Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship...

...is a rabid tea-cupper, anti-environmental, the 'govt is coming to get your guns and job' nut...

Massey Energy & Don Blankenship: Million-dollar Tea Party sponsors

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Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change, derisively refers to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and others as "greeniacs", and calls them all crazy. Watch the speech, you'll see. In his mind, "the greeniacs are taking over the world."

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship's highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees' and neighbors' health and safety.

Here's something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year's Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the "Friends of America Rally."http://friendsofamericarally.com/sponsors / Here's Massey's pitch. Note how he makes it sound like he isn't one of the corporate enemies of America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiAc5IVXI7g&feature=rela...

The Friends of America Rally featured such notables as Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent, and Hank Williams, Jr., and was graced by Blankenship himself going off on a diatribe that seemed strange at the time, but has come to be commonplace these days. It concerned President Obama, Democrats, and any one who doesn't salute God, coal, and apple pie. Oh, and we're also going to 'steal their jobs,' if Hannity is to be believed.

Blankenship and Massey Energy spend millions to defend unsafe workplaces

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Crooks and Liars

Massey's goon squads have beaten"would be" union organizers with axe handles, they've threatened families and used false accusation and innuendo to run whole families out of mining towns. Blankenship is not a good guy, in any measure of the word. In Blankenship's world, mine safety is something to be marginalized because it interferes with profit. Legal regulation is something to be openly derided. In the land of King Coal, Massey rules the roost and Blankenship is outright royalty. He owns--to one degree or another--just about any politician of note wherever he does business.

Massey Coal substantially underwrote the campaign of a candidate for the West Virginia Supreme Court a few years back while it was embroiled in litigation with another business. When the case (which at that point had been distilled into a judgment requiring Massey to pay substantial damages) reached the West Virginia Supreme Court, the chosen candidate refused to recuse himself and voted to reverse the judgment against Massey. That decision was challenged in the Supreme Court of the United States, which found that such a massively-funded candidate/judge should not be permitted to sit on a case that involved his benefactor.

You could get the impression that Massey was willing to do just about anything to win and/or to save money. Politics aside, it would hardly be surprising to learn that Massey was doing everything possible to cut corners with regard to miner safety (doing the bare minimum, if even that). It's despicable, no matter the political stripe of the actors involved.

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Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown

Politics aside, it would hardly be surprising to learn that Massey was doing everything possible to cut corners with regard to miner safety (doing the bare minimum, if even that). It's despicable, no matter the political stripe of the actors involved.

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Originally Posted by LATimes

"They placed profits over safety repeatedly," said Tonya L. Hatfield, a lawyer in the coal-mining town of Gilbert, W.Va., who has sued Massey in cases over a 2006 fire at the Aracoma mine, where 12 miners were trapped and two died. In that case the company agreed to pay $2.5 million in criminal fines. The fine, when combined with $1.5 million in civil penalties, was apparently the largest ever imposed in a coal-mining death case.


"Aracoma's conduct in this case is clear and uncontroverted," said Logan Circuit Judge Roger L. Perry, as reported by two local papers. "Given the voluntary admissions of guilt, it is clear not only that Aracoma acted with deliberate intent regarding the unsafe working conditions in its coal mine, it acted with criminal intent."

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http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr...ing7-2010apr07

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In 2007, the operator of Massey's White Buck mine in West Virginia was fined $50,000 for a criminal mine safety violation and a shift foreman was given a year of probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of not performing safety examinations. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped a felony complaint that the company had falsified records to indicate that pre-shift safety reviews had been conducted.

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Massey's Aracoma mine continues to have numerous safety violations, with 316 cited in the last year.


The Upper Big Branch, where Monday's disaster occurred, was cited for 515 violations in 2009 and 124 so far this year, federal statistics show. The company was cited, among other things, for allowing combustible coal dust to accumulate.


Labor Department records show that before Monday, three workers have been killed at the mine in the last 12 years. A worker was electrocuted in 2003, another died after a roof collapse in 2001, and a third died when a beam collapsed in 1998.


Asked about the firm's safety record, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III said Tuesday that the company was within federal safety tolerance requirements. But, he added, the firm's overall record "sure concerns me."


Between 2001 and 2005, the federal government proposed fines of $236,000 for violations at the Upper Big Branch mine, and Massey paid nearly $235,000.


Since Congress enacted tougher mine oversight regulations in 2006, the government has proposed $1.77 million in fines at the mine, but Massey has paid only about $365,000 and contested most of the difference, federal records show.

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Coal companies appeal fines to head off heftier penalties and to thwart the possibility of shutdowns, said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who held a hearing on what witnesses termed an abuse of the process.


The backlog of fine appeals at the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission has jumped to 16,000 cases from 2,100 in 2006, and the time needed for each case has increased to 401 days from 178, according to commission figures.


"If cases are stuck for months or years at the review commission, MSHA cannot impose stronger penalties for the worst mine operators," Miller said. "As a result, miners' lives are in the cross hairs."

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Wouldn't be at all surprised to see Massey get fined and/or litigated out of business.

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The backlog of fine appeals at the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission has jumped to 16,000 cases from 2,100 in 2006, and the time needed for each case has increased to 401 days from 178, according to commission figures.


"If cases are stuck for months or years at the review commission, MSHA cannot impose stronger penalties for the worst mine operators," Miller said. "As a result, miners' lives are in the cross hairs."

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I would say that these types of actions are detestable, but I'm sure a few posters will show up soon enough to say something like "Big business is getting killed by overregulation! Do you expect them to stop production every time a miner freaks out about possibly dangerous situations?"

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

I would say that these types of actions are detestable, but I'm sure a few posters will show up soon enough to say something like "Big business is getting killed by overregulation! Do you expect them to stop production every time a miner freaks out about possibly dangerous situations?"

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the dead enders will most certainly blame the govt in some capacity

Twenty-five miners getting blown up indicates a significant failure of safety.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Twenty-five miners getting blown up indicates a significant failure of safety.

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WH23, do you expect business owners to know EVERY TIME a mine will collapse? I mean, they're not PSYCHIC! Sometimes, earth happens. If a few dead miners is the price we pay for cheaper energy, then it's a sacrifice that must be made.

GOOOOOOO CAPITALISM!!!!!

(Sorry, feeling especially snarky today.)

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

WH23, do you expect business owners to know EVERY TIME a mine will collapse? I mean, they're not PSYCHIC! Sometimes, earth happens. If a few dead miners is the price we pay for cheaper energy, then it's a sacrifice that must be made.

GOOOOOOO CAPITALISM!!!!!

(Sorry, feeling especially snarky today.)

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Calm down.

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Originally Posted by TeyshaBlue

Calm down.

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I blame it on my Rock Star Energy drink. I have no free will to resist its lurid stare.

"do you expect business owners to know EVERY TIME a mine will collapse"

after 100s of violations, even from dubya's wink-wink-nudge coal-friendly regulators, Massey had every chance to know something(s) were wrong.

captured regulators not enforcing regulations, and criminal corps ignoring regulations and citataions.

My guess, hardly original, is that no will be no punishment beyond easily payable, wrist-slap fines. Destruction of WVA's environment and murder of miners will continue.

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

WH23, do you expect business owners to know EVERY TIME a mine will collapse? I mean, they're not PSYCHIC! Sometimes, earth happens. If a few dead miners is the price we pay for cheaper energy, then it's a sacrifice that must be made.

GOOOOOOO CAPITALISM!!!!!

(Sorry, feeling especially snarky today.)

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What happened at Massey isn't about capitalism, it's about stupidity and negligence. Even if you choose to believe that all corporations are heartless ogres completely devoid of any concerns for the well being of their workers, the capitalist motive is to keep your workers safe. Accidents and dead workers result in lawsuits, fines, lost productivity, destruction of company property, costs to hire and train replacments, bad publicity, government inquiries and a whole slew of other results that will negatively impact the bottom line.

The overwhelming majority of companies out there are deeply concerned for the safety of their employees. Yes, there are exceptions, Massey apparently being one of them. And they're going to pay a heavy, heavy price for it.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

The overwhelming majority of companies out there are deeply concerned for the safety of their employees. Yes, there are exceptions, Massey apparently being one of them. And they're going to pay a heavy, heavy price for it.

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I know this is true; I was just playing the role of cynic. Thanks for the check, though.

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

I know this is true; I was just playing the role of cynic. Thanks for the check, though.

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Fair enough. Apparently you're not the only one feeling a little snarky today. :)

This thread needs a youtube from DarrinS...

Guy's a thug..

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

What happened at Massey isn't about capitalism, it's about stupidity and negligence. Even if you choose to believe that all corporations are heartless ogres completely devoid of any concerns for the well being of their workers, the capitalist motive is to keep your workers safe. Accidents and dead workers result in lawsuits, fines, lost productivity, destruction of company property, costs to hire and train replacments, bad publicity, government inquiries and a whole slew of other results that will negatively impact the bottom line.

The overwhelming majority of companies out there are deeply concerned for the safety of their employees. Yes, there are exceptions, Massey apparently being one of them. And they're going to pay a heavy, heavy price for it.

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I would be curious to know how many of those safety infractions were anything that could lead to such an accident.

How many people know of some of the stupid safety regulations? It can be a safety violation for example if you bruise yourself and not report it.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I would be curious to know how many of those safety infractions were anything that could lead to such an accident.

How many people know of some of the stupid safety regulations? It can be a safety violation for example if you bruise yourself and not report it.

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I'm sure a bunch of those infractions could be considered petty, but the examples that got quoted in the articles about not performing safety inspections and allowing the coal dust to build up are pretty major violations.

Government regulations with regards to safety can be burdensome, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them stupid. In fact it's been my experience within the engineering/construction industry that most companies safety policies exceed government requirements.

Evidence looks pretty damning... but having been on the wrong end of these things before... I'm reserving judgment.

Regardless it is a horrible tragedy. Restitution needs to be made to families and that will put a significant hole in this company's sails.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

I'm sure a bunch of those infractions could be considered petty, but the examples that got quoted in the articles about not performing safety inspections and allowing the coal dust to build up are pretty major violations.

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Yes, I read that about the coal dust, but I never saw an acceptable level vs. the measured level. Was it really a dangerous level, or just above a ridiculous safe level?

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

Government regulations with regards to safety can be burdensome, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them stupid. In fact it's been my experience within the engineering/construction industry that most companies safety policies exceed government requirements.

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I have seen my share of ridiculously stupid safety regulations. Because of that, the mention of them, without measurable specifics, have no effect of making me believe they were negligent of actual safety.

Accidents happen. There are sudden things that occur that cannot be stopped by safety regulations. Especially in this type of work.

Corporations cannot be negligent! Ever!

it appears to be more than negligence.

it appears to be "willful negligence".

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

Yes, I read that about the coal dust, but I never saw an acceptable level vs. the measured level. Was it really a dangerous level, or just above a ridiculous safe level?

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Not being in that industry I'm not sure how mining regulations are set up. In my industry, when it comes to combustable materials and/or hazardous gases there's no such distinction between "dangerous level" and "safe level". There's the defined level and anything above it is dangerous. Since the mine got cited and/or fined over it, it's safe to assume that whatever the measured level was, it was above the acceptable level.

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I have seen my share of ridiculously stupid safety regulations. Because of that, the mention of them, without measurable specifics, have no effect of making me believe they were negligent of actual safety.

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I can only speak to my industry, but my experience has been different. The safety regulations I've come across can be burdensome, and they're burdensome due to the massive number of defined and measurable specifics that you're supposed to keep track of.

As for the issue of negligence, that's missing the point IMO. Safety regulations aren't about defining where the bar is to avoid liability. They're about making sure stuff like this doesn't happen. Just because Massey might not have done anything meeting the legal bar of negligence doesn't mean they haven't done anything wrong.

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Accidents happen. There are sudden things that occur that cannot be stopped by safety regulations. Especially in this type of work.

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Per my company's safety training, of which I get a lot, 99% of all workplace accidents are preventable. I will all but guarantee that when the cause of this explosion is fully investigated that there is something that could have been done to prevent it. Something that somebody knew about ahead of time. Whether or not that translates into legal liability is for the courts to decide. But the "accidents happen" mindset is one that has been universally rejected in every single safety program I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of them.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

Yes, I read that about the coal dust, but I never saw an acceptable level vs. the measured level. Was it really a dangerous level, or just above a ridiculous safe level?

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Not being in that industry I'm not sure how mining regulations are set up. In my industry, when it comes to combustable materials and/or hazardous gases there's no such distinction between "dangerous level" and "safe level". There's the defined level and anything above it is dangerous. Since the mine got cited and/or fined over it, it's safe to assume that whatever the measured level was, it was above the acceptable level.

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I agree, but remember, there are a minimum of two levels of coal dust we are dealing with. If you look at a MSDS for coal dust, you will find the flammable level is 50 grams per cubic meter. That's a whole lot of coal. However, the permissible exposure limit is only 2 milligrams per cubic meter. Huge difference. I will offer the more likely proposal is the miners not wearing their respirators at the levels they are suppose to. This is a hard thing to control, and the probable violation.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I have seen my share of ridiculously stupid safety regulations. Because of that, the mention of them, without measurable specifics, have no effect of making me believe they were negligent of actual safety.

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I can only speak to my industry, but my experience has been different. The safety regulations I've come across can be burdensome, and they're burdensome due to the massive number of defined and measurable specifics that you're supposed to keep track of.

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Well, I've now worked for more than 30 years with mandated safety practices. Some are really stupid to the point of making some jobs very hard. Some weren't drastic enough, like when I worked with Hydroflouric Acid. Real scary stuff.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

As for the issue of negligence, that's missing the point IMO. Safety regulations aren't about defining where the bar is to avoid liability. They're about making sure stuff like this doesn't happen. Just because Massey might not have done anything meeting the legal bar of negligence doesn't mean they haven't done anything wrong.

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It depends on where the safety regulations originate from. Some are simply ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

Accidents happen. There are sudden things that occur that cannot be stopped by safety regulations. Especially in this type of work.

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Per my company's safety training, of which I get a lot, 99% of all workplace accidents are preventable.

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I think that's a pretty standard tag line, and most accidents I have ever seen are because of employees not following procedure rather than management.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

I will all but guarantee that when the cause of this explosion is fully investigated that there is something that could have been done to prevent it.

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Probably so, but I doubt it will be coal dust. There will be a political push to find the owners at fault. However, with what i have learned over the years about mining explosions, I'll bet it's methane gas buildup that was present before detected. Gas that suddenly built up at the dug farther.

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Originally Posted by coyotes_geek

Something that somebody knew about ahead of time. Whether or not that translates into legal liability is for the courts to decide. But the "accidents happen" mindset is one that has been universally rejected in every single safety program I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of them.

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We are both guessing, but mining is simply a dangerous business. People have died for years in this industry, and will in the future. It's a risk these people know about and accept.

safety and security always have both costs and inconveniences (training, surveillance, enforcement, penalties).

That's why corps implement the minimum of both and simply hate OSHA, which the Repugs have been castrating and trying to destroy since its inception.

Recipe for disaster? The elementary school, the coal silo, the coal preparation plant, the dam, the sludge lake and the mountaintop removal.

Photo: 2006
http://www.sludgesafety.org/gallery/...10-21-06.9.jpg
Photo: Three years later
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3313/...c9928674_b.jpg

http://isiria.files.wordpress.com/20...elementary.jpg

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The Marsh Fork Elementary School in Raleigh County with the light green lawn and white buildings is in the foreground at left. Just behind the school is a blue bend in the Marsh Fork of the Little Coal River. Across the river to the right is the coal silo--just 150 feet from the school. Though not readily visible, train tracks run beside the silo. Concerned parents worry that coal dust and the chemicals used in processing coal and loading it from the silo onto the train are drifting onto school grounds. Prove this yourself--walk barefoot through the playground and take a look at your toes.

Across the river and left are the blue buildings of the Goals Coal Processing Plant, a subsidiary of Massey Energy. To learn more about the dangerous chemicals used in coal prep plants, see the Why Worry section of this website. Above the prep plant, a road zigzags up the face of an earthen dam holding back billions of gallons of coal sludge in Massey's leaking Shumate impoundment. A worker at this site, now alleges he is gravely ill from the chemicals used on site. He says portions of this dam where not constructed properly and Mine Safety and Health Administration records support his statements. Beyond the impoundment --that black lake of toxic goo--another Massey Energy subsidiary, Independence Coal, is starting an 1,849 acre strip mine. How crazy to have blasting at this strip mine above an impoundment held by a violation-prone earthen dam--just 400 yards from an elementary school!

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Link

The dam is only holding back a small area rather than a whole river, etc.

I did detailed look with Google Maps. I'd be far more worried about the natural flood plane the school sits in rather than the dam, or coal slurry.

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The dam is only holding back a small area rather than a whole river, etc

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Unfortunately, we don't live in a world of mutually-exclusives. The contaminated water could seep into local water supply through porous ground or other means of contamination...

- SpeakEasy - http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy -

Massey Energy’s Costly Environmental Record

Posted By Sarah Laskow On April 10, 2010 @ 4:19 am In Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Coal consumption has costs — this week’s explosion at a West Virginia mine, which killed 25, made that clear. Those costs aren’t limited to human lives, either. Massey Energy Co., the owner of the West Virginia mine, has not just racked up safety violations but also consistently disregarded the environmental effects of its work.

Black marks on Massey’s record

This week’s explosion is far from the first debacle associated with a Massey project, and past incidents have had disastrous impacts on the environment.

In 2000, a break in a Massey-owned reservoir, filled with coal waste, caused more damage than the Exxon Valdez spill, Steve Benen writes at The Washington Monthly. Clara Bingham described the flood of sludge for the magazine in 2005:

“The gooey mixture of black water and coal tailings traveled downstream through Coldwater and Wolf creeks, and later through the river’s main stem, Tug Fork. Ten days later, an inky plume appeared in the Ohio River. On its 75-mile path of destruction, the sludge obliterated wildlife, killed 1.6 million fish, ransacked property, washed away roads and bridges, and contaminated the water systems of 27,623 people.”

A year later, another 30,000 gallons of sludge poured into a river in Madison, WV, “with nary a peep from Massey,” Kevin Connor points out at AlterNet.

The company routinely scorns environmental regulations, too, as Andy Kroll reports for Mother Jones:

“Between 2000 and 2006, Massey violated the Clean Water Act more than 4,500 times by dumping sediment and leftover mining waste into rivers in Kentucky and West Virginia, the EPA said in 2008. (Environmental groups say the EPA’s tally is a lowball figure; they estimate that the true number of violations is more than 12,000.) As a result of these breaches of the law, the company agreed to pay the EPA a $20 million settlement.”

It appears that prior spills have not chastened Massey, either. Brooke Jarvis at Yes! Magazine notes that the company stores 8.2 billion gallons of coal sludge in the same West Virginia county suffering from this week’s explosion, and that two months ago, “West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation because the dam failed to meet safety requirements.”

Don Blankenship, denier!

Massey’s owner, Don Blankenship, has as dark a record as his company on environmental issues. Blankenship believes in the “survival of the most productive,” Mike Lillis writes at The Washington Independent, which means that safety and environmental concerns come second. He “loves to slam ‘greeniacs’ for believing in things like climate change,” says Nick Baumann at Mother Jones. The Colorado Independent’s David O. Williams calls Blankenship “a notorious right-wing climate change denier and outspoken critic of the policies of ‘Obama bin Laden,’” and notes that Blankenship is on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has tried its hardest to squelch any climate legislation eking through Congress.

Methane and mountaintop removal

Although Massey and Blankenship stand out for their scorn of the environment, all coal production extracts a cost. Accidents and violations like Massey’s can devastate forests and streams, but coal’s biggest environmental impact comes when it is burned and pours tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Yes! Magazine’s Jarvis puts it, “Coal may be cheap now, but that’s simply because we’re not counting—and don’t even know how to count—the long-term costs.”

The Obama administration has taken some steps towards limiting coal production. Last week the EPA announced restrictions that would limit mountaintop removal mining. But those regulations won’t ban the practice altogether. The Senate could, in theory, take up that task: Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced a bill a year ago that would make mountaintop removal mining so expensive it would be economically infeasible, effectively banning the practice, Mike Lillis reports for The Washington Independent. Although the bill accrued a few more sponsors during 2009, mostly liberal Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), it hasn’t attracted much attention and is still sitting in the Environment and Public Works Committee.

In the Mountain West, the Bureau of Land Management is opening up federal lands for coal mining and claiming it can’t require companies to flare off or capture methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, David O. Williams reports for The Colorado Independent. Without methane capture, the new mines would pour carbon pollution into the atmosphere. This BLM stance, Williams writes, has green advocates in Colorado “longingly reminiscing about the bygone days of the Bush administration,” which said it would require companies to manage methane.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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dubya/Repugs destroyed the already weak EPA, to let the corps run rampant over the environment, poisoning water, land, air. All hail the corps and the capitalist financiers.

aDan, when you focus on articles that blow the facts out of proportion, why should I believe them?

Have you compared that with the larger spill the TVA had in 2008? Why just target one man's company?

The spill was 30 times larger than Exxon Valdez, but not mare damaging. It would be nice if you used factual sources rather than propaganda.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

It would be nice if you used factual sources rather than propaganda.

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Massey should hire you to do PR. You got some game yourself.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Massey should hire you to do PR. You got some game yourself.

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I'm not saying they carry no fault, but hell. When someone flagrantly lies about a situation, should I believe the rest?

Isn't the truth damning enough?

I carry no brief for Dan, but the truth is damning enough for Massey regarding mine safety.

As for Propaganda Dan, you guys are two peas in a pod. You just propagandize in different directions.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

I carry no brief for Dan, but the truth is damning enough for Massey regarding mine safety.

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If people would just lay out the complete facts, then I wouldn't have anything to complain about. Would I?

You don't really care about completeness or truth. You just want everyone to agree with you.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

You don't really care about completeness or truth. You just want everyone to agree with you.

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I don't care so much if people agree with me. I do feel I'm right most the time, but disagreement is one thing. Disagreement because of believing lies or propaganda is another.

What I mean about the completeness of truth has to no with offering numbers and not explaining the numbers. X number of safety violations can range from in improperly marked container, water on a floor, etc. to something serious. Numbers are meaningless without a proper breakdown. I can only assume that is a proper breakdown was done, it wouldn't have the impact that including all violations does.

Haven't you noticed? I get bent out of shape mostly by people misrepresenting the facts, repeatedly. I do it myself at times by accident, but I at least try to maintain accuracy. I'm just not perfect. I don't expect others to be perfect, but someone like Dan is constantly just bringing up juicy looking headlines, regardless of the facts.

Dan...

Are you part of a girls gossip club?

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I don't care so much if people agree with me. I do feel I'm right most the time, but disagreement is one thing. Disagreement because of believing lies or propaganda is another.

What I mean about the completeness of truth has to no with offering numbers and not explaining the numbers. X number of safety violations can range from in improperly marked container, water on a floor, etc. to something serious. Numbers are meaningless without a proper breakdown. I can only assume that is a proper breakdown was done, it wouldn't have the impact that including all violations does.

Haven't you noticed? I get bent out of shape mostly by people misrepresenting the facts, repeatedly. I do it myself at times by accident, but I at least try to maintain accuracy. I'm just not perfect. I don't expect others to be perfect, but someone like Dan is constantly just bringing up juicy looking headlines, regardless of the facts.

Dan...

Are you part of a girls gossip club?

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Yet, you provide no safety violation list breakdown, either, to prove YOUR assertion. You just assume that the company is being wronged. I think the dead miners speak otherwise.

"assume that the company is being wronged"

WC's bias in favor of institutions over citizens is a hallmark of his ivory-tower conservatism. The lower the status of the citizens (manual laborers like miners), the more pronounced the bias, just the the 5 radical activists SCOTUS.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

If people would just lay out the complete facts, then I wouldn't have anything to complain about. Would I?

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If you think that one lie/distortion outweights the rest of the facts in any article... well, then NO ONE is truthful. :lol

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

"assume that the company is being wronged"

WC's bias in favor of institutions over citizens is a hallmark of his ivory-tower conservatism. The lower the status of the citizens (manual laborers like miners), the more pronounced the bias, just the the 5 radical activists SCOTUS.

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Gotta agree here. In most cases, WC sides with the institution over the individual. "Dead miners? Probably their fault."

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Gotta agree here. In most cases, WC sides with the institution over the individual. "Dead miners? Probably their fault."

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I'm not going to assume who's at fault, like the rest of you.

Will the pitbull bitch/Bachmann/teabaggers demonstrate and demagogue for miner safety, against WVA destruction, and for the environment?

Never.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I'm not going to assume who's at fault, like the rest of you.

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Given the numerous faults listed against Massey earlier upthread, as well as pointing out that deaths are obviously an anomaly in the mining world, I think it's reasonable to assume there may be more fault on the part of the company.

See, WC, it's perfectly logical to assume something when you are given earlier facts, and make an inference in this case.

This is the logic you seem to be using: There is a room with 20 people. 19 end up murdered, and the one left admit to killing 18 of them. Yet he says he didn't kill the 19th. Your logic would seem to dictate that it's wrong to "assume" that he killed the 19th as well.

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Given the numerous faults listed against Massey earlier upthread, as well as pointing out that deaths are obviously an anomaly in the mining world, I think it's reasonable to assume there may be more fault on the part of the company.

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I understand that. But also understand that the severity of the "faults listed" isn't given. What if there are no safety issues past minor ones? Sudden gas buildups are one of the biggest explosion potentials. this happens too fast to detect and outrun.

Ever try to outrun a gas... or the wind?

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

See, WC, it's perfectly logical to assume something when you are given earlier facts, and make an inference in this case.

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But what are the chances of the assumption being correct?

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

This is the logic you seem to be using: There is a room with 20 people. 19 end up murdered, and the one left admit to killing 18 of them. Yet he says he didn't kill the 19th. Your logic would seem to dictate that it's wrong to "assume" that he killed the 19th as well.

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Not anywhere close.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

But what are the chances of the assumption being correct?

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Given the info WH23 posted earlier...

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Massey's Aracoma mine continues to have numerous safety violations, with 316 cited in the last year.


The Upper Big Branch, where Monday's disaster occurred, was cited for 515 violations in 2009 and 124 so far this year, federal statistics show. The company was cited, among other things, for allowing combustible coal dust to accumulate.

Labor Department records show that before Monday, three workers have been killed at the mine in the last 12 years. A worker was electrocuted in 2003, another died after a roof collapse in 2001, and a third died when a beam collapsed in 1998.

Asked about the firm's safety record, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III said Tuesday that the company was within federal safety tolerance requirements. But, he added, the firm's overall record "sure concerns me."

Between 2001 and 2005, the federal government proposed fines of $236,000 for violations at the Upper Big Branch mine, and Massey paid nearly $235,000.

Since Congress enacted tougher mine oversight regulations in 2006, the government has proposed $1.77 million in fines at the mine, but Massey has paid only about $365,000 and contested most of the difference, federal records show.

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I'd say there's a better than average chance that some safety regulations weren't being followed.

You know, assumptions aren't necessarily a bad thing, you should try making some sometime.

And if you don't want to, let me tell you about this Nigerian guy I know, and a great way to make money...

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Given the info WH23 posted earlier...

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Massey's Aracoma mine continues to have numerous safety violations, with 316 cited in the last year.

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A number meaningless, because they might all be minor infractions, including improperly filed paperwork.

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The Upper Big Branch, where Monday's disaster occurred, was cited for 515 violations in 2009 and 124 so far this year, federal statistics show. The company was cited, among other things, for allowing combustible coal dust to accumulate.

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Was "combustible coal dust" part of the infractions, or were they cited for coal dust above the health standard, with some artistic editorialism?

50 gms/m3 is not a sustainable level. It falls out of the air too fast. Maybe the standard is far lower, but it then could not combust and be a realistic safety violation.

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Labor Department records show that before Monday, three workers have been killed at the mine in the last 12 years. A worker was electrocuted in 2003

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Was it the mines fault, or workers?

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, another died after a roof collapse in 2001,

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This can happen following the best of safety practices.

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and a third died when a beam collapsed in 1998.

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This is also often unavoidable.

Were any of these linked to a safety violation by the company?

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Asked about the firm's safety record, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III said Tuesday that the company was within federal safety tolerance requirements. But, he added, the firm's overall record "sure concerns me."

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Opinion.

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Between 2001 and 2005, the federal government proposed fines of $236,000 for violations at the Upper Big Branch mine, and Massey paid nearly $235,000.

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So?

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Since Congress enacted tougher mine oversight regulations in 2006, the government has proposed $1.77 million in fines at the mine, but Massey has paid only about $365,000 and contested most of the difference, federal records show.

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So?

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

I'd say there's a better than average chance that some safety regulations weren't being followed.

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I agree, but were any of them serious enough to be the cause?

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You know, assumptions aren't necessarily a bad thing, you should try making some sometime.

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LOL... I do all the time, and you know it. I just do my best to remain open minded on things until more facts are learned. As it stands, there is absolutely nothing that shows the company has any liability in this accident.

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I agree, but were any of them serious enough to be the cause?

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I would say where's there's smoke, there's likely fire. Of course, it's not set in stone that it's the company's fault, but that's the point of the courts! This is a message board, so I don't hold myself to the same high standards. :)

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

I would say where's there's smoke, there's likely fire. Of course, it's not set in stone that it's the company's fault, but that's the point of the courts! This is a message board, so I don't hold myself to the same high standards. :)

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As long as you acknowledge that the accident was possible no fault of the company, then I can appreciate you having an opinion I think is wrong. I get so irritated at those who jump to conclusions that can be wrong, and say it's absolutely that way.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I would be curious to know how many of those safety infractions were anything that could lead to such an accident.

How many people know of some of the stupid safety regulations? It can be a safety violation for example if you bruise yourself and not report it.

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CNN reports that in 2009, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) proposed nearly $1 million in fines for more than 450 safety violations at the nonunion Upper Big Branch Mine, including penalties for

more than 50 “unwarrantable failure” violations, which are among the most serious findings an inspector can issue. Among those were citations for escape routes for miners and air quality ventilation.


According to ABC News, Massey was fighting the MSHA fines, including those for

57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow the ventilation plan. The federal records catalog the problems at the Upper Big Branch Mine….They show the company was fighting many of the steepest fines, or simply refusing to pay them.

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In 2006, a fire at Massey’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine, also in West Virginia, killed two miners. Ultimately, Massey’s Aracoma Coal Co. subsidiary pleaded guilty to 10 criminal mine safety violations and paid $2.5 million in fines related to that fatal fire. According to ABC, the two miners “suffocated as they looked for a way to escape.”

Aracoma later admitted in a plea agreement that two permanent ventilation controls had been removed in 2005 and not replaced, according to published reports. The two widows of the miners killed in Aracoma were unsatisfied by the plea agreement, telling the judge they believed the company cared more about profits then safety.

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Meanwhile, the Charleston Gazette reports safety officials are looking at methane that built up inside a sealed-off area or leaked through the seals as the cause of the blast. In 2006, methane from sealed-off areas caused the explosions at a Sago, W.Va., mine that killed 12 miners and also at the Darby Mine in Kentucky where two coal miners were killed.

The new mine safety rules passed after the Sago and Darby disasters called for increased monitoring of air quality in active and sealed sections of the mines to avoid methane build up. The new regulations also required mine operators to install stronger barriers between active and nonactive sections of mines.

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Mine safety is a good example of an "externality" in economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

The mining company gets to earn a certain amount of extra profit from the avoided internal "costs" of safety, but then, when such a disaster happens, the families of the dead/injured are forced to bear losses in the form of all of the income that provider would have earned over his lifetime.

Insurance payouts on such workers rarely approach the value lost.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

As long as you acknowledge that the accident was possible no fault of the company, then I can appreciate you having an opinion I think is wrong. I get so irritated at those who jump to conclusions that can be wrong, and say it's absolutely that way.

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As my previous post noted, no few of the violations of safety that the mine was cited were in the area of proper ventilation and monitoring of explosive gases, something that seems to me pretty likely to be the direct cause of the accident.

The chickens have come home to roost.

Hopefully we will get that tort reform you want, so that the coal company can force the miner's families to pay the coal companies court costs if they lose. Because, as we all know, those families can easily outspend Massey Energy over the course of ten years on lawyers.

That would keep all those pesky lawsuits from hampering the ability of Mr. Blankenship to make $12.9M per year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=mee

(not including the value of his yet unexercised stock options of course)

WC is the ultimate skeptic when it suits his purposes, and the ultimate conclusion-jumper when it suits his purposes. For example, consider the following post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra the Skeptic

I agree, but remember, there are a minimum of two levels of coal dust we are dealing with. If you look at a MSDS for coal dust, you will find the flammable level is 50 grams per cubic meter. That's a whole lot of coal. However, the permissible exposure limit is only 2 milligrams per cubic meter. Huge difference.

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VERSUS

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra the Conclusion-Jumper

I will offer the more likely proposal is the miners not wearing their respirators at the levels they are suppose to. This is a hard thing to control, and the probable violation.

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You'll note that both quotes come from the same post and the same paragraph. In the first few sentences WC explains how he's not convinced that the a reported violation was actually a "dangerous" violation. Yet, in the next two sentences he offers an unsourced, unfounded account and assumes its truthy-ness.

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Originally Posted by Oh, Gee!!

WC is the ultimate skeptic when it suits his purposes, and the ultimate conclusion-jumper when it suits his purposes. For example, consider the following post.

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That is your incorrect assumption. I do play skeptic often just to point out alternate possibilities. Devil's advocate if you will. I do this often when I haven't really developed my own opinion, and others do come to what I think are unfounded conclusions. I like to point out the lack of proper information at times.

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Originally Posted by Oh, Gee!!

You'll note that both quotes come from the same post and the same paragraph. In the first few sentences WC explains how he's not convinced that the a reported violation was actually a "dangerous" violation. Yet, in the next two sentences he offers an unsourced, unfounded account and assumes its truthy-ness.

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What I either didn't explain well, or you misunderstood, was I was saying the coal dust was very unlikely the reason for the explosion. The point was made that coal dust levels were a noted safety violation. I was saying it was more likely a dangerous level for health purposes and workers not wearing respirators to get the safety violation rather than the levels being unsafe for a possible explosions.

I didn't believe that the explosion could be cause by coal dust. It falls out of the air too fast to maintain a rich enough level. The reported coal dust level violation I'm sure is too easily seen as the reason for the explosion if misunderstood.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I was saying it was more likely a dangerous level for health purposes and workers not wearing respirators to get the safety violation rather than the levels being unsafe for a possible explosions.

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and I'm saying this is pure speculation on your part. I'm saying that you pass off pure speculation as fact when it suits your needs, and that you question sourced and credible facts as pure speculation when it suits your needs. In short, you're a fraud and a partisan hack.

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Originally Posted by Oh, Gee!!

and I'm saying this is pure speculation on your part. I'm saying that you pass off pure speculation as fact when it suits your needs, and that you question sourced and credible facts as pure speculation when it suits your needs. In short, you're a fraud and a partisan hack.

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I would note that double standards for sources and evidence is also a very striking charactristic of 9-11 truthers.

When a sciency sounding essay is published on a conspira-site that is the height of credible argument.

When an actual scientific paper is published on any other website, or the government actually does tests with actual data, that is simply "part of the cover up".

The same kind of double standards are applied by many "global warming deniers".

It is all part and parcel of the human tendency towards confirmation bias combining with what can best be described as dogmatic ideology to produce a new set of quasi-religions.

In Week After Tragedy, 130 More Serious Safety Violations Found in Massey Mines



In the week following the biggest mining tragedy in the last 40 years, the Mine Health and Safety Administration has found a disconcerting 130 “significant and substantial” safety violations at dozens of other Massey mines. And while the Huffington Post announces this news by saying the safety violations are “skyrocketing” since the tragic explosion, that’s not exactly the case–it’s even scarier. Such an overload of violations is actually closer to par for the course for Massey.

Massey Energy, which owns the Upper Big Branch Mine where 29 employees lost their lives, has a distinct history of putting profits over mining safety, even more so in recent years. For instance, the operators of Upper Big Branch mine, where the accident occurred, had allowed thousands of unaddressed violations to accumulated–there were 53 new violations the same month that the tragedy occurred.

Some of those violations concerned the improper ventilation that allowed flammable methane to collect in the mines–what many suspect led to the terrible explosion that caused the tragedy.

All this goes to say that gross negligence of safety regulations was par for the course before the accident–and that they were receiving numerous violations even them. But the Huffington Post is right, closer attention is now being paid, and violations seem to be pursued more vigorously:

The Mine Safety and Health Administration cited 130 “significant and substantial” violations at dozens of Massey’s mines from April 6 to April 14, according to a HuffPost analysis of MSHA records. That exceeds the number of violations found at those same mines for the entire month of March. Four of those violations involved ventilation plans which are intended to help prevent explosions and are designed “to control methane and respirable dust and shall be suitable to the conditions and mining system at the mine” — the Upper Big Branch mine was repeatedly cited for such violations and was penalized $136,142 in January.In total, the agency found 460 violations at Massey’s mines, which exceeds the 351 violations at those same mines in March. Such S&S violations are considered much more serious, because they present a direct risk to the health and safety of mine workers

But remember, the problem wasn’t mostly with the lack of violations issued, it was primarily Massey’s unwillingness to address them, and regulators’ failure in enforcing compliance.

Scrutiny is now being turned towards the man many are finding responsible for the negligence and downright unwillingness to address safety concerns: Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. Blankenship has a well documented history of displaying hostility towards regulations and regulators, and his strategy has largely been to challenge safety violations in his mines, getting them hung up in court, instead of actually addressing the issues. Due to this dangerous negligence and decided noncompliance, Massey Energy shareholders are now calling for Blankenship’s firing.

Article printed from SpeakEasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...-massey-mines/

The buildup of flammable gases and coal dust in the mines is something Massey should have had under control. Maybe they'll be more focused on it now.

I wonder if Massey will settle with the survivors or fight them in court.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I didn't believe that the explosion could be cause by coal dust. It falls out of the air too fast to maintain a rich enough level. The reported coal dust level violation I'm sure is too easily seen as the reason for the explosion if misunderstood.

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Even if it turns out something else was the cause for the explosion, excessive coal dust that had settled to the ground would have been kicked up and multiplied the overall force and area of the blast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

In Week After Tragedy, 130 More Serious Safety Violations Found in Massey Mines


<snip>

Article printed from SpeakEasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...-massey-mines/

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Another useless link. Uses big numbers to impress libtards. However, the only serious category listed was “to control methane and respirable dust and shall be suitable to the conditions and mining system at the mine” and said there were only 4 violations. What are the specifics of this? Couls all four be levels of dust beyond acceptable levels to breath only?

Details people, detail...

Without details, it is useless guessing.

Where are the details?

"Where are the details"

If the captured/bought-off regulators/inspectors do their jobs, There Will Be Details.

I'm not optimistic. The mine, even all of Big Coal, has had so many violations that it should have been shutdown and Massey bankrupted long ago. Big Coal has $Bs to pay for lies that had their crimes against employees, the environment, and mining communities and neighbors.

Big Coal is just another corporate sector fucking up America end-to-end.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

If the captured/bought-off regulators/inspectors do their jobs, There Will Be Details.

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If you have evidence of this, you need to go testify. So far, I have seen nothing they can pin the accident on.

Here ya go, WC, A Climate of Safety Violations


The New York Times


April 22, 2010

2 Mines Show How Safety Practices Vary Widely in U.S.

By DAN BARRY, IAN URBINA and CLIFFORD KRAUSS

This article is by Dan Barry, Ian Urbina and Clifford Krauss.

Earlier this year, in the subterranean workplace of a southern West Virginia coal mine, methane kept building up because of a lack of fresh air. Odorless, explosive, this natural gas must be dispersed from where miners work, and yet it became such a familiar presence at the mine called Upper Big Branch that entire sections had to be evacuated four times this year alone.

Many of the miners suspected they knew a major source of the gas buildup: a coal shaft, unused for years, that passed down through several old mines before reaching theirs. According to a longtime foreman at the mine, who provided previously undisclosed details of its operation, the shaft was never properly sealed to prevent the methane above from being sucked into Upper Big Branch.

Instead, the foreman said, rags and garbage were used to create a poor man’s sealant, which he said allowed methane to permeate the mine, displacing much-needed oxygen.

“Every single day, the levels were double or triple what they were supposed to be,” said the foreman, whose account of the shaft was corroborated in part by records collected by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. The foreman, who is now working with federal prosecutors and elected officials investigating the mine, asked not to be identified because speaking out is not acceptable in the culture of his company, Massey Energy. Excerpts from an audio recording of the foreman’s remarks are at nytimes.com.

It is not clear whether the coal shaft played a role in the explosion of the Upper Big Branch mine two weeks ago, a disaster that killed 29 miners, rattled West Virginia and, once again, raised questions about Massey’s safety practices. But with federal investigators saying they suspect that a buildup of methane and coal dust led to the explosion, the handling of the shaft seems a particularly egregious example of the mining practices that have set Massey apart from the rest of the coal industry.

Coal mining carries inherent risks. But the numerous and very public violations and fatalities at Massey-owned mines over the years may leave the impression that all mines are run this way — that all mines leave coal shafts open and fail to exhaust methane properly. They do not. A comparison between Massey’s safety practices and those of other operators in the coal industry shows sharp differences, helping to explain why Massey mines led the list of those warned by federal regulators that they could face greater scrutiny because of their many violations.

For example, less than 200 miles to the west, in a corner of Kentucky called Hazard, a unit of the TECO Coal Corporation operates a mine with the all-business name of E3-1. Like Upper Big Branch, it is nonunion. It has fewer employees, produces three-quarters the amount of bituminous coal, uses an arguably riskier method of mining — and, its operators say, emits 25 percent more methane a day.

Yet E3-1 has not had an underground fatality since it opened in July 2004; nor does it have anywhere near the number of violations accumulated by Upper Big Branch.

TECO is not immune to violations and accidental deaths; for example, an inadequately supported roof collapsed in 2006, killing a worker in a TECO-owned mine across the road from E3-1. But the operators at E3-1 say they build on experience, and strive toward vigilant safety practices, including routinely trying to double the required amount of fresh air that is directed into the mine’s chambers.

“This mine is gassy; it liberates methane,” said Robert J. Zik, the company’s vice president for operations. “So if we don’t do it right, you’re going to have a problem.”

“The mine has to be ventilated,” Mr. Zik added. “Otherwise, it will destroy the company. I don’t think TECO Coal could have an accident like Massey’s and survive.”

TECO executives and miners, who spoke openly and on the record during a reporter’s tour of the E3-1 mine last week, say that their training, procedures and equipment generally exceed what is required by Kentucky and federal regulators. The company says it rewards safety, provides an 800 number for anonymous complaints and fosters an open-door management style.

The differences in safety practices between TECO and Massey are often stark. Where TECO workers rigorously inspect the mine for safety problems before every shift, Upper Big Branch has had dozens of violations related to pre-shift examinations, some for failing to conduct them at all, others for not documenting that they had been done. All TECO miners get weeks of safety training, but in September an inspector ordered dozens of Massey miners out of Upper Big Branch because they lacked proper training.

Several years ago, TECO fired a mine foreman for failing to rehang a ventilation curtain that had fallen to the mine floor and contributed to a fire. At Upper Big Branch, inspectors more than once found curtains improperly hung or lying on the mine floor, a practice workers said was routine and encouraged because the plastic sheets get in the way of equipment.

And the attention to safety — or the lack of it — has had measurable results: Compared with the industry average, TECO’s workers spent much less time away from work because of injury last year; Upper Big Branch workers spent significantly more.

TECO’s mine has had far fewer safety violations over the last five years than Massey’s, and the company has been less inclined than Massey to fight with regulators. Massey has contested 69 percent of the proposed $1.9 million in civil penalties proposed by the mine safety agency since the beginning of 2005, federal records show.

Massey executives, especially its chairman and chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, have also said they maintain a vigilant commitment to safety, though they declined to comment in detail for this article.

“Massey’s board of directors has instructed counsel and mine experts to conduct a full evaluation of events, and it would be premature to comment on specific violations before they have had time to finish,” said a statement issued Thursday by a company spokeswoman, Karen Hanretty. “It’s important to note, however, that all M.S.H.A. violations must be abated. Most citations are corrected the same day, often immediately. For those that require more time, a deadline is given by M.S.H.A. to correct the situation.”

Nonetheless, the 52 deaths over the past 10 years at their mines — including a fatal 2006 fire in a mine with safety practices so poor they were later deemed criminal — tend to undermine the Massey assertions.

Now, in the wake of a catastrophe that has all of West Virginia in mourning, the trail of federal violations issued to Upper Big Branch, many of them in the weeks leading up to the explosion, seems infused with foreboding.

“The methane and dust control plan is not being followed.”

“The lifeline in the primary escape way” is not being maintained.

“In case of an emergency the men on this section would not have fresh air in the primary escapeway.”

“Management engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence, in that production was deemed more important than conducting parameter checks.”

Grown Men, Crying

Like so many other workers across the country, the day-shift miners at Upper Big Branch had an early-morning commute. Every workday, a dozen or so piled into a covered vehicle called a mantrip and caught a half-hour doze as the car followed a track three to four miles into the side of a central Appalachian mountain.

The car would come to a stop in a world where the ceiling was less than seven feet high, the floor puddled with water, and the air cool, breezy and faintly musty. As loud fans helped to move the air, the mining machine would grind back and forth about 1,000 feet across the wall, slicing coal to be carried away by conveyor belt.

Down there, fresh air could not be taken for granted.

Well before this month’s fatal explosion at Upper Big Branch, the country’s worst mine disaster in 40 years, the lack of proper ventilation had been a continuing concern among its miners. The fear of methane building while oxygen dropped preyed on their minds.

“I have had guys come to me and cry,” said the veteran foreman. “Grown men cried — because they are scared.”

But workers in the mine said they did not dare question the company’s safety practices, even when asked to perform a dubious task.

“It was all about production,” said Andrew Tyler, 22, an electrician who two years ago worked as a subcontractor on the wiring for the coal conveyer belt and other equipment at Upper Big Branch. “If you worked for them, you didn’t ask questions about whether some step like running a cable around the breaker was a smart idea. You just did it.”

The foreman said that everyone agreed that an obvious culprit for some of the compromised air was what they called the “glory hole,” an old mining term for the chimneylike storage shaft deep within the mountain, a few hundred feet long and about 20 feet wide, that connected Upper Big Branch to a few mines above.

In years past, coal from these upper mines was dumped down the shaft to Upper Big Branch, then taken out by conveyor belt. But after the shaft stopped being used, the foreman said, a proper seal between floors was never installed.

“They just dumped trash in there,” he said. “Any kind of trash they could get, buckets, you name it.”

The foreman said that methane was being sucked down through the shaft into the active mine, to the point that methane readings in the area often measured at twice the allowable level.

About two months ago, he said, a young, fit contractor climbed a ladder on the outside of the coal shaft to retrieve a monitor. A few steps up, though, the man passed out — apparently from the high methane levels — and had to be dragged to safety. The incident was kept quiet, the foreman said, and never reported to state and federal regulators.

At least 44 times in the last two years, regulators cited the mine for major methane violations. Just three months ago, an inspector found that ventilation air was flowing the wrong way, thwarting any potential escape in an emergency. The inspector wrote that Terry Moore, the supervisor in charge, had been aware of the condition for three weeks.

“Mr. Moore engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence in that he was aware of the condition,” the inspector said.

The foreman said that miners had fresh-air concerns beyond those created by the leaky, unused shaft. There were also the air-lock steel doors that swung open, saloon-style, dozens of times a day, as miners in mantrips crossed over the primary tunnel providing fresh air. Every time the doors opened, he said, they compromised the flow of clean air that helps to flush out the methane.

Ideally, the doors should not be in the way of the air flow. The foreman said that worried miners had pressed the coal company to cut through rock to create a dedicated air pathway, but were met with a dismissive rejection, along the lines of: We dig coal, not rock.

Inspectors have cited the company at least a dozen times over the past two years for failing to maintain or properly operate doors intended to direct air flow inside the mine. In November, an inspector found two large holes in the set of doors cited by the foreman, and noted that a large amount of air was escaping.

According to two other miners who had worked for several years at Upper Big Branch and asked not to be identified in order to keep their jobs, the pressure to run coal was so intense at times that any claim of a commitment to safety seemed like part of some absurdist play. Entrance guards would alert the miners when an inspector was on the way down. Equipment that measured coal dust was manipulated by placing it in areas with cleaner air before inspectors checked it. Curtains that directed clean air were moved around to favorably skew readings.

Daniel Woods, a federal mining inspector from Man, W.Va., on disability leave, said that Massey mines were some of the most difficult to handle. Inspections that should have taken a day took three, he said, because the first day would be spent arguing with Massey operators over paperwork and permission to enter certain sections. The company was far more likely than others to complain about inspectors it thought were too aggressive, and eventually the mine safety agency would send different inspectors, he said.

And then there were the lifelines: the steel cables that hang from the ceiling and run the length of the tunnels, intended to guide miners in darkness and smoke out of dangerous situations and into safety.

The company knew the importance of lifelines because it had been cited more than two dozen times since January 2009 for not properly maintaining them. Last summer, for example, an inspector ordered workers out of the mine after discovering several hazards, including an incorrect escape route map, a part of that route underwater — and a long stretch of lifeline missing.

According to the foreman, a few months ago the company built a wall to try and address some of the mine’s ventilation problems. That wall was still in place at the time of the explosion.

The only problem, he said: The new wall cut off a lifeline.

A Criminal Fire

Four years ago, in another southern West Virginia coal mine owned by a Massey subsidiary, a preventable fire broke out two miles below the surface. A faulty conveyor belt that should have been better maintained ignited some coal spillage that should not have been allowed to accumulate, federal investigators found in a report compiled after the incident.

One of the miners hurriedly tried to connect a fire hose to a nearby water valve, but this was futile; the threads of the coupling and the outlet were not compatible. The miner then tried to open the valve — just to get water on the fire — but the line was dry. And things only got worse.

The miner belonged to a crew working in Massey’s Aracoma Alma mine. In a memorandum issued three months before this fire and widely disseminated in 2006, Mr. Blankenship, the company’s chief executive, ordered subordinates to run coal and ignore everything else. A week later he sent a follow-up memo saying that, of course, safety comes first — and that he would “question the membership” of any employee who thought he meant anything other than that.

Now, on the evening of Jan. 19, 2006, just hours after Aracoma officials received yet another handwritten note from Mr. Blankenship — “Stay on coal,” it said in part — a fire had broken out, again, on a misaligned conveyor belt, there was no water, and smoke was thickening.

“You could hear stuff falling and cracking and popping,” a miner named Jonah Rose later said, according to a state report by J. Davitt McAteer, a prominent mine-safety consultant who is now leading a state investigation into the Upper Big Branch explosion. “It sounded like thunder coming through there.”

After a delay of nearly half an hour, the crew of a dozen miners was ordered to evacuate. They rode a mantrip down the primary escape path — only to run into thick, impassable smoke. Holes in a ventilation wall had been created weeks earlier to accommodate electrical equipment, it turned out, effectively compromising the escape tunnel’s fresh air.

The men stumbled out of the vehicle, hollering to stick together, fumbling to don their portable breathing devices, at least one of them vomiting before his air supply halted the sensation of suffocating. Then, as best as they could in the blinding pitch of smoke, the miners felt their way along the coal wall, trying and not always succeeding to form a human chain of life support.

Somebody yelled a muffled something about a door, and the miners followed the voice. On the other side of the door, they could breathe, and see, and count: 10 now, instead of 12. Two roof-bolt operators, Ellery Hatfield and Don Israel Bragg, were missing.

Three miners went back into the smoke, repeatedly removing their masks to shout for the men they called Elvis and Riz. “You could hear them hollering at the top of their lungs, hollering for them,” another miner recalled. But there was no answer.

Two days later, rescuers — whose many obstacles included the inaccurate mine maps provided by the company — found the bodies. Mr. Bragg was 33; Mr. Hatfield was 46.

As in the past, as in the future, state and federal inspection reports provided disturbing context. The Aracoma mine had received more than two-dozen violations in the months just before the fire, including several that cited problems with its ventilation system and three that raised alarms about the build-up of combustible coal dust and spillage.

In addition, Aracoma miners later told investigators that they had put out two other fires caused by faulty conveyor belts in the two weeks before the fatal fire. Neither of these fires was reported to state or federal officials.

In the fall of 2008, the widows of Mr. Bragg and Mr. Hatfield settled their lawsuit against various Massey entities and Mr. Blankenship in midtrial, for an undisclosed amount.

Then, in April 2009, the Aracoma Coal Company, a Massey subsidiary, pleaded guilty to several counts of willfully violating mandatory safety standards, and agreed to pay $4.2 million in criminal fines and civil penalties. The Department of Justice described it as the largest financial settlement in the coal industry’s history.

After the fire, court files indicate, Aracoma installed state-of-the-art fire suppression systems, provided training and technologies for emergency mine evacuation, and adopted other safety measures that in hindsight seem obvious.

But ventilation problems similar to those found at Aracoma were also part of a citation issued on Jan. 7 of this year to Upper Big Branch.

“What we’re afraid of is that the same types of ugly conditions at Aracoma may resurface again at Upper Big Branch,” said Bruce Stanley, the lawyer for the two Aracoma widows. “And that perhaps the lessons of Aracoma might not have been learned.”

A Different Kind of Mine

A morning shift of miners disappeared last week into an Appalachian foothill. Wearing blue jumpsuits with orange reflective tape and hardhats with lights, they crouched into small cable cars and descended some 750 feet into the E3-1 mine, the subterranean maze in Hazard that is their place of work.

They breathed air that was cool, fresh and breezy, thanks to a fan system stronger than federal regulations require. They carried portable emergency-breathing devices with which they had all trained four times a year under smoky conditions, well beyond the federal requirement of once a year. (The Massey foreman said such training does not happen that often.)

Theirs is a room-and-pillar mine, in which natural pillars are left during the coal removal to support the roof, some of which are later removed. According to company officials, most mines that use this method create 40-square-foot pillars every 90 feet, while the pillars here measure 70 square feet. (Some mining experts consider this method riskier than the longwall mining approach at Upper Big Branch.)

Typical of the safety measures in evidence are the identification tags on the power breakers. They include explanatory pictures, and not just names or numbers, to reduce the risk of one of the many power lines being plugged into the wrong receptacle, which could lead to electrocution. Massey has no such system, according to the foreman.

In particular, TECO says it emphasizes that the mine be examined before every shift — a federal requirement that has drawn several Massey violations and one that Mr. McAteer, the mine-safety consultant, has repeatedly said is of the utmost importance.

Between the three shifts, foremen at E3-1 test methane levels, check the heavy plastic curtains that help to control air flow, and inspect for cracks in the roof.

“It’s common sense, not high tech,” said Dave Blankenship, TECO’s director of safety and environmental affairs. (He is not related to Massey’s chairman.)

These safety practices did not develop in a vacuum. Five years ago, about a year after the mine opened, one of the heavy plastic curtains that help to control air flow fell down, and a foreman failed to hang it back up. Methane collected, ignited, and created a brief flash fire that caused no injuries but earned two significant violations from federal inspectors.

The foreman was fired, and a machine operator was suspended for three days. “It sent a signal,” Mr. Blankenship said.

The company’s safety record is very good, but not perfect. Five months ago, above ground, an independent contractor was killed and another was seriously injured when a boom fell on them while they worked on building an air shaft for E3-1. Federal inspectors ruled that Perry Coal Company, the TECO subsidiary, had not secured the boom in place; the company is contesting the citation.

The company is also contesting a $70,000 fine for another incident from last year, in which a worker injured his sacrum, or tailbone, while working on machinery that inspectors also say was not properly secured.

Over all, though, the operation at E3-1 rates well. It has no fatalities, no evacuations for ventilation problems since 2004, and, for the last five years, an injury rate well below the national average in mines.

The shift ended. Miners climbed into the cable cars that would safely take them back up to late-afternoon daylight, where the dogwood and Eastern red bud trees colored the landscape, and where the mining supervisor gave them license to talk to a visiting reporter, on or off the record.

All 10 miners approached by the reporter agreed to talk. All 10 agreed that the supervisors of the E3-1 mine emphasized safety and encouraged cooperation with the state and federal inspectors who are frequently on site.

Gary Caudill, 56 years old and with 30 years in the mines, said that E3-1 was the gassiest mine he had ever been in. But, he said: “I’ve worked for a lot of mines, and this is the safest. If they come in and a curtain is not up, the man responsible would be fired.”

Before calling it a day, 35 of these miners gathered in a paneled room of wooden benches and metal lockers for their weekly safety meeting, where the words “Safety on Call” loom above the door. Some sat, most stood, and all listened in silence as their mine safety inspector, Rocky Moore, began the session by bringing up the Upper Big Branch disaster.

Mr. Moore repeated what the men already knew, that 29 men had lost their lives in an explosion whose cause remained under investigation. Still, he said, the men before him must remain alert about methane.

He emphasized the importance of the plastic curtains that help to direct air flow. He read aloud a series of best practices for preventing underground explosions: clean up loose coal; check seals; maintain sufficient ventilation; and, again, test frequently for methane.

He asked if anyone had any questions. There were none.

“Just be sure you all be careful,” Mr. Moore said in closing. “And see Mama when you get off work.”

His words carried these weary miners out into the fresh afternoon, where the white and purple-pink blooms of spring adorned the hillside.

Andrew W. Lehren, Janet Roberts, Michael Cooper and Dan Heyman contributed reporting.

==========

So, WC, when mgmt cares about the welfare of its workers, and creates a culture of safety, mine safety is achievable.

It's clear that Blankenship did not value safety, and was repeatedly, criminally negligent. Like most "corporate person" criminals, he won't be accounted, imprisoned, or fined, unlike Real Persons guilty of 20+ manslaughters.

Spin away, asshole.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

Here ya go, WC, A Climate of Safety Violations


The New York Times


April 22, 2010

<snip>

Spin away, asshole.

---

I don't need to spin. I read the first several paragraphs, and only saw hearsay. I'm not going to bother reading on, damn long article. If there is some documented fact rather than what a disgruntled employee may say, please highlight, quite, underline, color, or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I'm not going to bother reading

---

:tu

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

I wonder if Massey will settle with the survivors or fight them in court.

---

Hey, they paid for the West Virginia courts -- might as well use them, right?

After all, WC seems to think it's more likely that the miners were at fault than that the mine was.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown

Hey, they paid for the West Virginia courts -- might as well use them, right?

After all, WC seems to think it's more likely that the miners were at fault than that the mine was.

---

I would say it is more likely just for safety violations. I am not solid on any particular cause of the accident, or fault. I have simple not seen any credible evidence to sway me one way or another. Not everything can be prevented, that's why there is a word "accident." The probability of accidents can he highly reduced, but never eliminated in such jobs, unless you simply don't do said job.

All the more reason for them to take their chance in court and not just pay out to the families of these miners, who (after all) assumed the risk of being coal miners.

I think the best way to improve safety is for the union to have a clause written into the next contract that they get to pick one day every month, and on that day, Blankenship has to go into a mine of their choice and spend 8 hours there. He doesn't have to do any work, just stay underground in the conditions that he provides to the miners for 8 hours. Something tells me those mines would be REAL fucking safe after that.

You discount the word of the foreman on-site wholesale WC?

And why such a high number of safety violations for Massey's business? Should we just assume that the miners he hires are much dumber than the national average, and don't care about their safety?

Another massive regulation failure from the usual suspects.

It's about time for people to understand that the government is just not good to exercise regulatory functions. They're inept.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

It's about time for people to understand that the government is just not good to exercise regulatory functions. They're inept.

---

Who would you suggest in their place? Curious.

"the government is just not good to exercise regulatory functions"

You Lie

When govt has been corrupted by Repugs placing lobbyists in regulatory/enforcement positions, when the regulatory agencies have been financed by and captured by the corps, you end up with dead/maimed BigPharma patients, dead miners, dead soil, dead rivers, dead oceans.

The Repugs' hate-all-govt-all-the-time leads directly to bad govt, which is what the Repugs and Movement Conservatives targeted for 35 years.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Who would you suggest in their place? Curious.

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Co-signed

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Who would you suggest in their place? Curious.

---

How can I know? Not familiar with the business. Literally none of my business.

There are thousands of successful private regulators around the world, they've been around for more time than the modern state, so it's not like it's such a big deal.

What I know is that the government is such a bad regulator that if the market was open to competition I'm very sure someone would knock it completely out of the regulation market. A large majority of the regulation in the American and world economy is and has always been private; and when it isn't, it's because politicians are protecting their own business - at the cost of successive regulatory fails that, as we've seen once again, cost human lifes.

Anyway, the main point is that, once again, the government proves to be a massive failure as a regulator. I think that's pretty indisputable by now.

As usual, the only thing that's indisputable is your inability to resist trotting out general free-market saws, even when you freely admit you don't know what you're on about.

One could just as easily say that private regulation was involved, in the form of Massey's insurers. They, too, failed... and had a profit-motive not to've. Either they dropped the ball and didn't inspect the facilities diligently enough to determine they were unsafe (or so much as read the government's reports on their client's many published infractions), or Massey found it more profitable to pay escalating insurance premiums and government fines while remaining operational than he did to shut down production temporarily to address safety concerns. My guess is the latter.

Besides insurance, I have trouble imagining how private regulators could do much about anything since they have no legal power invested in them to discipline anyone.
Private regulation works if the company saves money or profits by risk-management and self-regulation, but if a company is solely interested in short-term profits, sustainability and safety may no longer be priorities. At that point the only thing holding them back from pursuing gains by endangering their employees and facilities is ethical scruples, of which Massey appears to have had none.

The only agencies that have the ability to make regulation compulsory are the government and the insurers (for legal and financial reasons, respectively), and while I agree that they let those miners down in the gravest possible way, pulling the old "leave it to the market!" BS is as intellectually lazy and absolutist as saying government regulation is necessarily useless.

http://edhoncho.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/suplex.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by admiralsnackbar

As usual, the only thing that's indisputable is your inability to resist trotting out general free-market saws, even when you freely admit you don't know what you're on about.

---

Please, refrain yourself from this kind of ad hominem arguments. Otherwise, I wont' give you the trouble of reading another of my replies.

I don't know nothing about mining sector regulation. Do you? Please answer, a simple yes or no should suffice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by admiralsnackbar

One could just as easily say that private regulation was involved, in the form of Massey's insurers. They, too, failed... and had a profit-motive not to've. Either they dropped the ball and didn't inspect the facilities diligently enough to determine they were unsafe (or so much as read the government's reports on their client's many published infractions), or Massey found it more profitable to pay escalating insurance premiums and government fines while remaining operational than he did to shut down production temporarily to address safety concerns. My guess is the latter.

Besides insurance, I have trouble imagining how private regulators could do much about anything since they have no legal power invested in them to discipline anyone.

Private regulation works if the company saves money or profits by risk-management and self-regulation, but if a company is solely interested in short-term profits, sustainability and safety may no longer be priorities. At that point the only thing holding them back from pursuing gains by endangering their employees and facilities is ethical scruples, of which Massey appears to have had none.

The only agencies that have the ability to make regulation compulsory are the government and the insurers (for legal and financial reasons, respectively), and while I agree that they let those miners down in the gravest possible way, pulling the old "leave it to the market!" BS is as intellectually lazy and absolutist as saying government regulation is necessarily useless.

---

I don't agree that regulation needs (1) needs to be compulsory (2) even if compulsory, needs to be provided by the government itself.

A fatal mistake is to extrapolate from a scenario where you have the government as a bad regulator to a scenario where the government wouldn't be a regulator wouldn't change things. I think the scope of situations where private regulation works would be much larger in the second case.

Nice to see we're all in agreement that the government, once again, failed as a regulator. People underrated the impact of the existence of such a terribly inefficient regulator.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

Please, refrain yourself from this kind of ad hominem arguments. Otherwise, I wont' give you the trouble of reading another of my replies.

---

:lol

Is the following a reply to my point that private regulation was just as useless as governmental strictures in this case? If so, all I got out of it was that I made a fatal mistake in my argument which you chose not to elaborate on (perhaps because it wasn't related to my argument), as well as some more vague throat-clearing about how private regulation would be better without any data to back your position.

As regards knowledge of mining regulation... exactly how different do you imagine it to be from that in any other industry? If you want to discredit my thesis by having me admit to no mining regulatory experience, have at it -- but understand that we aren't discussing anything that can't be sussed from the articles presented herein and even the most casual understanding of business and government regulation in general.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

I don't agree that regulation needs (1) needs to be compulsory (2) even if compulsory, needs to be provided by the government itself.

A fatal mistake is to extrapolate from a scenario where you have the government as a bad regulator to a scenario where the government wouldn't be a regulator wouldn't change things. I think the scope of situations where private regulation works would be much larger in the second case.

Nice to see we're all in agreement that the government, once again, failed as a regulator. People underrated the impact of the existence of such a terribly inefficient regulator.

---

Quote:

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Originally Posted by admiralsnackbar

Is the following a reply to my point that private regulation was just as useless as governmental strictures in this case? If so, all I got out of it was that I made a fatal mistake in my argument which you chose not to elaborate on (perhaps because it wasn't related to my argument), as well as some more vague throat-clearing about how private regulation would be better without any data to back your position.

---

I explained what the fatal mistake is: to extrapolate from a scenario where you have the government as a bad regulator (the current one) to a scenario where the government wouldn't be a regulator wouldn't change things. I think the scope of situations where private regulation works would be much larger in the second case.

Not sure what kind of data do you want? Maybe if you can put up some data yourself I can find data to refute it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by admiralsnackbar

As regards knowledge of mining regulation... exactly how different do you imagine it to be from that in any other industry? If you want to discredit my thesis by having me admit to no mining regulatory experience, have at it -- but understand that we aren't discussing anything that can't be sussed from the articles presented herein and even the most casual understanding of business and government regulation in general.

---

Is that a yes or a no? I think it helps to be concise when you can be.

Personally, I'm not familiar with the mining business, so I certainly am not apt to judge what are good/bad/necessary/unnecessary regulatory frames. Still can't understand exactly what's your position.

The problem I see with private regulators is that, as anything, profit is going to be the motivator, not safety.

How would private regulations have any teeth? How would the "little guy" be on fair standing?

Let's say X amount of miners are hurt, and they try to sue. The company will have, most likely, a cash advantage in hiring lawyers. Without an overarching government compliance, wouldn't individual regulations make cases much tougher to handle?

(Note: Barely any of these questions are rhetorical. I know nothing about private vs gov regulation, for the most part.)

Mogro, what facilities/functions do you think are/should be the exclusive domain of the government?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

The problem I see with private regulators is that, as anything, profit is going to be the motivator, not safety

---

Why? If profit is the motivator, the way to achieve profit is by being a good regulator, and the way of being a good regulator is by enforcing regulations properly, what's the problem?

That's like saying that the problem with private butchers is that, as anything, profit is going to be the motivator, not providing food.

Guess what: it works.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

How would private regulations have any teeth? How would the "little guy" be on fair standing?

---

The large majority of regulations & standardization in existence are private; it's not like this is something new.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Let's say X amount of miners are hurt, and they try to sue. The company will have, most likely, a cash advantage in hiring lawyers. Without an overarching government compliance, wouldn't individual regulations make cases much tougher to handle?

---

Why so? The courts shall decide if there was wrongdoing and punish or not accordingly - in both cases. If the courts aren't well operated, than the problem is with the institution that operates courts and provides justice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Mogro, what facilities/functions do you think are/should be the exclusive domain of the government?

---

Exclusive? None, except the ability to legislate. I'd say the military/law enforcement, but I'm perfectly okay with the existence of private companies that provide security services.

I think the core and only legitimate function of the government should be protecting individuals from aggression (latus sensus) and breach of contracts. This implies that the government possesses a law enforcement apparel (to protect against fraud, theft, murder, etc), including courts and police, and a military apparel (to protect against the aggression of foreign states).

Basically, the function of the state is to protect the liberty of any individual to act as he wants as long as the way he acts doesn't constitute a burden on the liberty of another individual.

What is an example of a profitable private regulator?

Fair enough Mogro.

What if the mining company chooses not to hire regulators though? Would that just work itself out in the free market by miners choosing only to sign on with regulated companies?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Fair enough Mogro.

What if the mining company chooses not to hire regulators though? Would that just work itself out in the free market by miners choosing only to sign on with regulated companies?

---

Or consumers only buying from regulated companies, as it happens today. For example, if you're a logistic/transportation company, it's almost impossible to sell for the bluechip companies if you dont' comply to certain environmental regulatory frames.

If not, one would have to wonder who actually wants the regulation and what purpose it serves. I mean, if a miner is willing to sign a contract where there isn't a guarantee of work safety with a company which isn't regulated by an independent 3rd party and there is no social pressure about the issue, then it's a "should a midget be allowed to be paid to be kicked around in a bar?" situation. The purpose of regulation is to reduce uncertainty and transaction costs; if it isn't fulfilling these functions for anybody, than it shouldn't exist (and in this scenario, it wouldn't).

There's nothing new about this. I mean, if you're a producer of electric devices, how much success do you think you'd have without the UL approval? Do you think the market would trust your products?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

What is an example of a profitable private regulator?

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Uh, Underwriters Laboratoires, for example?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

Please, refrain yourself from this kind of ad hominem arguments. Otherwise, I wont' give you the trouble of reading another of my replies.

---

You can dish it out, but you can't take it.

Quote:

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HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.

---

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

Uh, Underwriters Laboratoires, for example?

---

So what are the penalties from UL when a worker dies due to violations of UL's regulations?

Mogro, the one problem with your comparison is that electronics aren't as essential to a household as energy; as well, it's much easier to boycott an electronic manufacturer than an energy provider. (At least where I've lived, there's usually only been one or two in the area.)

As well, there's a possibility miners would sign with a non-regulated company if the need was great enough (ie desperate economic times).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

So what are the penalties from UL when a worker dies due to violations of UL's regulations?

---

What? I don't think workers die to violations of UL's regulations, I don't think UL regulates workplace safety. If they do, I'm not familiar with how they do it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

Mogro, the one problem with your comparison is that electronics aren't as essential to a household as energy; as well, it's much easier to boycott an electronic manufacturer than an energy provider. (At least where I've lived, there's usually only been one or two in the area.)

As well, there's a possibility miners would sign with a non-regulated company if the need was great enough (ie desperate economic times).

---

Electronics are pretty essential, it's pretty tough to produce energy with the kind of products UL regulates. And most firms don't even sell directly to the consumer and abide to private regulatory standards.

Yeah, the government protection of incumbent energy providers is sickening.

If they sign with a non-regulated company because they want to, regardless of the economic climate, I don't feel I have the right to oppose their will. That's what liberty is about.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

What? I don't think workers die to violations of UL's regulations, I don't think UL regulates workplace safety. If they do, I'm not familiar with how they do it.

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Why not? Sounds like they would be great at it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

Why not? Sounds like they would be great at it.

---

Maybe you can write them and ask?

chump got bloated!

hey oh! I'm out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

Maybe you can write them and ask?

---

You're the one who thinks private regulation is the only way to go.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mogrovejo

I explained what the fatal mistake is: to extrapolate from a scenario where you have the government as a bad regulator (the current one) to a scenario where the government wouldn't be a regulator wouldn't change things.

---

Show me where I did this. I said private and governmental -- in concert -- failed. The rest of the time, I spent wondering about the limitations of private regulation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

I think the scope of situations where private regulation works would be much larger in the second case.

---

That's super. I think this whole discussion began when people asked you to say more about this, didn't it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mogrovejo

Not sure what kind of data do you want? Maybe if you can put up some data yourself I can find data to refute it?

---

The burden of proof has been on you this whole time. Nobody else is making the claim that private regulation would be better than governmental.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mogrovejo

I think it helps to be concise when you can be.

---

Data wanted: private regulation scheme from Mogro.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mogrovejo

Personally, I'm not familiar with the mining business, so I certainly am not apt to judge what are good/bad/necessary/unnecessary regulatory frames. Still can't understand exactly what's your position.

---

If all this is true, then why was my characterization of you as a clown that loves making absolutist statements about the power of free market/diminished govt anything but naturalistic description? You don't have any point, just philosophical solutions in search of a problem. I guess that would be my position.

For the record, UL works for the insurance industry that failed the miners.

You don't get it, AS. mogrovejo is the profe. He asks, you answer; your naturalistic description is his ad hominem, and the reverse.

Similarly, his emphasis on manners is completely two-faced: mogrovejo can be as snide and condescending as he wishes (the obvious superiority and soundness of his own POV underwrites his attitude -- it's naturalistic description, right?), but you are strictly forbidden to refrain from emulating the very same conceit, on pain of losing his avuncular guidance forever.

Oh, cruel world!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mogrovejo

How can I know? Not familiar with the business. Literally none of my business.

There are thousands of successful private regulators around the world, they've been around for more time than the modern state, so it's not like it's such a big deal.

What I know is that the government is such a bad regulator that if the market was open to competition I'm very sure someone would knock it completely out of the regulation market. A large majority of the regulation in the American and world economy is and has always been private; and when it isn't, it's because politicians are protecting their own business - at the cost of successive regulatory fails that, as we've seen once again, cost human lifes.

Anyway, the main point is that, once again, the government proves to be a massive failure as a regulator. I think that's pretty indisputable by now.

---

So "private regulators" would not have let something like this happen?

Like the private regulators that rate bonds didn't look the other way a bit when it came to giving shitty residential mortgage backed securities AAA ratings?

How exactly would we collectively have held a private regulator responsible, should that regulator have proven just as inept? Throw spitballs?

How do you fund private regulators so that there isn't some gross conflict of interest?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

So what are the penalties from UL when a worker dies due to violations of UL's regulations?

---

Or if someone slaps a UL sticker on something that hasn't been UL tested?

or choses not to submit their device/material item to UL sells it, and then chooses not to tell his customers that it hasn't been tested?

I think such private regulation schemes invariably fail to account for information assymetry.

Suppose Wile E. Contractor gets into the contracting business and is subcontracted to provide the electrical conduits for your house. Wile E. is then faced with two different types of conduit, one that is UL tested, and one that is not, but is about 2/3 the cost of the UL tested stuff.

Maximizing his short-term profits, he chooses the non-tested stuff.

A year later, part of the conduit melts and burns your house down.

The guy does this repeatedly over the course of years, changing business names, occasionally faking UL stamps, and making new corporations everytime he might get sued.

How then does the "private regulator" deal with this?