This is a BIG pile of bullshit.
1. Massey DOES NOT want these "interviews" public. They want to continue lying and covering up the truth. To do so they can't let this farse of an investigation get too public.
2. The gov't doesn't want the public to see how they are playing softball with these mining companies and letting them do whatever the fuck they want.
3. Obama seems to be complicit in this little act when he says there would be a "series of public events" that would "bolster transparency and openness."
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. . .
MSHA mine disaster interviews to be closed to public
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
Advertiser
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Federal investigators will conduct key portions of their probe of the Upper Big Banch Mine disaster behind closed doors, but will plan a series of public events the Obama administration said would "bolster transparency and openness."
The announcement Thursday by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis drew harsh criticism from the United Mine Workers union, mine owner Massey Energy and families of miners killed in the April 5 explosion.
"People from all sides of this issue in the coalfields want this investigation to be fully and completely open," said UMW President Cecil Roberts. "The families of the victims do, the UMW does, the media does, and even the company said it does.
"The only people who don't want this to be completely open are the government agencies, and that, frankly, continues a bad practice that we expected would change under this administration," Roberts said.
Massey said the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration "is choosing to repeat past mistakes by refusing due process and failing to build the public's confidence that the hearings will be fair and develop a complete and balanced public record."
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2 comments:
Sagacious, I think you should consider the national security implications of coal mining. Clearly, we need to harness our domestic sources of energy, and to tap more domestic sources for our hungry energy markets. We must do this by remaining consistent with our free enterprise system, that states that individuals acting freely within the free (open) ocnfines of the free market should try to earn as much money as they can. After all, isn't that what our founding fathers wanted?
Efforts to regulate by the government will just make things worse. I heard Massey say that it was actually the regulators who made them have the methane gas explosion. Either that, or one of them there 4.0 magnitude earthquakes caused it somehow. I'm not sure if there are facts to support the first claim, but it totally makes sense that Massey would buy a union mine, deunionize it, close off ventilation shafts, pay off federal regulators, keep ventilation fans in the OFF position, and then these same regulators would somehow force Massey to do something even more irresponsible. See, sometimes you just have to use some common sense.
Reggie, My realometer must not have been working when I wrote all that. Thank you for straightening me out. It's all so confusing and I just want it all made simple so that I can understand it without having to think.
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