{"id":529202,"date":"2010-04-15T23:17:42","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T03:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=82505"},"modified":"2010-04-15T23:17:42","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T03:17:42","slug":"massey-takes-on-obama-over-violation-backlog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/529202","title":{"rendered":"Massey Takes on Obama Over Violation Backlog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/82377\/obama-assigns-responsibility-for-mining-blast-outlines-strategy-for-reform\" >Speaking<\/a> at the White House this morning, President Obama took Massey Energy to task over last week&#8217;s deadly mining explosion in southern West Virginia, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/remarks-president-mine-safety\" >saying<\/a> that the tragedy was &#8220;a failure first and foremost of management.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Owners responsible for conditions in the Upper Big Branch mine should be held accountable for decisions they made and preventive measures they failed to take,&#8221; Obama said.<\/p>\n<p>Seems that the folks at Massey didn&#8217;t appreciate the scrutiny much. A few hours later the company responded with a statement <a href=\"http:\/\/phx.corporate-ir.net\/phoenix.zhtml?c=102864&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=1413595&amp;highlight=\" >calling<\/a> the president&#8217;s characterization &#8220;regrettable.&#8221;<span id=\"more-82505\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We fear that the President has been misinformed about our record and the mining industry in general,&#8221; the statement reads.<\/p>\n<p>The company then pushes the blame for the enormous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/nation\/2010-04-08-mine-fine_N.htm\" >backlog<\/a> of violation appeals &#8212; around 16,600 and growing &#8212; on the administration for failing to keep up with the increasing volume.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>There has been criticism regarding the backlog of violations that have been appealed. There have been violations at Upper Big Branch that the Company does not agree with and a number of those violations have been appealed. The percentage of violations appealed at UBB and Massey is similar to that for the industry as a whole.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Unmentioned is how &#8212; since 2006, when Congress <a href=\"http:\/\/query.nytimes.com\/gst\/fullpage.html?res=9D0DE7DD1531F93BA35755C0A9609C8B63\" >hiked<\/a> the penalties for safety violations &#8212; the industry (Massey included) has responded by contesting more and more violations in order to delay the fines and prevent regulators from establishing the &#8220;pattern of violations&#8221; that might lead officials to shutter unsafe mines. Testifying before House lawmakers in February, Joe Main, head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, <a href=\"http:\/\/edlabor.house.gov\/documents\/111\/pdf\/testimony\/20100223JoeMainTestimony.pdf\" >revealed<\/a> the startling trend:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2005, 7,200 citations were contested.<\/li>\n<li>In 2006, 10,036 citations were contested.<\/li>\n<li>In 2007, 19,546 citations were contested.<\/li>\n<li>In 2008, 46,792 citations were contested.<\/li>\n<li>And in 2009, 46,526 citations were contested.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Put another way, in 2005, mine operators appealed 6 percent of all safety citations. In 2009, the figure had jumped to 27 percent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe some operators contesting [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.msha.gov\/mshainfo\/factsheets\/mshafct4.htm\" >significant and substantial<\/a>] violations may be doing so because it delays the finding of a pattern, adding to the backlog and delaying MSHA from using this enhanced enforcement tool at their mines,\u201d Main <a href=\"http:\/\/edlabor.house.gov\/documents\/111\/pdf\/testimony\/20100223JoeMainTestimony.pdf\" >told<\/a> the lawmakers. \u201cAs a result, there are operations that might be on a potential pattern of violations, but the backlog has prevented their cases from becoming final orders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Turns out, <a href=\"http:\/\/edlabor.house.gov\/newsroom\/2010\/04\/chair-miller-releases-list-of.shtml\" >the Upper Big Branch was one of those operations he was referring to<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking at the White House this morning, President Obama took Massey Energy to task over last week&#8217;s deadly mining explosion in southern West Virginia, saying that the tragedy was &#8220;a failure first and foremost of management.&#8221; &#8220;Owners responsible for conditions in the Upper Big Branch mine should be held accountable for decisions they made and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}