Posted on 01/07/2006 8:59:15 AM PST by FairOpinion
Since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has been more lenient toward mining companies facing serious safety violations, issuing fewer and smaller major fines and collecting less than half of the money that violators owed, a Knight Ridder Newspapers investigation has found.
Relaxed mine safety enforcement is widespread, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of federal records and interviews with former and current federal safety officials, even though deaths and injuries from mining accidents have hovered near record low levels in the past few years.
David Gooch, president of Coal Operators and Associates in Pikeville, Ky., which has 200 members, said the size of the fines have nothing to do with who's in power in Washington. "It doesn't have anything to do with who's the president because, actually, the people who are doing those fines are apolitical," Gooch said. "They're employees that are covered by the federal civil service, and their own union, by the way, so they compute the fines the way they come out."
For coal mining, 2005 and 2002 were record low years for fatalities. Only 22 people were killed last year in coal mining deaths - down from 47 in 1995. The number of workers killed in all mines hit consecutive record lows of 56 and 55 in 2003 and 2004, respectively, but increased slightly to 57 in 2005.
"Within the last five years the number of fatalities have been cut in half," said National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston. "From our perspective that's where we ought to be focused. It is what is happening to the absolute number of injuries - and the rate of injuries - that has gone down. Mining is no longer the most dangerous industry in the United States."
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
I don't think Bush did that. Last I checked, we don't have, and never did have any federalized steel companies in the U.S. Therefore, all business decisions pertaining to the steel industry were made by the companies in question and their stock holders.
But please, don't let facts interrupt your fantasies.
Sure. Here's a huge one:
Under the plan Bush endorsed at an Oval Office meeting with advisers, steel imported from Canada and Mexico would be exempt from the duties, as would imports from developing countries such as Argentina, Thailand and Turkey. Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine and Brazil would be among the nations subject to the tariffs.
Bush Settles On Tariff For Steel Imports
Of course, steel from Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, Brazil, etc. etc. aren't really penalized. That stuff merely gets shipped to one of the exempt nations first, before being re-exported to the United States duty free. (That's how the Cubans get around the sugar embargo. They ship it to Canada where it's dissolved in molasses, then shipped into the US where the sugar is re-extracted.)
Once you have such loopholes and exemptions, the tariffs become totally ineffective.
Bush is a fraud.
(((yawn)))
As if those business decisions aren't influenced by federal regulatory and trade policies.
Sheeeesh, your "Bush isn't in charge of federalized steel mills" arguement is hopelessly adolescent. Really....
I have a stack of Congressional Records from 1935. In one, a Congressman speaks of 23,000 deaths in American industry during 1919.
The families IMMEDIATELY over reacted. Given the circumstances, this seemed fair at the time. I wasn't in their place... but to watch it, it felt like the media was showing the families as stupid bumpkins from WVA. The STORY and painting the mining company, the governor, and the president in a bad light is the newspaper's goal.
And, in the coming weeks, when more of the truth is known, the media will cover it less, and readers won't notice. They'll just remember the NEGATIVE spin, never the aftermath.
Did they ever think that the fines are lower because the violations are less severe?
Or maybe that there fewer violations that require fines?
All businesses must deal with federal laws and regulations. Exactly how they choose to deal with them is entirely their decision. You know that, but since it doesn't support your agenda, you just like to ignore it.
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