Author: Mike Lillis

For weeks there have been reports that the FBI is investigating Massey Energy for possible criminal neglect following last month’s deadly mine explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va. On Friday, that news was confirmed, when the DoJ warned the Labor Department, which is investigating possible civil charges, not to interfere with the agency’s criminal investigation.

“Given the ongoing criminal investigation, we request that MSHA petition the … judge for a stay of the pending civil actions pertaining to UBB until the criminal matters are resolved,” U.S. Attorney Charles T. Miller wrote to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Part of the criminal probe, Miller noted, “involves whether Performance Coal and its directors, officers and agents engaged in willful criminal activity at UBB.”

Just another thing Massey shareholders can discuss tomorrow, when they meet in Richmond for their annual meeting.

h/t: The Charleston Gazette.

Driving out of Charleston, south on Rte. 119, you can’t miss it: An enormous billboard, on the left side of the road, with a message from the Patriot Coal Corporation: “Be Proud of Where You Work.”

Not merely self-promotional, the statement is also a thinly veiled shot at Massey Energy, Appalachia’s most dominant coal producer — and one with a reputation for putting profits above worker safety. The billboard message implies that, unlike its larger rival, Patriot’s approach to safety ensures innocuous conditions in its mines and the well-being of its workers.

Well, not quite.

Since April 5, when the Massey-owned Upper Big Branch mine exploded, killing 29 workers inside, Patriot’s 11 underground coal mines in Appalachia have racked up roughly 350 safety violations, according to a review of federal records by TWI. The violations include scores of citations indicating problems with ventilation systems and the accumulation of combustible materials — the very conditions thought to have caused the deadly blast at the UBB project. Of those 350 violations, 120 were deemed “significant and substantial,” indicating that they are “reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness.”

Patriot’s Highland 9 Mine, in Union County, Ky., for example, has tallied 83 violations since April 6, of which 19 fall into the S&S category, according to MSHA data. In Monongalia County, W.Va., the company’s Federal No. 2 mine has been hit with 74 safety citations over the same span, including 28 deemed an immediate threat to miner safety. The list goes on.

Patriot, based in St. Louis, did not respond to calls last week requesting comment.

The figures are a cogent reminder that, though the spotlight might currently be on Massey in the wake of the UBB disaster, the corporate attitude of wringing the most profits from Appalachia’s coal mines — even if, at times, it means sacrificing worker safety — is hardly limited to just one company. Indeed, Maria Gunnoe, an environmental activist with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, said Friday that the Massey model — an extremely successful one from a perspective of strict business — is starting to spread through out the industry, at the potential threat to the miners underground.

“Companies see Massey getting away with things,” Gunnoe said, “so they start doing those things themselves.”

Patriot’s track-record hasn’t been overlooked by officials at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, who are cracking down on lax mine-safety practices in the wake of the UBB tragedy. Indeed, of the 57 troubled mines that MSHA identified last month as significant or repeat safety violators, five were Patriot-owned operations in either West Virginia or Kentucky. (Only Massey had more mines on the list, with nine.)

Yet, in at least some cases, the additional scrutiny doesn’t seem to be improving conditions. Indeed, federal officials last week forced the closing of the Harris No. 1 mine, a Patriot-owned project in Boone County, W.Va., over a faulty ventilation system — a vital tool that prevents the accumulation of toxic gasses and combustible coal dust.

Leslie Fitzwater, spokeswoman for the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training, told Reuters that MSHA officials had warned mine operators about low oxygen levels in some parts of the Harris mine. But the company hadn’t fixed the problem when regulators reinspected the project last Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Congress is taking a closer look at the nation’s mine-safety rules as well, with the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subpanel on labor scheduled to hold a hearing on the issue on Thursday. Massey CEO Don Blankenship is scheduled to testify. No one else representing the coal industry, however, was expected to speak.

No, that wasn’t a statement from this week. But less than six months ago, at a hearing to examine offshore drilling, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said tersely, “The risks associated with offshore oil and gas drilling domestically are far outweighed by the benefits.” (The Huffington Post has a good summary of that episode here.)

Landrieu’s tone has changed since an enormous oil spill spread out to cover hundreds of square miles across the Gulf of Mexico this week — but not by much. Indeed, though she’s called for an investigation into the accident, her recent floor speech on the topic seems more intended to downplay the significance of the spill (“97 percent of it is an extremely thin sheen of relatively light oil”) and protect the oil industry (“the industry spill rate is quite low”) than to push for precautions that might prevent the next fatal accident offshore.

We don’t believe in burying our head in the sand and pretending that the country does not need 20 million barrels of oil a day, or pretending that we can get this energy tomorrow from somewhere else. We may get it somewhere else in 20 or 30 years, but not next week, and not the month after, and not the year after.

Of note, the Louisiana lawmaker has received more than $758,000 from the oil and gas industries over her career on Capitol Hill, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — just under the amount accepted from those same companies by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who’s calling today for federal help cleaning up the spill.

It was a bill so uncontroversial that it sailed through both the House and Senate without a single objection before George W. Bush made it law with the stroke of his pen. But this year, a central provision of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act — the establishment of national standards designed to prevent prison rapes — is being threatened by the very folks the bill is largely designed to rein in: prison officials themselves.

Although a set of proposed standards was issued last June — and though the Justice Department opened a two-month public comment period on those guidelines in March — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told House lawmakers last month that he won’t be meeting the legal deadline for finalizing the rules.

Why? Well, it’s largely because the law stipulates that the new standards can’t “impose substantial additional costs” on the prisons, which the prison lobby claims would be the case with the current proposal. As a result, the Justice Department has commissioned a cost analysis, which relies largely on estimates crunched by the prisons themselves. The cost study will delay the process indefinitely.

“We want to make sure that we get this right,” Holder said in March, “and also follow the dictates of the statute, which says change this situation, make sure that you eliminate — to the extent that you can — sexual predator and predator activity in prisons, but not increase the amount of money that any local jurisdiction has to spend in order to do that. … When I speak to wardens, when I speak to people who run local jails, when I speak to people who run state facilities, they look at me and they say, ‘Eric, how are we supposed to do this? If we are going to segregate people, build new facilities, do training, how are we supposed to do this?’”

Lovisa Stannow, executive director of Justice Detention International, a human rights group that supports quick adoption of the standards, has argued that cost considerations shouldn’t outweigh efforts to protect prisoners from sexual predation.

“Prison officials claim that it will be too expensive to implement [the standards] — too expensive to prevent staff from raping detainees,” Stannow wrote in the Huffington Post recently.

Furthermore, Stannow argues, the cost analyses being considered ignore the cost benefits that would result if the number of prison rapes were reduced. Medical costs could be cut, she argues, as well as the legal expenses resulting from prisoner lawsuits.

“These factors are not included in the Department of Justice cost study,” Stannow wrote in a separate piece last month, “but Attorney General Holder must take them into account.”

Justice Detention International is circulating a petition designed to nudge Holder to codify the national standards as quickly as possible.

“The standards under review have the potential to become the most important tool so far in the effort to end this terrible abuse,” the petition reads. “But every day that we don’t have these measures in place, hundreds of men, women, and children will be raped behind bars — even though we know how to keep them safe.”

A DOJ spokesperson said Friday that there’s no timeline set for finalizing the guidelines.

Meanwhile, Holder insists that the DOJ is committed to the reforms. “The fact that we will not make that deadline,” he said in March, “is not in anyway an indication this is not a problem that we take seriously.”

As Congress continues to negotiate unemployment benefits legislation, Bloomberg has a story this week noting what few others have: that the so-called extension of benefits isn’t really an extension of benefits at all. Rather, it’s an extension of the filing deadline to apply for existing benefits, which have been capped at a maximum 99 weeks since last fall. And Congress has no plans to lengthen that span.

That, Bloomberg writes, spells bad news for a growing group of long-term unemployed workers who have exhausted all available help.

[Lawmakers] are quietly drawing the line at 99 weeks of aid, a mark that hundreds of thousands of Americans have already reached. In coming months, the number of those who will receive their final government check is projected to top 1 million.

As we noted recently, there’s really no group keeping a tally of how many Americans are exhausting their benefits. The Labor Department, for example, defines “long-term unemployment” as anything beyond 27 weeks, meaning that some workers falling into that category could have 18 months of benefits remaining. And a recent study from the Pew Charitable Trusts revealed that roughly 3.4 million people have been out of work for at least a year — which again, does nothing to indicate how many folks have exhausted their government benefits.

Bloomberg, for its part, based its estimates on state figures, which paint a pretty dismal portrait of the long-term unemployment problem.

Interviews with state officials found that in New York, 57,000 people have received their last check. In Florida, 130,000 are no longer eligible as are about 30,000 Ohioans.

Those numbers will grow, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which projects that more than 400,000 may soon begin losing benefits every month.

For all the uncertainty surrounding the economic recovery, this much seems clear: Congress has no plans to extend unemployment benefits beyond their current length.

“You can’t go on forever,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, of Montana, whose panel oversees the benefits program. “I think 99 weeks is sufficient,” he said.

“There’s just been no discussion to go beyond that,” said Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.

The full statement, just issued by the owner of the Upper Big Branch Mine:

Massey has no knowledge of criminal wrongdoing.

It is not uncommon that an accident of the size and scope of UBB would lead to a comprehensive investigation by relevant law enforcement agencies.

We are cooperating with all agencies that are investigating the tragedy at UBB. Massey does not and will not tolerate any improper or illegal conduct and will respond aggressively as circumstances warrant.

Former Massey workers have argued (see here and here) that the company promotes an environment where production and profits trump worker safety. And it’s getting tougher and tougher for Congress to ignore those testimonials.

The Associated Press is reporting that the FBI is investigating whether Massey Energy, owner of the West Virginia coal mine where 29 workers were killed April 5, should be held criminally liable for the accident.

A federal law enforcement official says the FBI has interviewed nearly two dozen current and former employees of Massey Energy in a criminal probe of the West Virginia mine explosion that killed 29 men.

Massey is reportedly offering $3 million in cash to the family of each of the victims. But that offer, of course, is meant to preclude civil suits. The FBI’s criminal investigation is another thing altogether.

Media Matter catches Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) on the House floor last night comparing the capture of undocumented aliens to that of exotic grasshoppers.

Now it seems to me that if we are so advanced with technology and manpower and competence that we can capture illegal grasshoppers from Brazil, in the holds of ships that are in a little small place in Port Arthur, Texas on the Sabine River. …  If we’re able to do that as a country, how come we can’t capture the thousands of people that cross the border everyday on the southern border of the United States?

You know they’re a little bigger than grasshoppers and they should be able to be captured easier.

The context here creates itself.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, making headlines this week for his abandonment of the Republican Party, has just announced a state of emergency in the state’s panhandle.

“The oil slick is generally moving in a northerly direction and threatens Florida’s coast,” the executive order (PDF) reads. “Oil continues to spill from the well as all efforts to stop the discharge have failed and may not succeed for an extended period of time.”

The warning applies to the counties of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay and Gulf.

Florida’s move follows that of Louisiana, which declared an emergency of its own yesterday.

Rep. Ed Whitfield (R), who represents Webster County, Ky., where two miners were killed in a roof collapse Wednesday, has posted a statement reacting to the tragedy. Like a number of other coal-country lawmakers, the response is heavy on condolences and absent any indication that the industry isn’t doing enough to protect its workers.

As new details continue to emerge surrounding the tragedy at Dotiki Mine, I join my fellow Kentuckians in offering my most heartfelt condolences to the family members and friends of those lost. Right now, Kentuckians and Americans across the country are grieving this tragic loss. However, the western Kentucky community is a strong one and while this tragedy tests even the strongest of faiths, I pray that the community will be able to band together and, in time, heal from this tragedy.

In a break from some of his colleagues, however, Whitfield is vowing to “do all that I can” to prevent the next accident.

Mining is a critical part of the western Kentucky economy and way of life, and it is essential we ensure the safety of our miners above all else. I will do all that I can to make certain that proper measures are in place to protect our miners.

No word yet on what he means by that. Meantime, it’s worth noting that the Kentucky Republican has accepted more than $100,000 from the coal mining industry in his 16 years on Capitol Hill, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — eighth highest among active members of the chamber.

On Tuesday, Bruce Watzman, spokesman for the National Mining Association, appeared on Capitol Hill to implore lawmakers not to overreact (i.e., legislate) following the fatal mining accidents which, to that point, had taken 30 lives in West Virginia this month. The current rules, Watzman argued on behalf of the industry, are plenty tough enough to ensure miners’ safety underground.

One day later, two more miners were killed after a roof collapsed in an underground coal mine in Western Kentucky.

Reacting to the string of tragedies, several House Democratic leaders called on the mining industry this week to rethink its opposition to tougher safety measures.

“In the coming weeks Congress will be working on reforms to the Mine Act to close enforcement loopholes, strengthen MSHA’s oversight and provide more federal resources to close the growing backlog of citation appeals,” Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), chair of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, wrote to industry leaders Thursday. “We urge the mining industry to drop its historic record of opposing critical mine safety improvements and instead work with Congress and the Obama Administration to pass overdue reforms.”

Miller is planning a hearing on mine safety, though the date and witness list have yet to be set.

Miller and Woolsey are also requesting that all mine operators re-evaluate the safety of their projects; that non-union miners be given the opportunity to meet with management about safety concerns; and that all miners be given MSHA’s phone number so they can report safety hazards anonymously.

Of course, all of these things rely on the willingness of the coal companies to comply voluntarily. And there’s nothing in the history of some of these companies to indicate that they’re ready to sacrifice efficiency for safety. As one former MSHA manager said recently, MSHA has been too soft in its approach to enforcing safety measures. “And you can’t do that with this industry,” the former official added. “You’ve got to use a big stick.”

The full text of the Miller/Woolsey letter follows:

April 29, 2010

Open Letter to the Nation’s Mine Owners:

During the past month our nation has witnessed four mine tragedies, including the Upper Big Branch mine explosion, which killed 29 miners, the death of one miner at the Beckley Pocahontas Mine, the death of a contract worker at M-Class Mining, and two deaths at the Dotiki Mine today.  Sadly, each of these tragedies was preventable.

In the name of tens of thousands of miners and their families who put their lives on the line every day, we call on mine operators to make the safety and health of their workers their top priority.

In addition to these recent tragedies, the number of mine citations for serious violations has skyrocketed, revealing a dangerous pattern of neglect and failure of commitment by too many operators to comply with the nation’s mine safety laws. Spot inspections just completed by the Mine Safety and Health Administration at 57 coal mines found 1,436 violations and resulted in a staggering 105 closure orders.

The government does not have sufficient resources to be at every mine every day.  Mine operators must take responsibility for ensuring the safety of their employees.

Today, we call on all of the country’s mine operators to take actions and responsibility immediately to ensure their operations are actively in compliance with all mine safety laws; that adequate resources are being allocated to mine safety; and that managers and employees have full confidence that they may report dangers internally or to regulators without any fear of retaliation or penalty.

We request that non-union mines give their employees and their families an opportunity to meet with management to suggest additional safety measures and to report dangerous or potentially dangerous conditions. We request that union mine owners do the same with their unions, and work with them to monitor and develop additional safety procedures as needed.

We also request that each mine employee be given a card in the next three days with MSHA’s toll free number so they can confidentially report potential hazards in the event they fear retaliation.

In the coming weeks Congress will be working on reforms to the Mine Act to close enforcement loopholes, strengthen MSHA’s oversight and provide more federal resources to close the growing backlog of citation appeals.

We urge the mining industry to drop its historic record of opposing critical mine safety improvements and instead work with Congress and the Obama Administration to pass overdue reforms.

We look forward to hearing through the mine associations what specific actions each mine operator is taking in response to this letter.

Sincerely,

GEORGE MILLER
Chair, House Education and Labor Committee

LYNN WOOLSEY
Chair, House Workforce Protections Subcommittee

A few weeks back, President Obama made waves by announcing his support for an expansion of offshore oil drilling — a strategy that Democrats on Capitol Hill had fought hard to defeat in recent years.

Today, as the oil from an enormous spill in the Gulf of Mexico creeps toward the shores of the southern U.S., the administration is having its doubts about the new policy. David Axelrod, senior adviser to Obama, told “Good Morning America” today that there’s a moratorium on the expansion until the recent spill can be controlled and investigated.

“No additional drilling has been authorized and none will until we find out what happened here,” he said.

For the White House, the timing of the spill couldn’t have been worse. If Obama had stuck with his guns in opposing new drilling, he’d be seen as a prophet in the wake of this week’s Gulf disaster. Instead, by trying to make concessions to Republicans — most of whom won’t support a climate bill in any event — he’s simply alienated his conservation-minded supporters on the left. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune makes the case.

“This disaster changes everything,”  Brune said today in a statement. “We have hit rock-bottom in our fossil fuel addiction. This tragedy should be a wake up call. It’s time to take offshore drilling off the table for good.”

There’s also a good economic reason that offshore drilling isn’t the best way to secure the country’s energy independence. The Energy Department has determined “that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.”

And that was under the Bush White House.

It seems that the Goldman Sachs executives testifying before Congress this week didn’t do a very good job convincing the powers that be that their investment strategy of recent years was perfectly kosher. Just days after the SEC sued Goldman for civil violations in connection to a mortgage deal that appeared designed to fail, the Justice Department on Friday announced its own criminal investigation into the transaction. The Associated Press broke the story:

Word of the Justice Department action came a day after a group of 62 House lawmakers, including Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., asked Justice to conduct a criminal probe of Goldman. “On the face of the SEC filing, criminal fraud on a historic scale seems to have occurred in this instance,” the lawmakers, mostly Democrats, said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

While this is hardly good news for Goldman, The New York Times points out that the real burden here is on the Justice Department:

Federal prosecutors would face a higher bar in bringing a criminal case against Goldman, whose role in the mortgage market came under sharp scrutiny this week during a marathon hearing in the Senate. In contrast to civil cases, the burden of proof is higher in criminal ones, where prosecutors must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The stakes are high for Goldman, but they are also high for the United States attorney’s office. Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York lost a case last year filed against two hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns, whose collapse presaged the turmoil on Wall Street.

This, of course, means that we’ll be reading plenty more about those emails coming out of Goldman’s office in the weeks surrounding the deal in question. And, for exposing the sheer egomania of those running the firm, that can’t be a bad thing.

Wednesday’s fatal collapse at a Western Kentucky coal mine is a stark reminder that mine safety is hardly an issue peculiar to one state or one company. But you’d never know it based on the reaction from a long list of coal-country lawmakers.

Despite back-to-back-to-back fatal accidents at Appalachian coal mines this month, most regional lawmakers remain reluctant to enter the emerging debate over what’s gone wrong, to debate how to prevent the next disaster, and to consider whether Congress should step in with new laws to protect the nation’s miners.

Their silence highlights the tremendous influence of coal companies in the Appalachian states, among the poorest in the country, where the industry supports tens-of-thousands of jobs and contributes hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to convince lawmakers that things like new safety measures are unnecessary. Indeed, throughout Kentucky and Virginia, the lawmakers most reluctant to weigh in on mine-safety policies this month are also those who’ve accepted the most money from the companies.

That hesitancy to confront the industry — glaring in the wake of the deadly April 5 blast at Upper Big Branch, when West Virginia’s lawmakers were the lone Appalachian voices calling for reforms — remains on display this week, even after a roof fall at Kentucky’s Dotiki Mine killed two more miners Wednesday. Though the companies were different — Virginia-based Massey Energy owns the Upper Big Branch, and Alliance Resource Partners, based in Oklahoma, owns Dotiki — both projects have run up a long list of safety violations this year (see here and here).

A third fatal accident — at a West Virginia mine owned by International Coal Group – occurred April 22. All told, Appalachian coal-mining accidents have claimed the lives of 32 miners in April alone.

No matter.

Although Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took to the chamber floor Thursday afternoon to offer condolences and prayers, there was nothing in his brief speech to indicate that the nation’s mine-safety policies might be failing miners, or that Congress has any responsibility to intervene. And his office, which had declined to answer questions along those lines in the wake of the UBB blast, went silent again Thursday.

“For now, we can only hope that their efforts are successful,” McConnell said of the rescuers searching for a missing miner, who would later turn up dead. “I ask my colleagues and the American people to keep the miners, their families, and the rescue workers in their prayers.”

The other members of Kentucky’s congressional delegation didn’t go even that far. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R), who represents Webster County, where this week’s roof collapse took place, has, as of this writing, no mention of the accident on his website (although it does contain a statement — issued just hours before Wednesday’s accident — attacking the Obama administration for being too tough on the coal industry). Whitfield’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

McConnell and Whitfield are hardly alone. The offices of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) have also declined repeated requests for comment on mine safety in the wake of the Upper Big Branch disaster — a silence that’s continued this week following the disaster in Webster County. All three lawmakers represent prominent coal-producing districts where mining companies have racked up thousands of safety violations this year alone.

For example, Pike County, Ky., represented by Rogers, is home to Freedom Mine #1, a Massey-owned project that’s tallied more than 400 safety citations since Jan. 1. Among the violations are a number involving problems with mine ventilation systems and the accumulation of combustible materials — the same combination suspected to have caused the explosion at the Upper Big Branch. Dozens of those problems were deemed “significant and substantial,” indicating that they are “reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness.”

Another example: Boucher represents Tazewell County, Va., which is home to the Tiller No. 1 Mine. That Massey-controlled project has been cited more than 70 times this year for safety infractions, including vent problems, accumulations of combustibles and a failure to maintain escapeways. Forty of those citations fell into the S&S category.

And the list goes on.

That the lawmakers representing these mines haven’t confronted the companies over their dubious safety records, critics argue, owes a great deal to the steady flow of money from the industry to those members. McConnell, for example, has accepted more than $486,000 from the coal mining industry over his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — far and away the most of any active Capitol Hill lawmaker. Rogers ranks second, with industry contributions totaling more than $241,000. Boucher stands fifth, having taken more than $186,000 from coal companies during his tenure on the Hill. And Whitfield’s career tally of more than $100,000 places him eighth among all active members in the House.

Not that there aren’t exceptions to the reluctance of Appalachian lawmakers to discuss mine safety in recent weeks. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), for example, though not a member of the Senate labor committee, submitted a statement to that panel when it met earlier this week to discuss mine safety. “We can — and must — do better by our miners,” Webb said, “when it comes to enforcing safety regulations and ensuring that companies don’t walk away from their responsibility to their workers.”

Still, Big Coal’s influence, combined with the industry’s opposition to any new mine-safety regulations, means there will likely be a tough road ahead for the reform-minded lawmakers already pushing for stricter rules. Indeed, Bruce Watzman, spokesman for the National Mining Association, told Senate lawmakers Tuesday that no new legislation is required to prevent the next mining tragedy.

Federal regulators, he said a day before the Dotiki tragedy, already have all the tools they need.

The Associated Press reports that 27-year-old Justin Travis and 28-year-old Michael Carter were both killed after a roof collapsed Wednesday night at the Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky. The mine’s safety record should raise eyebrows.

State and federal records show more than 40 closure orders for the mine over safety violations since January 2009.

Records show inspectors from the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing have issued 31 orders to close sections of the mine or to shut down equipment because of safety violations since January 2009. Those records also show an additional 44 citations for safety violations that didn’t result in closure orders.

MSHA records show the mine was cited 840 times by federal inspectors for safety violations since January 2009, and 11 times closure orders were issued.

The records show 214 of the citations were issued in the first four months of this year, and twice inspectors issued closure orders this year.

The two deaths mean that 32 coal miners have dies in Appalachia in April alone.

Calls to the office of Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), who represents the district where  accident occurred, weren’t returned Thursday.

One of the two miners reported missing following last night’s deep-mine collapse in Western Kentucky was killed in the accident, according to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Senate Minority Leader made the announcement on the chamber floor this afternoon.

“Many Kentuckians awoke this morning to the sad news that one miner was killed and another is missing after a ceiling collapse in an underground coal mine in Webster County, which is in the western part of Kentucky,” McConnell said. “Right now, it is my understanding that MSHA officials are on the site, and rescue teams are working to locate the missing miner. For now, we can only hope that their efforts are successful. I ask my colleagues and the American people to keep the miners, their families, and the rescue workers in their prayers.”

No doubt, mine-safety officials will be scratching their heads as to how the Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky could have collapsed in the same month that regulators have vowed to crack down on safety violations following the deadly explosion at Upper Big Branch. But meanwhile, it’s worth noting the safety record at the non-union mine owned by Alliance Resource Partners, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And at a glance, it doesn’t look good.

Since the start of the year, the mine has tallied 214 citations for federal safety violations, according to data compiled by the Mine Safety and Health Administration.Sixty-five of those were deemed “significant and substantial,” indicating that they are “reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness.” Eleven of them are related to roof-support systems, the failure of which is the likely cause of last night’s collapse.

That’s not all. The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. notes today that the company’s history of fatal accidents is nothing to write home about either.

We don’ t have any idea yet what caused the massive roof fall that has left two miners missing at Craft’s Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky … But we do know that in recent years miners have died in Alliance’s non-union operations because the company violated mine safety laws.

Ward counts seven such incidents, leading to nine deaths, in the past five years.

A call to the office of Rep. Whitfield (R), who represents Kentucky’s first congressional district, where the collapse took place, hasn’t been returned.

As a reminder that coal mining accidents are not peculiar to either West Virginia or Massey Energy, two miners in Western Kentucky have gone missing after the section of their mine collapsed in Western Kentucky Wednesday night. The Associated Press reports:

Rescue crews were in the mine on Thursday morning, said Ricki Gardenhire, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing. Mine operators told a news conference that they are holding out hope of finding the miners alive.

Gardenhire said a section of roof gave way some 24,000 feet underground in the Webster County Coal Dotiki (doh-TEE’-kee) Mine about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

The mine owner, Oklahoma-based Alliance Resource Partners, says the Dotiki project harvests about 1,300 tons of raw coal each hour.

Kentucky, the AP notes, led the country in mining deaths in 2009. But don’t go asking the state’s congressional delegation to do anything about it. Indeed, in the wake of the Upper Big Branch disaster that killed 29 miners in West Virginia earlier this month, there were only prayers coming from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). And other coal-country lawmakers, representing both parties, didn’t even go that far.

Will be interesting to see if this blast, a bit closer to Frankfort, stirs a stronger reaction.

The congressional race in Ohio’s second district is shaping up to be an odd one. And it’s not just because one Democratic candidate is a self-described “Reagan conservative” and another starred recently on “The Apprentice.”

With the Democratic primary just days away, state and local party leaders are ripping into David Krikorian, one of the hopefuls to challenge GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt in November, for disparaging remarks he’s made recently about his chief primary opponent, Surya Yalamanchili.

According to accounts given to local politicians, Krikorian has appeared at campaign events to ridicule Yalamanchili, an American of Indian descent, by dramatically pronouncing his name to emphasize its foreign nature.

“Now do you really think that a guy with a name like that has a chance of ever being elected?” Krikorian allegedly said to members of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Clermont County.

The comments —  which Krikorian denies – drew a quick response from local Democratic leaders, who shot off a letter to Krikorian Wednesday calling his behavior “deeply disturbing.”

“Your comments on Surya’s name are are best insensitive and worse appear racist,” wrote Timothy M. Burke and David Lane, the Democratic chairmen in Hamilton and Clermont counties, respectively. “It is deeply disturbing to us that you would use his name, which is obviously derived from his ethnic heritage, against him in a denigrating manner, especially considering how strongly you value and celebrate your own heritage.”

They added: “We will be voting for Surya next week, just as 18 months ago we were delighted to vote for someone else with an unusual name — Barack Obama.”

That isn’t all. Chris Redfern, chairman of Ohio’s Democratic Party, also caught wind of Krikorian’s alleged comments, and penned his own letter of disgust, calling Krikorian’s words “destructive.”

“We are a Party that proudly values diversity and inclusiveness,” Redfern wrote. “Your words fall short of these ideals.”

Yalamanchili, who recently starred on “The Apprentice,” hinted this week that he’s more concerned about what the comments say about Krikorian’s take on voter attitudes around Cincinnati than he is personally offended. “What’s most disappointing is that they seem to assume a certain level of racism on the part of the people of the 2nd district,” he told local media.

It’s not the only reason the Democrats are attacking Krikorian in the lead up to Tuesday’s primary. The Ohio businessman, while running for the same seat as an Independent in 2008, referred to himself as a “Reagan conservative,” a distinction that doesn’t exactly win points among the Democratic faithful. And during a primary debate last month, Krikorian attacked the notion that government workers should have the right to organize under unions, saying that “it puts the public at a disadvantage.”

Still, it’s the more recent charges of denigrating Yalamanchili’s heritage that are attracting most of the attention this week. And many say there’s good reason for that.

“They aren’t borderline racist remarks,” Cliff Schecter, an Ohio-based political consultant who is not involved in this race, told TWI Thursday. ”They are racist remarks.”

The episode has even attracted attention on Capitol Hill, with Schmidt herself condemning Krikorian’s remarks in an April 26 letter to the Democratic hopeful.

“Your remarks … were offensive to all that find even the hint of racism appalling,” Schmidt wrote. “You owe Mr. Yalamanchili and the Indian-American community an apology. Though I doubt one is forthcoming given your history.”

Krikorian, for his part, has denied the charges, and says he’ll be issuing a longer statement today.

So hinted Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who told a crowd gathered this week for an annual meeting of the American Hospital Association that the House might soon introduce such a bill, CQ HealthBeat reports.

The political advantage of that move is clear: The American Medical Association has been screaming from the rafters for Congress to step in and scrap the flawed formula that dictates Medicare payments to doctors — a formula that would have cut those payments by 21 percent this year without congressional intervention — only to see lawmakers continually apply short-term fixes instead.

The latest Band-Aid came earlier this month, when Congress delayed the scheduled pay cut until June. That’s better than actually having the cut realized, but it hasn’t satisfied AMA leaders, who endorsed the Democrats’ health care reform bill with the understanding that Congress would solve the Medicare payment problem once and for all.

“If the formula is not repealed, the problem will continue to grow,” AMA President J. James Rohack said in a statement earlier this month.

No word yet on how the Democrats would pay for the five-year fix, or even whether it would satisfy a doctors lobby that wants a permanent solution. But Van Hollen, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, clearly doesn’t want to step into November’s mid-term elections without at least the hint of something more long-term than another Band-Aid.