Federal mine safety official's credentials questioned

[Kwaipie]

Le post double

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: Shivetya
Headline "BUSH RESPONSIBLE FOR MINE RESCUE FAILURE"



Tell me, if not the FORMER head of a major mining company where do you get insight into how these things work and how they must be regulated? Let alone how to figure out if a particular mining company is playing games?


Sorry, but way too many of you suffer BDS to such an extreme your in a permanent stupid mode.

"Bush the Bumbler" seems apt nickname for history.

better to bumble than Lie under Oath while holding that office.

Are you comparing someone who actually took the oath to someone who never has in his entire term of office?

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: BoomerD
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...9/AR2007081900127.html
(page 2)
"The agency's commitment to safety enforcement has been a recurring question under the Bush administration. Dave D. Lauriski, a former mine operator from Price, Utah, who headed the MSHA from 2001 to 2004, shifted the agency's mission from regulation to "compliance assistance" -- persuading mine owners to make changes rather than fining them for infractions.

Mine inspectors were even renamed "compliance assistance specialists" until an outcry forced a reversion to the original job title.

"Every minute you spend on compliance assistance is a minute you're not spending on enforcement," Oppegard said. "My view is compliance assistance took a few years to take root, and now we're seeing the effects of it."

(page 3)
"Miner fatalities dropped from 155 in 1975 to 22 in 2005, a federal mine safety official said. But in 2006 the number climbed to 47.

"We may be turning back the clock on mine safety rather than going forward," McAteer said. "It's picked up steam in the last 24 to 36 months. At Huntington, the previous owner had mined it out and left that panel for safety reasons."
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And, if all that's not bad enough:

"The current owners say they are not finished.

Outside the Crandall mine, Moore concluded Sunday's grim briefing by noting that mining might continue in the area, away from the section where the miners' bodies are likely entombed.

"There are other reserves, other locations," he said."

Profit over human life.

The mining compliance assistance efforts sounds like a damn good idea to me.

Actual compliance with fed mandated safety measures is what ACTUALLY makes mines safer.

I don't see how the mere fact that a mining company pays a fine makes any mine safer. The most one can hope for is that fines encourage compliance. But that's what this program seems to do anyway.

Fern

Fines are cheaper than compliance. Especially if they are never paid.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: WHAMPOM

Fines are cheaper than compliance. Especially if they are never paid.

:thumbsup: