Ray Ring

Senior Editor

In angry terms, Ariana Huffington, boss of one of the best national lefty political blogs, links President Bush’s anti-regulation ideology to the apparent nine deaths in Utah’s Crandall Canyon coal mine:

More and more frequently, federal regulatory agencies are being used to reward major political donors. Industry hacks are given key government positions not because they are the best people to protect the public interest but because they are ready, willing and able to protect the very industries they are meant to supervise, industries they have often just left.

Take coal mining. This industry has donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the 2000 election and the beginning of the Bush era, with 88% of that money — $10.6 million — going to Republicans.

And what did that largesse buy? Mine safety regulators far more interested in looking out for the financial well-being of mine owners than for the physical well-being of miners.

Exhibit A is President Bush’s “mine safety czar,” Richard Stickler, whose agency approved the controversial mining technique used at the Crandall Canyon Mine. Stickler is a former coal company manager with such a lousy safety record at the companies he’d run that his nomination as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration was twice rejected by senators from both parties, forcing Bush to sneak him in the back door with a recess appointment.

The New York Times editors also call for more government care for worker safety, and point out:

In the past three years, energy companies have opened nearly 50 new coal mines a year. The number of coal miners has grown by almost a fifth since 2003. Yet last year M.S.H.A.’s inspection hours per mine and the inspection completion rate both hit their lowest point in at least a decade. And deadly accidents soared. Last year, 47 coal miners died, more than twice as many as in 2005 and the most since 1995. The fatality rate, which measures deaths as a percentage of all workers, was at its highest since 2001.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration — kind of blithely, if you ask me — proceeds with its highly questionable OK of the extremely destructive coal-mining method called “mountaintop removal.”

Huffington’s full column, in the LA Times is here, the NY Times editorial is here, and the NY Times story on mountaintop removal is here.

For more of the best stories on the Utah disaster and its context, go here.

Gotta admit, no matter what your leanings are, when it comes to political tactics and style, the Bush administration is consistent, to the point of relentlessness.

If Ray Ring’s massive and authoritative opus on death in the West’s oil and gas fields didn’t convince you that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a toothless watchdog, you might want to read this AP story, which shows Wyoming and Montana to have the worst workplace safety records in the country. Here’s the operative quote from Kim Floyd, AFL-CIO executive secretary for Wyoming:

“In some instances fines are only $1,000 or $2,000 to a company for a fatality. That’s just a drop in the bucket in reality to these big corporations. It’s cheaper to kill people than it is to put on safety programs.”

And if you still don’t think OSHA needs some reform — and a whole new crop of top managers — take a look at this quote from the New York Times recent story on OSHA’s tendency to play footsie with the industries it is supposed to be regulating:

“The people at OSHA have no interest in running a regulatory agency,” said Dr. David Michaels, an occupational health expert at George Washington University who has written extensively about workplace safety. “If they ever knew how to issue regulations, they’ve forgotten. The concern about protecting workers has gone out the window.”