicans controlled the House, it was impossible for Democrats even to get a vote on their legislation. Now, even if bills won't get signed by the President, legislators will have to go on record -- for or against workplace safety. And come next election, we have the opportunity to ask the Congresman from Dowsanto why he voted for killing workers.

So what kind of workplace safety bills do we want to see on the agenda? I'll start with a few. How about legislation that:

• Raises OSHA penalties, enables prosecutors to charge employers who kill after willfully violating the law with felonies that might actually end up with prison time.


• Provides full OSHA coverage for public employees.


• Requires OSHA to issue overdue standards like the standard that would require employers to pay for workers' personal protective equipment, a standard to protect workers against avian flu, a beryllium and silica standard, a popcorn lung emergency standard, a revision of the Process Safety Management standard to add reactive chemicals, etc., etc., etc.


• Appropriations: Increase OSHA's budget for enforcement and worker training grants.

Hold Oversight Hearings

It's the responsibility of Congress to oversee the operation of our government. Are taxpayer dollars being well used? Are laws being enforced? Are agencies doing what Congress intended them to do when they were created. What kind of Congressional oversight hearings would we like to see? OK, I'll start again. How about hearings that look into:

• OSHA's surrender of its standard-making authority. The agency has only issued one major standard in the past six years, and that was under court order. A standard requiring employers to pay of personal protective equipment has been lying around OSHA since the Clinton Administration.


• The effectiveness of OSHA's Alliances, Voluntary Protection Programs and other voluntary programs that are eating up a growing percentage of OSHA pathetically small budget. In 2004, the Government Accountability Office issued a report concluding that there is no evidence that these programs are effective. What has OSHA done in response? Expanded the programs.


• Where OSHA's training grant money is going. Unions have almost been shut out of receiving any new grants.


• The fact that the vast majority of OSHA's chemical standards are over 35 years old.


• What OSHA is doing about popcorn lung?


• The BP Texas City explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 180 last year. What does it mean for the safety of refineries and chemical plants?

These are very short lists, and I'm tired. So I'm turning it over to you. It's our Congress now. What should we do with it. (use the comments below)

Oh, and one more thing. Richard Stickler (recently put into office as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration on a one-year recess appointment) -- I wouldn't sign any long term leases.

Labels: Richard Stickler

Washington Post regulatory columnist Cindy Skrzycki describes what's so wrong with President Bush's recess appointment of Richard Stickler as head of MSHA.

The Senate sent Richard Stickler' s nomination to become the top U.S. mine-safety official back to the White House -- twice. Widows and relatives of dead miners pleaded that he not be given the job. Stickler lacked the support of lawmakers from key mining states, and some newspaper editorials criticized him as an industry insider.

None of this fazed the White House. When Congress departed for its Election Day recess, President Bush on Oct. 19 made Stickler head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration in the Department of Labor. His tenure will last though the end of the Senate's next session, sometime next year.

In Washington parlance, it's called a recess appointment, a maneuver often used by the White House to bypass political opposition. The Senate goes out on recess, leaving the door open for the president to put in his choice. It's sort of like appointing a chief executive without the board of directors getting a vote.

And according to Skrzycki, there are a few other notable observers who also think it was a bad thing:

"It strikes me as a sign of stubbornness and weakness," said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University and an expert on the executive branch. "Recess appointments can do a great deal of damage and not have the support of the agency. It sets the stage for intense conflict over rules" between the career staff members and the unconfirmed appointee.

And then there's our friend Tony Oppegard:

The Mine Safety and Health Administration "has been run by industry insiders," said Tony Oppegard , former general counsel to Kentucky's mine safety agency and an adviser at MSHA during the Clinton administration. "The whole emphasis has been on compliance assistance. It's been a major failure of the administration. They don't look for safety advocates."

But there might be one silver lining emerging from this, according to Skrzycki:

The recess appointment may also ensure that thousands of members of the United Mine Workers of America, which opposed the nomination, get out to vote against Republicans next week, according to union spokesman Phil Smith.

"In doing this, he [Bush] has said what he is going to say about how important coal miners are, even in states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia where his supporters are looking for votes," Smith said.

Labels: Richard Stickler

Great NY Times editorial about Bush's recess appointment of Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration despite strong opposition from mineworkers and the Senate. The Times also reminds us that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had promised a vote on Stickler if Bush recess appointed him, a promise he has not held to.

Only one gripe. Actually, 65 mineworkers have been killed on the job this year, 42 of whom were coal miners. The others were "metal-non-metal" miners, who died in gold, silver, copper and gravel underground or surface mines.

Weakening the Fight for Mine Safety

Despite being twice rebuffed by the Senate, President Bush has named Richard Stickler, a stolid mining industry careerist, to run the mine safety agency whose serial ineptitude has been laid bare this year by the deaths of 42 mineworkers. Waiting until the Senate left town for the elections, Mr. Bush resorted to a recess appointment to place Mr. Stickler at the heart of enforcing new safety reforms that, in earlier hearings, the appointee himself had claimed were not at all that necessary.

To the contrary, these reforms became a crying need brought home to the nation from the depths of the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia, where 12 workers died in January. Sago presented a clinic in failed government oversight. The new law would double a miner’s emergency oxygen to two hours; mandate electronic devices to track trapped miners; and repair the damage originally done by the administration in cutting more than 200 mine safety inspectors in the name of budget economy.

Mr. Stickler points to his six years as Pennsylvania mine safety chief to rebut criticism that he is the latest example in the administration’s dangerous history of packing safety agencies with pro- industry regulators. But the bulk of his career was in corporate management of mines. Miners and lawmakers have cited the federal agency’s own data in warning that injury rates at his mines were higher than the national average. The administration’s pro-industry tack is a running scandal exemplified by Steven Griles, a mining lobbyist who was appointed deputy secretary of the interior. Mr. Griles devoted four years to rolling back mine regulations and then returned to lobbying for an industry long known for its patronage clout with politicians.

Senate opposition to Mr. Stickler reached the point that the nomination was twice withheld. The Republican majority leader, Bill Frist, said that if the president resorted to a recess appointment — a device guaranteeing Mr. Stickler at least a year in office — the Senate would schedule a showdown vote in response. Senator Frist must be held to his promise. Lawmakers should demand a bulldog enforcement director rather than another industry lapdog.

More 2006 Mine Disaster Stories here.

Labels: Coal Mining, Richard Stickler, Sago

A Pennsylvania coal miner was killed in an explosion today, bringing total coal miner deaths in the United States to 42 for the year, compared with 22 in all of last year.

A coal miner died after setting explosive charges in an anthracite mine in northeastern Pennsylvania on Monday, a spokeswoman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said.

Dale Reightler, 42, who had 20 years' experience working in coal mines, was killed when the charges were detonated at the R&D Coal Co. at Tremont in Schuylkill County about 80 miles north of Philadelphia.

Reightler had placed the charges into holes drilled into the coal seam in order to loosen more coal, said Amy Louviere at the federal agency. "One of the charges is probably what killed him," she said.

The mine has a history of problems:

Four workers at the mine were injured Dec. 1, 2004, by debris from an explosion caused by a pipe with a faulty gauge, state officials said. The mine reopened after installing safety equipment, and two inspections this year turned up no significant violations, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Reightler was the second coal miner that has died on the job in the last three days. A West Virginia miner was killed in an explosion last Friday.

This also marks the second fatality since President Bush recess appointed Richard Stickler to head MSHA in defiance of Congress which was out on break.

More stories on 2006 Mine Disasters here.

Labels: Richard Stickler

Yet another in a long line of unqualified industry foxes has been appointed to guard this country's henhouses. And miners will pay the price.

In deliberate defiance of Congress and the families of mineworkers killed on the job this year, President Bush has appointed Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Because the Senate refused to confirm him, Bush made a recess appointment which he is allowed to do without Senate approval when Congress is out of session.

Stickler was nominated to the post in September 2005, before the Sago disaster and other mine incidents that have raised this year's number of deaths to levels not seen in years, but his nomination was blocked in the Senate and sent back to the White House twice. Forty coal miners have been killed on the job so far this year, compared with 22 in all of last year.

There is nothing in Stickler's work history or public statements that show him to be the man best qualified for this job. Stickler made an completely unimpressive impression at his confirmation hearing. His appearance was less than dynamic, to put it mildly. Some observers quipped that they were tempted to check his pulse to see if he was alive. But it wasn't just his style that was lacking. As Charleston Gazette editors wrote in an editorial opposing Stickler's confirmation:

Despite widespread belief that more communication equipment and better safety enforcement might have saved at least 11 of those men [lost at Sago], Stickler told U.S. senators that current mine safety laws are “adequate.” A day later, two more miners died in separate incidents in Boone County.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was forced to cancel a vote on Stickler's confirmation last June due the lack of Senate support for Stickler's nomination. Then in August, in an unprecedented action, the Senate returned Stickler's nomination to the White House before it went on break. But refusing to take the hint, the President renominated Sticker at the beginning of September. The Senate was obviously not amused and again returned the nomination to the White House.

Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd have led the opposition to Stickler, citing his industry background and the lack of commitment to MSHA reform that he displayed at his confirmation hearing. The Mineworkers also called on Bush to withdraw the nomination, as did the AFL-CIO and the Charleston Gazette. In addition, widows of miners killed at Sago and other recent mine disasters wrote the White House opposing Stickler's nomination. At a signing ceremony for recent mine safety legislation, Deborah Hamner, whose husband, George Hamner, was killed at Sago, told the president in person that she opposed Stickler's nomination to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Although the Labor Department boasts about Stickler's 37 years of mining experience, 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. While managing mines for Bethlehem Steel, according to information assembled by the United Mineworkers union, the mines he managed had injury rates that were double the national average. According to former Mineworkers health and safety director Joe Main, the figures indicate “a very poor compliance record.”

“These figures would rank Stickler’s operations among the highest cited in the country,” Main wrote. “Collectively over the eight-year period, the federal government issued nearly 3,000 citations and closure orders at mines that Mr.
Stickler managed.”

In 1987, Stickler was appointed Director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety and held that position when nine coal miners were trapped for three days in a flooded Quecreek mine until being rescued. The mine had flooded to to errors in mine maps. Despite White House boasts that Stickler "was one of the architects of the dramatic rescue," a grand jury determined after the flood that Stickler's bureau should have noticed the mapping problems sooner.

The Senators from West Virginia were not pleased with Bush's recess appointment:

Sens. Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia Democrats, said the appointment indicates that the administration does not consider mine safety a priority.

"We need a bulldog agency that will place miner safety over all other priorities, and not an agency that will continue to place a higher priority on mine production than on miner protection," Byrd said in a statement.

MSHA had been operating without a permanent Assistant Secretary for almost two years since David Lauriski resigned in November 2004.


Related Stories

• Senate Returns Stickler To White House For Second Time, September 30, 2006
• Stickler Renominated To Head MSHA
• Senate Returns Stickler, Correll, Other Nominees Back To White House
• VICTORY: Senate Sticks It To Bush Mine Safety Nominee, June 13, 2006
• Bush Should Withdraw Mine Safety Nominee, May 21, 2006
• Stickler Nomination To Head MSHA Held Up By Senator Byrd
• Foulke, Sticker Get Committee Approval To Head OSHA & MSHA
• Opposition to Stickler As MSHA Head Grows , February 15, 2006
• Mineworkers Call On Bush To Withdraw Nomination of MSHA Head
• More on MSHA Nominee Richard Stickler, September 25, 2005
• Bush Nominates OSHA & MSHA Heads, September 15, 2005

Labels: Coal Mining, Foxes Guarding The Chickencoop, Richard Stickler

Like a tennis game from Hell, the US Senate today lobbed mine safety nominee Richard Stickler back over the White House fence for the second time.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was forced to cancel a vote on Stickler's confirmation in June due the lack of Senate support for Stickler's nomination. Last month, in an unprecedented action, the Senate returned Stickler's nomination to the White House before it went on break. But refusing to take the hint, the President renominated Sticker at the beginning of September. The Senate was obviously not amused and back he goes. Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd have led the opposition to Stickler, citing his industry background and the lack of commitment to MSHA reform that he displayed at his confirmation hearing.

Byrd and Kennedy made statements today:

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said, “Last month, the Senate took a stand for mine safety by sending back to the White House an unacceptable nomination to lead MSHA, and we are as resolute in our stand today.

“We’re again sending a message to the administration that America’s miners deserve better, and we hope that this time it will listen.”

Byrd criticized the White House for nominating a man with a “weak safety record” and for “playing political games with mine safety.

Bush now has three choices. He can renominate Stickler yet again, make a recess appointment while Congress is on vacation, or show that he's taking mine safety seriously and nominate someone who's actually qualified for the job.

Kennedy called for a new nominee:

“We are in the midst of a mine safety crisis — 58 miners have already died this year, more than any year since 2002.

“At this critical time, miners and their families need a strong leader at MSHA. Mr. Stickler does not have the record or the vision to meet this challenge. The president should send the Senate a new nominee.”

MSHA has been operating without a permanent Assistant Secretary for almost two years since David Lauriski resigned in November 2004. Thirty-eight coal miners and 20 metal/non-metal miners have died in the workplace this year which began with the tragic January 2 Sago Mine disaster in which 12 coal miners died.

Labels: Coal Mining, Richard Stickler

As you're probably all aware, President Bush has renominated Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Stickler's nomination had been returned to the White House after a vote on his nomination was cancelled due to widespread dissatisfaction with his lackluster corporate background and his perceived lack of committment to strengthen the agency's regulations and enforcement capabilities.

Mine safety expert Sandy Krumholtz knows Stickler. I thought her opinion on Stickler's nomination might be of interest:

I don't think that Stickler is a bad choice to head MSHA, given his background. The man that I have seen over the years, and at conferences, is a compassionate, seemingly honest man who has tried to do the best job that he can do. Keep in mind that no one is perfect.

I believe that we do need someone with mining experience (not necessarily underground coal experience) to head MSHA. You just can't "get it" until you have been underground day-after-day. On the other hand, there are people who are not miners, like Tony Oppegard, who have been underground and have their miner's certificate, and do understand what happens when the law is not enforced. He would make a good Assistant Secretary, but that will never happen, no matter who is in power.

What upsets me about Stickler is that I do not think he is the man to stand up to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, should there be differences on how the laws are enforced. The "Stickler" I saw in the Senate hearing is not the "Stickler" that I've seen in the past. At the Senate hearing, I saw a man who appeared to be an Elaine Chao mouthpiece (albeit not as nasty or conniving as Chao is), versus a man who was speaking his own convictions. He was obviously torn between what he wanted to say, versus what he was told say.

I think that if Stickler were left to his own devices to do his job, he would be a very good Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health. That said, I do not think Elaine Chao will leave anyone alone to do what they do best, and she would certainly meddle on behalf of the coal industry, making Stickler into the puppet that we saw at the hearing.

Labels: Elaine Chao, Richard Stickler

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.

Labels: John Correll, Richard Stickler

Meet the new nominee, same as the old nominee.

The White House announced yesterday that it was renominating Richard Stickler to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Last month, in an unprecedented action, the Senate had returned Stickler's nomination to the White House before it went on break.

Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd had led the opposition to Stickler, citing his industry background and the lack of commitment to MSHA reform that he displayed at his confirmation hearing. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was forced to cancel a vote on Stickler's confirmation in June due the lack of Senate support. It had been assumed that Bush had gotten the message, but apparently not.

According to Kennedy,

America's miners and their families deserve strong action to reverse the current mine safety crisis. It's appalling that the President would renominate Richard Stickler for this critical mine safety position in the face of intense opposition from miners and their families. Throughout his career, Mr. Stickler has focused on profits and production, not worker safety. The President should have used the recess to send the Senate a nominee who will give America's miners the protection they deserve.

The White House, not accustomed to the Senate taking its "advise and consent" role seriously, has apparently decided not to switch drowning horses in mid-stream:

Alex Conant, a White House spokesman, said Stickler, who is from West Virginia, was a "well-qualified nominee committed to improving safety in America's mines and we look forward to the Senate confirming him."

Yeah, well I wouldn't hold my breath, Alex. With Republican hold on the Senate expected to weaken (or disappear) after November's election, Stickler's prospects aren't going to be getting any brighter.

So, what's going on? A recess appointment? A permanent role as "acting" Assistant Secretary? Wh