Tragedy in West Virginia: Why Control of Regulatory Bodies Still Matters

Tragic news out of West Virginia on Monday as The New York Times reports,

The death toll from a blast at a West Virginia coal mine rose to 25 on Tuesday, federal safety officials said, making it the worst mining accident in the United States in 25 years.

As Federal and state authorities responders rush to save the trapped miners other experts are already hypothesizing about the cause,

…the current theory about a possible cause of the explosion was that it occurred when methane gas built up in a sealed off section of the mine. A similar type of explosion occurred in the 2006 Sago mining disaster, which left 12 miners dead after trapping them underground for nearly two days.

Federal data indicate that the Upper Big Branch mine has recorded a non-fatal injury rate worse than the national average for similar operations for at least 6 of the past 10 years. Federal data also indicates that the mine had 458 Violations in 2009 with a total of $897,325 in mine safety fines penalties assessed against it last year and paid $168,393 in mine safety penalties.

No matter what is ultimately determined to be the cause of Monday’s explosion the tragedy in West Virginia is a reminder that there are still men and women who risk their lives every single day when they head to their jobs. As a society we have a moral duty to those workers and their families to do all we can to ensure their safety to the greatest extent possible.

It’s that duty that we should keep in mind when we’re told that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. When we’re told that either way we are voting for “Corporate-crats” or some other pejorative is cast about in a “pox on both their houses” snit. Ask any mine worker in America if there is a difference between the parties and he’ll tell you unequivocally there is.

In what is now an unfortunately timely piece The Nation magazine’s Esther Kaplan takes a look at the Department of Labor under Obama in the April 12 edition of the magazine, her piece is framed around a tragic mine accident from 1984 and the bulking up of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) under President Obama. Kaplan writes,

In 1984, on the Wasatch Plateau in southern Utah, the Wilberg coal mine, a property of Emery Mining, exploded into flames. Witnesses described plumes of dark gray smoke billowing up into the heavens. Twenty-seven coal miners were trapped inside. By the following night it was clear none of them would make it out alive. “If hell existed,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported, “it was down in the Wilberg mine.”

David Lauriski was Emery’s chief safety officer when Wilberg caught fire, an accident later attributed to numerous violations at the mine. The owners, it turned out, had been trying for a one-day production record. Seventeen years after the disaster, Lauriski became George W. Bush’s first mine safety chief, a perch from which he halted a dozen new safety regulations initiated under Clinton, advocating instead a more “collaborative” approach with industry.

Continuing Kaplan brings us to today’s MSHA,

During the Bush years, the Department of Labor became a cautionary tale about what happens when foxes are asked to guard the henhouse. But since California Congresswoman Hilda Solis became labor secretary last winter, she has brought on board a team of lifelong advocates for working people–some of whom come from the ranks of organized labor–and has hired hundreds of new investigators and enforcers.

MSHA’s Chief under Obama is no longer a company man but rather a union man, Joe Main. Main was working for the United Mine Workers during the Wilberg accident and he spent 5 days on site during the recovery. This is a man who knows first hand the consequences of absentee regulators, which makes him the perfect selection for MSHA’s top cop.

I worked for MSHA as a law student starting the summer after my 1st year. It was an experience quite unlike any other I’ve had in the law or politics. At the time Mrs. Mitch McConnell, Elaine Chao, was the Secretary of Labor. As Kaplan noted above the head of MSHA was a long time mine executive and the Solicitor of the Department of Labor at the time was none other than Eugene Scalia, scion of the odious right-wing Supreme Court Justice.

Imagine what it would be like to get up and go to work everyday knowing that your bosses hated the fact that your job even existed and actively worked to undermine you and  your agency’s Mission Statement every single day. Imagine knowing that rampant corporatism and regulatory absenteeism under the direction of the Bush administration contributed to the deaths of a dozen workers that you dedicated your life to protecting. That is what the career lawyers and inspectors at MSHA faced during the Bush administration – pervasive undermining of our nation’s laws all in the name of protecting corporate interests at the expense of miner’s lives, health and safety. To this day I often think back to my time at MSHA and the dedication of the career professional in that agency in the face of actively hostile regime.

The importance of our nation’s regulatory bodies can be easily lost in the daily political back and forth. While pundits and operatives debate the latest RNC fundraising scandal or ridiculous non-troversy du-jour our nation’s regulators go about their daily work and by doing so save lives every single day. It’s a testament to the effectiveness of our nation’s regulators and MSHA specifically that stories like Monday’s tragic accident still have the power to shock us.

Since MSHA’s creation in 1977 we’ve seen deaths in our nation’s mines fall precipitously, today we see about 65 deaths a year in our mines. That decline isn’t a happy accident or merely a result of technological advances. As we were reminded last week in China, nations who do not take the health and safety of their workers seriously see accidents like Monday’s in West Virginia happening on a near weekly basis. 4,000 to 6,000 miners die each year in Chinese mines – that we know of. The horrible truth is that the number is likely much higher.

When you go to work today in your business casual attire, sit in your well lit office with well ventilated air and log on to your computer to rant about how Obama hasn’t given you everything that you wanted when you voted for him – stop. Think about the mine workers we’ve just lost in West Virginia. Think about the thousands of men and women who risk their lives every single day when they go to work in dark pits miles below the Earth’s surface. Then ask yourself if America’s coal miners think that there’s no difference between Obama and Bush.

Politics isn’t about your feelings or my feelings. It isn’t about petty squabbles over taxes or trumped up social issues. Politics is about making a real difference in people’s lives. Politics is making our world a little safer so little girls can hug their Daddy in the morning.

God Bless the miners in West Virginia and their families.

Photo by The U.S. National Archives