Author: Mike Lillis

Last week, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) asked the White House to lend West Virginia’s lawmakers periodic briefings on the investigation into last week’s deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine south of Charleston. The first of those briefings, Rockefeller just announced, will be this Thursday.

“We must leave no stone unturned in our quest for answers,” he said in a statement.

No word yet on how free the West Virginia delegation plans to be with the information they’re given. And a private briefing for a handful of lawmakers is a far cry from the public investigation that good government groups are already calling for.

Breaking a week-long silence, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took to the Senate floor this afternoon to weigh in on last week’s explosion that killed 29 miners in West Virginia. In sum, the minority leader reveals that (1) mining is dangerous, (2) he’s praying for the affected families, and (3) nothing else. The comments are a full two sentences long:

While we were in recess, the people of West Virginia experienced a very difficult mine safety experience. Our neighbors in West Virginia, like Kentucky, are big coal producers, and we’ve had our share in the commonwealth of Kentucky over the years of mining disasters and our hearts and prayers go out to our neighbors in West Virginia as they attempt to recover from the latest tragedy in what is obviously a very dangerous profession and that is the mining of coal.

We also witnessed a great tragedy overseas, the death of the Polish President …

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that one of the biggest recipients of Massey campaign cash has remained largely reticent in the wake of the disaster. Still, while all eyes have been on West Virginia, several Massey-owned projects in Kentucky have continued to accumulate safety violations like those that were cited at the West Virginia mine prior to the disaster. For example, the Freedom Mine #1 — a Massey-owned project in Pike County, Ky. — has run up 66 safety violations in the seven days since the explosion. Twenty-three of those were deemed “significant and substantial,” indicating that they are “reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness.”

Process Energy’s #1 Mine, also in Pike County, has been cited with seven violations in the last week, with three falling into the S&S category.

One wonders to what extent the workers in those mines appreciate McConnell’s offering of prayer, in lieu of a commitment to try to prevent the next big blast.

Later today, the Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on House-passed legislation extending the filing deadline for unemployment benefits through the end of the month — a proposal not to be confused with the creation of a new insurance tier. That deadline came and went April 5, pushing an estimated 200,000 folks out of the program since then.

Trouble is, the House-passed bill isn’t retroactive. That means that Senate lawmakers, if they hope to help those people falling off the rolls this month, would have to alter the bill on the Senate floor. Depending on whether or not the Republicans agree to speed debate on the bill, passage might not come until the of this week, leaving tens of thousands more unemployed workers to lose their benefits in the meantime.

And even then, the altered bill would have to return to the House for a second approval.

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today that the Democrats still don’t have a plan for retroactivity.

White House officials today will begin their investigation of the horrific explosion that killed 29 miners in Southern West Virginia a week ago. But, as in similar cases in the past, most of this process will almost certainly be closed to the public, even as Massey lawyers — who will likely be representing a number of the miners interviewed by investigators — are allowed to sit it on the proceedings. The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. wonders today why this process isn’t more transparent.

All of the secrecy might make sense, if MSHA and state officials didn’t almost always allow coal company lawyers to sit in on the interviews. The only good argument for secrecy in these interviews is that allowing openness tips off the company to the direction investigators are headed, allowing them to thwart things like potential criminal prosecution down the road.

But if the company lawyers are in the room, well, what’s the point of the secrecy?

Good question. Still waiting for the Obama administration’s answer.

Outgoing Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) met with reporters today just a few hours after the news leaked that the 18-year House veteran had decided to hang up his hat at the end of this year. After suffering a barrage of criticisms over his stand on abortion during the health care debate — first from liberals and then from conservatives — speculation was that he was retiring from the exhaustion. Yet Stupak denied that Friday, saying that, after passage of the health reform bill, he felt that his work in Congress was done.

“My friends and family know that during the last several election cycles, when it seemed like health care reform was impossible in Washington, I considered retiring from Congress,” he said. “But in each of the past several election cycles, I chose to continue to serve the people of the first district because I felt we still had work to do.”

Today, children can no longer be denied care because of a pre- existing condition and no insurance company can drop you for your family from care or cap your insurance coverage due to a serious injury or chronic illness. Today, because of reforms, seniors will be able to afford their prescription drugs and Americans will receive preventive care that they need. And today, small businesses can receive tax credits to make employee insurance coverage more affordable.

After 18 years, together, we’ve accomplished what you sent me to Washington to do, health care for all Americans.

Stupak said he’s ready to take on “new challenges,” though he didn’t say what they might be.

President Obama this afternoon spoke briefly from the Rose Garden about the tragedy that continues to unfold in Raleigh County, W.Va., where 25 miners were killed in an explosion Monday, and rescue workers are fighting toxic gases and fire while searching for four others still unaccounted for.

The incident, Obama said, is ready indication that “more needs to be done” to ensure the safety of the nation’s coal miners. From his prepared remarks:

It’s a profession that’s not without risks and danger, and the workers and their families know that.  But their government and their employers know that they owe it to these families to do everything possible to ensure their safety when they go to work each day.

When I was in the Senate, I supported the efforts of Senators Byrd and Rockefeller to try and improve mine safety, but it’s clear that more needs to be done.  And that’s why I’ve asked my Secretary of Labor as well as the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration to give me a preliminary report next week on what went wrong and why it went wrong so badly, so that we can take the steps necessary to prevent such accidents in the future.

In 2006, Congress passed mining legislation that was sold as the most significant reforms in 30 years. Yet a number of Democrats — including Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and George Miller (D-Calif.) — rejected the bill. They said it didn’t have any teeth.

Two years later, the House passed a bill designed to strengthen the 2006 law. Sponsored by Miller, that proposal would have hiked penalties for safety violations, empowered officials to more easily close troublesome mines and given mining officials subpoena power to investigate violations. It also would have “strengthen[ed] standards to contain explosions and fires inside mines,” according to Miller’s summary of the proposal.

Obama was a sponsor of the Senate version of that bill, but it didn’t get very far, due largely to the veto threat posed by President Bush, who said the additional safeguards would cripple the coal industry.

Massey CEO Don Blankenship said this week that piling up safety violations is simply a part of mining coal. He wasn’t kidding.

The Freedom # 1 Mine, a Massey-owned project in Pike County, Ky., has been cited with 54 safety violations in the four days since Monday’s explosion in West Virginia killed 25 miners, according to the Mining Safety and Health Administration.

Twenty-two of those violations were deemed “significant and substantial,” meaning they  are “reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness under the unique circumstance contributed to by the violations.”

Of those so-called S&S violations, four are related to preventing roof falls; two involve problems with ventilation; two target maintenance of machinery; and one indicates a failure to maintain methane sensors.

Since the start of the year, the Freedom # 1 Mine has racked up 233 safety violations — tops among all Massey-controlled tunnel mines.

The district housing the mine is represented by Rep. Hal Rogers (R). Rogers’ office hasn’t responded this week to repeated calls and emails requesting comment.

The short answer is yes — the Mining Health and Safety Administration (a branch of the Labor Department) has the power to close mines and hike penalties if officials can identify a “pattern of violations.” Yet, as new MSHA data show (reported here and here), the agency never went that route with the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. — where an explosion Monday killed at least 25 miners — despite the thousands of safety violations cited there in recent years.

Why not? Well, it’s tough to say. MSHA officials insist that they did everything they could to ensure the Upper Big Branch was safe. Aside from the thousands of hours they spent inspecting the mine (2,999 hours in 2009 and 803 hours in 2010, according to The Washington Post), they also closed down parts of the operation more than 60 times since the start of 2009, according to the Labor Department. And they’re pushing back hard against claims that those efforts weren’t enough.

“We issued citations for every hazard we identified,” Greg Wagner, a top MSHA deputy, told The Charleston Gazette yesterday. “We held the operator accountable for correcting the problems that were cited. … We can’t be in the mine all the time in every place.”

Yet those 60+ closings came in the form of so-called withdrawal orders, which are temporary actions to pull miners from unsafe sections of the project until the danger is eliminated. That strategy is different from shuttering the operation for longer stretches in response to “a continuing hazard.” That move would require a judge’s approval and proof of a “pattern of violations.”

And here’s where the mining companies have discovered a loophole. Knowing that MSHA can’t establish a “pattern of violations” on citations that haven’t been finalized, the companies are protesting more and more of the violations. (After all, how can you determine a pattern if hundreds of citations remain in dispute?) In 2005, mine operators protested just 6 percent of violations, a MSHA official told House lawmakers in February. In 2009, they protested 27 percent. The trend has led to an enormous backlog for the few judges examining the appeals. Indeed, as of February, the backlog consisted of 16,000 cases involving 82,000 separate violations.

There are currently 10 judges wading through the appeals, with funding already allocated for four more, who are somewhere in the nomination process. Additionally, President Obama’s 2011 budget calls for another four, bringing the total to 18 (assuming Congress provides the funding). But Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, says there need to be at least 22 such judges to eliminate the backlog of appeals.

A 2008 bill, passed by the House, would have altered the “pattern of violation” language in order to make it easier for MSHA officials to close mines known to be habitual offenders. Republicans at the time said it would “saddle employers with burdensome new costs that could put critical American jobs in jeopardy,” in the words of Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio).

In the wake of Monday’s blast, however, lawmakers have the appeals loophole back on their radars. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told MSNBC yesterday that it’s up to Congress to step in and close the loophole. “It’s simply playing with the lives of coal miners in a very cynical way,” he said. “And yet, it’s our fault in Congress that we have not foreseen that loophole.”

Just when you thought the story couldn’t get more infuriating, there comes word that a handful of members of the Westboro Baptist Church have arrived in West Virginia.

The Kansas-based independent hate group — best known for picketing military funerals with signs proclaiming the soldiers’ deaths to be God’s punishment for the country’s tolerance of gays — has found a new target: the miners killed in Monday’s blast. From The Charleston Gazette:

Only six Westboro pickets showed up in front of the Capitol, including two men, one woman and three young children. They held up signs proclaiming: “America Is Doomed,” “Thank God for Dead Miners,” “God Hates Your Tears,” “God Hates West Virginia” and “God Hates You.”

The story ends well. More than 300 locals came out in a peaceful counter-protest that swamped the small group of bigots.

Local people peacefully overwhelmed the Westboro group. They carried their own signs, including: “I Love Everyone” and “God Bless Our Troops and Veterans.”

Others signs had humorous messages: “This is a Sign” and “God Hates Signs.”

“I think it is amazing the whole community came out for this,” said one local.

As rescue teams continue scrambling in search for four missing miners at the Upper Big Branch, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) just shot out a statement on the Massey Energy’s role in the disaster. And here’s a hint: He ain’t happy.

“The more I learn about the extent of these violations by Massey at the Upper Big Branch Mine alone, the angrier I get,” he said. “57 citations in the month of March alone! Closed over 60 times during the past two years to correct problems!”

To me, one thing is clear — for a company that has had this number of violations at just one coal mine — one must seriously begin to question the practices and procedures of this particular coal company and it needs the most serious scrutiny from the Congress and the federal regulators.

But Byrd also concedes that there’s plenty of blame to go around. Congress, the White House and Massey all could have taken greater steps to prevent the disaster, he implies. “It is infuriating that in this day and age, and in this country, that such a disaster could still happen. I am sick. I am saddened and I am angry. We have the laws. We have the resources. These tragedies, on this scale, should no longer be happening.”

It’s too early to propose specific legislative changes, Byrd adds, but those changes are sure to be coming.

It’s not the first time Byrd has ripped into Massey over safety issues at their facilities. In October, the nine-term senator blasted the company for its refusal to help move an elementary school that sits below a Massey-owned pond holding hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic coal sludge.

“Such arrogance,” Byrd said at the time, “suggests a blatant disregard for the impact of their mining practices on our communities, residents and particularly our children. These are children’s lives we are talking about.”

That school isn’t far from Monday’s explosion, leading to some concerns that the embankment holding back the sludge might have weakened by the blast. Byrd said today that the embankment “was inspected on Wednesday and determined by inspectors to ‘be fine.’”

First it was toxic gas. Now it’s fire.

For more than three days, rescue teams in Raleigh County, W.Va., have been scrambling to get into the Upper Big Branch Mine, site of Monday’s explosion, in search of four miners still unaccounted for. As the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. reports, they’re having little luck.

Rescue teams were pulled from the mine again this morning, after being sent back in not long after midnight in a third desperate attempt to find the four miners still unaccounted for after Monday’s horrific explosion that killed 25 workers and injured two others.

Teams encountered smoke after they entered a four-tunnel section of the mine that they had not been into during their previous two efforts earlier this week.  The smoke, officials said, is an indication of fire somewhere — and that prompted them to pull the rescue teams again …

“We didn’t expect there to be smoke from a fire,” said MSHA’s Kevin Stricklin. “That changed what we’re doing.”

The 25 miners known to be dead were working in a different section of the mine than the four missing workers, who were deeper into the mountain. The odds are dwindling, but there’s still hope that the four miners made their way into one of several emergency refuge shelters, which Congress mandated as a safety measure after a 2006 explosion at West Virginia’s Sago mine killed 12 workers. Those shelters contain enough food, water and oxygen to last at least 96 hours.

Just released from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.):

Bart Stupak is a public servant of great integrity and genuine conscience.  I deeply regret his decision from a public perspective, but I also respect and understand his decision because of the longevity of his service and the tremendous sacrifice that his service has entailed for him and his family.

Stupak, who was on the hot seat for months amidst the debate over health care reform, will officially announce his retirement later today. The 18-year House veteran told The Associated Press that the criticisms he took over his stand on abortion during that debate weren’t the reason he’s stepping down.

Massey CEO Don Blankenship has defended his company this week in the wake of Monday’s horrific mining explosion, arguing that Massey’s safety precautions “are typically in better shape than others.”

He’ll have a tough time explaining this.

The Upper Big Branch Mine, the site of the explosion that’s killed at least 25 miners, was either fully or partly closed 61 times for safety reasons in 2009 and 2010, the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. is reporting this afternoon, citing Labor Department documents prepared for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).

Officials from the department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration issued 54 withdrawal orders to the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2009 and seven so far in 2010, according to the documents.

Fifty-four of those withdrawal orders “were issued when inspectors found Massey subsidiary Performance Coal exhibited an ‘unwarrantable failure’ to comply with federal health and safety standards,” Ward writes.

There’s a distinction to be made here. Issuing withdrawal orders is different than closing the mine altogether, which would require MSHA to get court approval first. In cases of closure, officials would have to prove that mine operators showed “a pattern of violations” — a step that’s been complicated by the skyrocketing number of appeals being filed by mining companies to protest citations. (After all, how do you prove a pattern based on violations that are in dispute?)

Indeed, MSHA never even tried to cite the Upper Big Branch for such a pattern, despite the fact that more than 1,300 citations were filed against the mine in the last five years.

The sheer volume of citations seems to have shocked even those lawmakers who follow the coal industry most closely. “This mine has certainly exhibited a pattern of violations,” Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) told Fox News Wednesday.

Asked by Fox if Congress “needs to change some laws” to empower MSHA to close mines more easily, Rahall didn’t hesitate. “Without a doubt,” he said.

Following the horrific explosion at a West Virginia coal mine Monday, a strange thing has happened on Capitol Hill: Everyone seems to be treating the disaster as an issue peculiar to West Virginia.

Indeed, while we’ve seen plenty of statements and public interviews from West Virginia’s congressional delegation in recent days, we’re not hearing anything at all from the other Appalachian lawmakers, some of whom represent districts that are home to other active, underground, Massey-owned coal mines that together have racked up hundreds of safety violations this year alone.

Pike County, Ky., for example, is home to Freedom Mine #1, a Massey-owned project that’s tallied 187 citations this year. 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 Monday’s explosion in West Virginia. Rep. Hal Rogers (R) represents that district, yet there’s no mention of the West Virginia incident on his Website. And calls and emails to his office this week haven’t been returned.

Another example: Rep. Rick Boucher (D) represents Tazewell County, Va., which is home to the Tiller No. 1 Mine. That Massey-controlled project has been cited 56 times this year for safety infractions, including vent problems, accumulations of combustibles and a failure to maintain escapeways. Boucher’s Website this week recognizes a new water system in his district, but doesn’t mention Monday’s accident. A Boucher spokeswoman emailed today to clarify that he hasn’t made any public statements on the event.

Similar silence is coming form the offices of Virginia Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb, and Kentucky Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning. (Both McConnell and Bunning are featuring statements about how the Obama administration’s recent mountaintop mining restrictions will cripple the coal industry.)

Yes, Congress is on recess, and the lawmakers are bouncing around their districts doing whatever it is they do at home. But this was the most significant mining disaster in 26 years. It’s a bit surprising we’re not seeing more reaction from Capitol Hill.

One of the central flaws of safety net programs is that they become most necessary during recessions when states are least able to afford the influx of beneficiaries. Today, the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group, reveals the extent of the problem as it pertains to jobless benefits, reporting that 33 states have fully exhausted their unemployment benefit funds.

Tops (bottoms?) on the list are California, which is down $8.4 billion; Michigan ($3.8 billion); New York ($3.0 billion); Pennsylvania ($2.8 billion); and Ohio ($2.2 billion).

As of March 31, states have borrowed nearly $39 billion from the federal government to plug the hole.

Andrew Stettner, NELP’s deputy director said that the crisis has resulted from more than just the recession alone.

“While the recession has certainly made things worse, this funding crisis has been developing for years,” he said in a statement. “Decades of poor financing policies at the state and federal level have helped dig the hole we’re in today.”

Don Blankenship — the unapologetic CEO of Massey Energy, which owns the West Virginia mine where at least 25 coal miners died in an explosion this week — just ended the nearly two-week-long drought on his Twitter page.

“Thought it might help for those of you out there wanting information about the tragedy to use Twitter,” he begins.

First thing that comes to mind is the dignity, compassion, understanding, and expressions of the miners’ families.

Second, is the incredible courage effort, tireless work, and professionalism of Massey’s members.

Third, is the amazing effort on MSHA’s part to find the right path to rescue/recovery.

Fourth, is the work ethic and genuineness of Joe Manchin.

Fifth, is the huge number of supportive emails that I’ve received to which I could not possibly respond.

Sixth, the indignity of much of the media.

Seventh, the efforts of the rescue teams who are supporting us from throughout the industry.

Eighth, the response of local emergency services and community support groups and churches – positive.

Ninth, the tireless work of members of our spousal group and others to feed and make the families comfortable.

Meanwhile, rescue workers this morning are finally descending into the mine in search of four miners who remain unaccounted for. Those efforts had been delayed due to toxic gases that had built up in the mine.

As a quick follow to Annie’s nice wrap of yesterday’s gathering of the commission investigating the recent financial crack-up, it’s worth noting that Alan Greenspan — once contrite about the “flaw” surrounding his blind trust of free markets — is now making the claim that he’d been warning all along about the looming collapse.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank today points out some of the more remarkable parts of Greenspan’s testimony:

“I warned of the consequences of this situation in testimony before the Senate banking committee in 2004,” he informed the commissioners Wednesday. “In 2002 I expressed concern . . . that our extraordinary housing boom, financed by very large increases in mortgage debt, cannot continue indefinitely.”

Milbank then contrasts that with Greenspan’s remarks before the Joint Economic Committee in 2005:

“A bubble in home prices for the nation as a whole does not appear likely.”

“Home price declines . . . were they to occur, likely would not have substantial macroeconomic implications.”

“Nationwide banking and widespread securitization of mortgages make it less likely that financial intermediation would be impaired.”

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the 84-year-old Greenspan — who was Fed chairman when Wall Street ramped up its interest in subprime loans, mortgage-backed securities, and a few of the other financial instruments that led to the collapse of the global economy — doesn’t want to be remembered as the guy who snoozed while the bubbles inflated. But neither should we let him rewrite history.

The federal investigators readying their probe into the massive explosion that killed at least 25 West Virginia coal miners this week might take note: The dozens of other active tunnel mines owned by the same energy company have run up thousands of safety violations this year alone, according to a review of federal records by TWI. Hundreds of those citations target the same problems with ventilation and methane buildup that many suspect sparked the West Virginia disaster.

Massey Energy — the Virginia-based coal giant that owns the Upper Big Branch mine, the site of Monday’s tragedy — also controls 41 other underground coal mines currently active in Appalachia. Investigators have cited those projects for 2,074 safety violations since the start of the year, according to federal documents. The citations run a spectrum, but hundreds charge mine operators with failing to maintain air quality detectors, failing to ensure proper ventilation, allowing combustible material to accumulate, and a host of other infractions related to miner safety.

At the Upper Big Branch — where rescue teams were still searching Wednesday night for four missing miners — investigators had cited 124 similar safety violations this year. More than 50 of them were issued in March alone.

On Wednesday, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, a branch of the Labor Department, sent a team to Upper Big Branch to begin investigating whether the conditions cited in those violations sparked the explosion.

“The very best way we can honor [the miners] is to do our job,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a statement announcing the team.

But as those officials prepare to look backwards in search of what went wrong at Upper Big Branch, a growing chorus of voices is urging policymakers to examine also the corporate culture that, they say, has led companies like Massey to disregard worker safety in the name of profit-making.

“This incident isn’t just a matter of happenstance, but rather the inevitable result of a profit-driven system and reckless corporate conduct,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. “Many mining companies have given too little attention to safety over the years and too much to the bottom line.”

As far as recent safety violations go, the Upper Big Branch mine has plenty of company. In fact, it doesn’t even rank first among the Massey-owned underground mines with the most safety violations this year. That distinction goes to Freedom Mine #1, in Pike County, Ky., which tallied 187 such citations, according to documents posted by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Among the infractions, investigators cited accumulations of combustible materials and a failure to maintain escapeways. A man answering the phone Wednesday at Freedom Energy Company — the Kentucky-based Massey subsidiary that operates the mine — hung up on a reporter.

Other notable Massey-controlled mines currently in operation include:

• The Justice # 1 Mine in Boone County, W.Va. Operated by the Independence Coal Company, the project has been hit with 115 safety violations this year, including citations surrounding air-quality detectors and ventilation plans. (A woman answering the phone for Independence Wednesday said the company doesn’t talk to reporters.)
• The Alloy Powellton Mine in Fayette County, W.Va. Run for Massey by the Mammoth Coal Company, the operation has received 80 citations this year, including those targeting its plan to control methane buildup. (No one answered the phone at Mammoth Wednesday.)
• The Slip Ridge Cedar Grove Mine in Martin County, Ky., which has attracted 40 citations this year, including problems with combustible material found too close to ventilation fans. (The Marfork Coal Company, which runs Slip Ridge, referred questions to Massey. Massey didn’t return calls for comment.)

Outside of coal country, the infractions have flown largely under the radar. But in the wake of Monday’s explosion — the worst mining tragedy in at least 26 years — there are new calls, on and off Capitol Hill, for better enforcement of the nation’s mining safety regulations. And Massey, no stranger to controversy, will be the center of attention.

Indeed, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) — a long-time defender of the coal industry who represents the miners killed at Upper Big Branch — told CNN Wednesday that it’s “valid” to question Massey’s dedication to worker safety. “Something’s fishy,” he said. “This company has a rather maverick reputation.”

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) also took a shot at Massey, issuing a statement maintaining that miners “deserve … an employer who respects and values their safety.”

Massey did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. But CEO Don Blankenship this week has defended the company’s performance, telling the West Virginia MetroNews that safety violations are “a normal part of the mining process.” Massey’s safety operations, he told CNN Wednesday, “are typically in better shape than others.”

For Massey, the scrutiny is hardly new. And the outspoken Blankenship has only stoked the coals of criticism. In a now infamous 2005 memo, for example, Blankenship instructed his deep mine superintendents to ignore any requests unrelated to coal production.

“If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e. – build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal,” the memo said. “This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills.”

In another telling episode, a young Blankenship outlined his business philosophy in a 1984 interview.

“Unions, communities, people — everybody’s gonna have to accept that, in the United States, we have a capitalist society,” Blankenship said. “And that capitalism, from a business viewpoint, is survival of the most productive.”

With congressional leaders already calling for hearings on Monday’s explosion, Blankenship will almost certainly have a chance to tell lawmakers that himself.

So says MSNBC, which reports this morning that the anti-abortion Michigan Democrat is simply worn out from all the attention (i.e., criticism) he and his family took during the marathon debate over health care reform.

The Democrat best known this year as the Democrat who delivered the winning margin of votes for the president’s health-care reform bill is said to be simply exhausted. The criticism he received — first from the left, and then from the right — has worn him and his family out. And if he had to make the decision now, he’d probably NOT run. As of this writing, a bunch of senior Democrats (many of the same ones who twisted his arm on the health care vote) are trying to talk him into running. The filing deadline in Michigan is still a month away, but veterans of that state’s politics are skeptical anyone other than Stupak can hold that district in this political climate.

No date has been set, but congressional leaders are already vowing to hold hearings on the circumstances leading up to Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine explosion Monday that killed at least 25 West Virginia coal miners. Here’s the latest release from the House Education and Labor Committee, where Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), who heads the workforce protections subpanel, state they’ll hold hearings “at the appropriate time.”

Over the past few years, we have met too many family members who have suffered the tragic loss of loved ones in a mine disaster. On behalf of the committee, we promised them that we would do everything we could to learn the cause of these tragedies and to keep miners safe. Today, we extend this same promise to the families and community dealing with a devastating loss.

Considering the long list of violations cited at the Upper Big Branch mine, there should be plenty to talk about.