Getting the Shaft

It has been 10 days since the collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah that trapped 6 miners, their fate as of this writing is still unknown.
This is the guy that president Bush has put in charge. Rich Stickler is the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health , appointed by Georgie in October 2006 in a RECESS appointment. What that means is simply this. He did not receive enough support in the then GOP controlled Senate. He was twice rejected for his current job by senators concerned about his own safety record when he managed mines in the private sector.

In the wake of the January 2006 Sago mine disaster in West Virginia, senators from both sides of the aisle expressed concern that Stickler was not the right person to combat climbing death rates in the nation's mines.

Democrats, led by West Virginia Sens. Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, and Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, questioned the safety record of the mines Stickler ran when he was a coal company executive.

The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported in January 2006 that three workers died at BethEnergy mines managed by Stickler ( and had an incident rate twice the national average) during the 1980s and 1990s. This may not seem like big numbers, but keep this in mind....coal mining deaths began to decline in 1926. That 80 year decline ended last year when 48 miners died. The most in a decade. The largest percentage increase in 107 years.

As Pennsylvania's mine safety chief, a grand jury investigation in 2002 of the Quecreek disaster found his agency should have flagged the problem that later trapped the 9 miners there for 77 hours. After 12 miners died last year at the Sago mine, Stickler declined to endorse new safety rules. Two miners died in separate incidents the next day

This is another example of the folks the current administration puts in charge. Incompetent. This is the man that will oversee the investigation once the we find out the fate of the 6 miners trapped for 10 days and counting.

Alive or dead I doubt justice will prevail.

(I haven't even mentioned the co- owner of the mine, Robert Murray, who consistently opposes new safety rules and whose mines have been fined millions of dollars in safety violations)

( with acknowledgement to Keith Olbermann, Salt Lake Tribune, the HuffingtonPost)