Senate Plans Hearing on Mine Collapse

[Hissyspit]

Source: ABC News

Senate Plans Hearing on Mine Collapse

As rescuers drilled a final hole into a Utah mountain Thursday to search for six missing coal miners, the U.S. Senate added its voice to a growing chorus of questions raised over the safety of the mine.

The Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees labor issues announced plans for a hearing on the mine collapse when Congress returns from its summer break Sept. 5.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, also demanded a list of documents Thursday from the Labor Department about the Crandall Canyon Mine and its operators.

Kennedy wants to review several petitions the mine's co-owner, Bob Murray, made to the Mine Safety and Health Administration for changes in his mining plans at Crandall Canyon, among other documents. Experts have said the proposed changes were risky and could have led to the Aug. 6 cave-in that trapped six miners.

Company officials did not immediately respond to e-mailed requests for comment.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3515986

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. I'm SURE They'll Get To Bottom Of This And Make Changes

:sarcasm:

[youngdem]

4. To me, these 'hearings' are just industry shakedowns

Step 1. See a news story that gets the public's attention.

Step 2. Schedule a hearing to 'get to the bottom of it and come up with some new regulations to protect the public'.

Step 3. Profit, as the bribes, er, I mean 'campaign contributions' come in from all sides, and see who wins your soul.

Step 4. Bullshit your way through a hearing, spew some platitudes about accountability, shed a tear, feign some outrage, and draft some legislation.

Step 5. Announce the legislation and watch the bribes, DAMN, I keep saying that, I mean 'contributions' come in, and depending on who wins, water down the legislation, and include some pork benefiting the industry you were supposedly regulating.

Step 6. Run for reelection with your bribes while telling the idiot public that you have helped fix problem x.

[burrowowl]

7. Hell! They don't need no

investigation! Since Raygun mine inspectors have been cut, the mine-owners-murderers did something that is illegal in Europe, is it legal in the States, if so pass a damn law to make it illegal, in Sweden and other European Countries, the miners are equipped with locators (I didn't know these existed, but apparently they do), etc.

[entanglement]

2. In a just world, a parasite like Bob Murray would be behind bars for a long time

and his assets seized and divided among those he sent to their deaths.

[partylessinOhio]

3. Rerun, rerun. What did they do about Sago?

Or way back to No. 9 in Farmington, W.Va., where miners are still buried in the mine across from the home of my great grandmother?

[WillTheGoober]

5. The issue ...

This is about infrastructure maintenance in this country.

As many of our Democratic candidates have said ... we need to create jobs here at home by keeping up with maintenance.

It seems pretty simple ... you have to maintain your stuff ...
Otherwise bridges collapse and mines fall in. Right?

Peace.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. I'm going to suspend cynicism

and remain optimistic that Senator Kennedy will lead the charge against unscrupulous mine owners. I also hope that *Co's gutting of the MSHA's budget and appointment of former Beth Energy mine manager Richard Sickler.

This prescient interview with Jack Spadaro, the former head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy, serves as a good prelude to the disasters that are now snuffing out the lives of miners.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/05/1455200

[Robson]

8. Sen Kennedy?

Sen Kennedy will lead the charge? You've got to be kidding me. The only charge Kennedy will lead is inviting more illegal Mexicans into the country to take jobs that Americans want.

Had that mine been operating safely neither the rescuers nor the original miners would have been killed or had been trapped by the seismic pressure collapse caused by irresponsible retreat mining.