Lawlessness And Disorder-- Big Coal

With update: Donny Blankenship indicted!

There have been myriad complaints that the Obama administration has been systematically letting the banksters off the hook-- fining the share-holders who really didn't have any criminal intent, while letting the criminally minded executives skate away without charges... with their inflated bonuses. And why is Cliven Bundy still running around free? Yesterday NPR and Mine Safety and Health News released the results of an investigation into another class of coddled criminals who thumb their nose at lawful society and get away with it: the mine operators.

While McConnell was shedding crocodile tears for the suffering the mine workers will have to endure because of Obama's Climate Change agreement with China, NPR was broadcasting how McConnell's donors may have been sending him his bribe money while refusing to pay millions of dollars in fines. Citations and the fines that go with egregious violations of safety rules are key components of the federal law designed to protect miners, reported NPR. "They are supposed to make violations expensive-- costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for the most serious offenses-- and create an incentive for mine owners to keep workers safe."

A joint investigation by NPR and Mine Safety and Health News found that thousands of mine operators fail to pay safety penalties, even as they continue to manage dangerous-- and sometimes deadly-- mining operations. Most unpaid penalties are between two and 10 years overdue; some go back two decades. And federal regulators seem unable or unwilling to make mine owners pay.

Our joint investigation looked at 20 years of federal mine data through the first quarter of 2014, including details about fines, payments, violations and injuries. We used raw Department of Labor data and delinquency records provided by the Mine Safety and Health Administration to calculate the number of injuries and injury rates, and violations and gravity of violations, at mines with delinquent penalties while they were delinquent.

Among the findings:

• 2,700 mining company owners failed to pay nearly $70 million in delinquent penalties.

• The top nine delinquents owe more than $1 million each.

• Mines that don't pay their penalties are more dangerous than mines that do, with injury rates 50 percent higher.

• Delinquent mines reported close to 4,000 injuries in the years they failed to pay, including accidents that killed 25 workers and left 58 others with permanent disabilities.

• Delinquent mines continued to violate the law, with more than 130,000 violations, while they failed to pay mine safety fines.

Most mine operators pay their penalties, our investigation found. Delinquents account for just 7 percent of the nation's coal, metals and mineral mining companies. But that small subset of the industry is more dangerous than the rest, federal data show.

The violations at delinquent mines included 40,000 that are labeled in government safety records as "Significant and Substantial," which means serious injury or illness were likely if inspectors hadn't intervened. More than 15,000 violations were the kind found in fatal accidents, major disasters or mining deaths, the records also show.

And when those safety records are compared with other government data on coal production, it shows that some of the top delinquents continued to mine coal and reap millions of dollars in revenue while their safety fines remained unpaid.

Why hasn't the Obama administration been tough on crime? I bet Bernie Sanders will be a lot stricter with the worst of the predatory criminal elements plaguing society:

UPDATE: Crooked Mine Boss, Murderer Finally Indicted!

This certainly took far too long. Let's hope they go after some banksters next! How sweet would it be for Blankenship and Blankenfein to share a cell at Club Fed?

Don Blankenship, the longtime chief executive of Massey Energy, was indicted today on charges that he violated federal mine safety laws at the company’s Upper Big Branch Mine prior to an April 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin this afternoon informed representatives of the families of the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster victims that a four-count indictment had been handed up by a federal grand jury charging Blankenship.

The indictment alleges that Blankenship conspired to cause routine, willful violations of mandatory federal mine safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch during a period from Jan. 1, 2008, to April 9, 2010, according to a notice Goodwin’s office sent to the families.

The notice also said that the indictment alleges Blankenship was part of a conspiracy to cover up mine safety violations and hinder federal enforcement efforts by providing advance warning of government inspections. The indictment also alleges that, after the explosion, Blankenship made false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about Massey’s safety practices prior to the explosion, the notice to families says.

The indictment comes after a more than four-year investigation by Goodwin that began following the mine disaster on April 5, 2010, but expanded to examine a troubled safety record that critics have long argued put coal production and profits ahead of worker protections.

...Blankenship invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer questions from MSHA, the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training and an independent team appointed by then-Gov. Joe Manchin to probe the Upper Big Branch disaster.