Bush administration refuses to collect penalties for mine safety violations

[razors edge]

By Samuel Davidson
21 March 2006

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/mine-m21.shtml

Flashback to March 2006, skip to paragraphs three through six.

In addition, the Bush administration has stacked MSHA with former coal managers who have unashamedly tailored the agency’s policies to meet the profit needs of the operators. All the while the number of mine inspectors in the field has been cut, those considered too aggressive have been punished and proposals to improve mine safety have been repeatedly delayed or scuttled altogether.

Many of the mines where fatal accidents occurred this year had been repeatedly cited for unsafe conditions, yet federal and state authorities allowed them to continue to operate and only imposed minimal fines on their owners. The Sago Mine in West Virginia, where 12 miners lost their lives after a January 2 explosion, had been cited over 200 times in 2005 alone, including 96 citations categorized as “serious and substantial,” the most severe MSHA violation. Despite this record, the total amount the mine’s owner—International Coal Group—was fined was just over $25,000, or less than $150 per violation.

USA Today noted that of all government agencies MSHA consistently imposed among the lowest fines for violations of its rules. The Federal Communication Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission can all issue fines of over $1 million for a single violation, the newspaper said. The top fine that MSHA can hand out is only $60,000, and that fine is rarely imposed.

“The federal government levied a larger fine—$550,000—for the 2004 Super Bowl showing of Janet Jackson’s breast than it did for the 2001 deaths of 13 Alabama miners,” stated the February 11 article. The newspaper also noted “the $435,000 fine against mine operator Jim Walter Resources was cut by a judge to $3,000.”


We must fight the nipples over there??????

[babylonsister]

1. Disgusting.

Here's another from March posted earlier:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1614158&mesg_id=1614158

[razors edge]

4. Kinda makes one wonder

if Sago didn't bring together some brainstorming to find a scapegoat better that lightning as a cause for their disasters.

I grew up in WVA and we all have relatives in the mines dealing with the threat daily, what we don't expect is a total abandonment of responsibility and accountability of he owners, operators and regulators. The latter of which are drawing a paycheck for the express purpose of making sure shit like this doesn't happen. One more example of Republicans making sure the masses see the government as a waste of money.

They will gladly drown all of us in the tub and throw us in a mass grave to make room for that final drowning they salivate for.

[babylonsister]

8. Also another example of 'hiring' sycophants who know not what they're

doing, obviously, and as you pointed out, no one seems to care. I hope more attention is focused on this travesty come September. It's unconscionable that the miners are used and abused the way they have been, as if their lives have no meaning.

[Trillo]

2. Why would they charge one corporatist so much

for showing a nipple?

But another gets a wrist slap fine?

Hmm. Could it be that it artificially inflates the costs of the telecommunications sector? Gotta keep that media out of the hands of poor folk.

[razors edge]

5. Exercising control,

in the only way they they know how.

When all you have is a hammer, all you problems have to become nails.

[Solly Mack]

3. Damn...not surprising

the outrages continue...

[razors edge]

6. Solly Mack

please, tell me just what the hell that banana man is up to, he is beginning to freak me out a tad.:P

[Solly Mack]

7. He's a rock star boozing it up and being naughty

but for some reason I just like him...and he's really not likable

He's lounging there, plotting the death of a boy band ...made up of cherries

I know...I know...

Sorry :)

[sam sarrha]

9. like killing miners by dangerious "Depillarisation" that caused the latest cave in's