Whitewash of mine disaster being prepared: Who is David mcAteer?

[Hannah Bell]

Earlier this week West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin announced the appointment of Davitt McAteer to conduct an investigation into the explosion that killed 29 coal miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County...Davitt McAteer, a lawyer, is a native of West Virginia... Wheeling Jesuit University...vice president of one of its programs....West Virginia University College of Law...Ralph Nader...1969 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Acts...United Mine Workers...health and safety programs...

In December 1984, an underground fire, trapped and killed 27 coal miners at the Wilberg mine...Utah...The official investigation of the Utah disaster revealed many failures of safety standards developed by MSHA. In particular, it found that most of the killed miners would have survived if they had had additional oxygen supplies, safety chambers...None of these measures were implemented by the Reagan administration...

The UMW and the AFL-CIO claimed that the election of a Democratic president in 1992 would reverse this trend. However, when McAteer was confirmed to his post as head of MSHA, rather than develop new rules he...spent seven years studying these issues and only proposed rule changes in 1999, just one year before leaving office. The timing of the rule changes was designed to ensure that they would not take effect. As head of MSHA, McAteer knew there would first be a long period of public hearings...Upon taking office, the Bush administration appointed David Lauriski... One of Lauriski’s first acts was to cancel the proposed changes being made by McAteer...

On January 2, 2006, a mine explosion at the Sago mine... killed one miner outright and trapped another 12 men underground. Rescue crews whose manpower had been cut by the Bush administration were not able to reach the men before all but one suffocated up to 48 hours later...Governor Manchin appointed McAteer to head the investigation...McAteer’s hearings were a whitewash of both the coal company and MSHA...No current or former Sago miners were called to testify...only two of the scores of rescuers were called...

McAteer accepted the company’s version of events: that a lightning strike several miles away set off the explosion that trapped and killed the men...McAteer is being appointed to head the Upper Big Branch investigation because he can be trusted once again to whitewash the role of the coal bosses and MSHA ...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/mcat-a16.shtml

[Octafish]

1. Big Money Does Big Things...

...to people and politics.

Thank you for spelling it out, Hannah Bell.

[NJmaverick]

2. This is pure fantasy, the fact that the justice department has been brought in early

is a clear indicator this is not the same old same old.

[Hannah Bell]

3. kik

[Hannah Bell]

5. kik

[elehhhhna]

4. Have a FEDERAL investigation. Manchin's ginned up on coalmoney.