Jon Elliott just reported that one of the rescue workers searching for the miners has died....

[marmar]

Apparently there's more seismic activity and another collapse. Not sounding too promising....

[liberalmuse]

1. Jesus.

I really want to kick that Murray bastard in the nuts right now. :(

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. We can sort of

after this and the Sego Mine, we HAVE TO DEMAND FEDERAL OSHA standards and fines

[AlCzervik]

3. Bush and the gop decimated OSHA.

[marmar]

4. and the FDA, and the EPA, and the FAA, and ............

Part of their "destroy government" manifesto.

[orleans]

5. yeah, big government sucks & bush is just the guy to make that happen. n/t

[lonestarnot]

6. The DOJ, the Constitution, the Country, the stock market, the budget, the planet and his pants.

[mike_c]

7. there's more to it than that....

It's MSHA that inspects mines, not OSHA, and I believe it was the Clinton administration that started putting the squeeze on MSHA. The Bush admin continued it, but the Congress appropriated more money after some of the recent high profile mine disasters, and the MSHA is actually re-staffing during the current Bush administration. Still, it will be several years before new inspectors are trained, etc. I don't think this is Bush's fault specifically-- more a matter of government failing to lead in directions that offend major industries, and failing over several decades.

[Tarheel_Dem]

8. You Believe?

Sorry, Mike, but can cite a source for your assertion that Clinton's Administration put the squeeze on MSHA? That's a pretty damaging claim, if true....

[mike_c]

10. no worries-- here is my source....

I based that comment on remarks Ellen Smith, owner and managing editor of Mine Safety and Health News, made on Democracy Now! on Aug. 14. BTW, the entire interview was quite good: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/14/1352240

AMY GOODMAN: What is MSHA's record, the government's record, on mine safety and health during the Bush administration?

ELLEN SMITH: Well, unfortunately, in the early years -- and this actually started under Clinton, where they did not replace retiring MSHA employees. It was a way to kind of softly handle the budget cuts of the agency. That continued through the Bush administration. And then we ran into a problem in the early years of the administration, where the MSHA inspectors were not able to inspect all the mines. I had metal and non-metal mines out west tell me at one point they had not seen a mine inspector in two years, when they should be seeing a mine inspector twice a year. So, obviously, the mine inspections weren't being met.

more@link

[sandnsea]

12. The question becomes

was the agency at all bloated in the 90's. Was there new policy/technology in place that was intended to optimize mine safety, even with less personnel. Was anything privatized, which was later cut or privatized even further.

I agree that the Clintons were not the best friend to workers and allowed this whole anti-government ideology to run rampant, but I also don't think they ever intended the kind of dismantling the right wing has done. I do think we need more details on all of these things though, because these are the kinds of things we want changed and if the Clintons aren't really going to do it, we need to know.

[mike_c]

14. I'm not sure it's really a Clinton or non-Clinton issue, really....

You've listened to my rants long enough to understand that I'm just generally cynical about government, LOL. Anyway, my impression is that it was just a matter of the sh*t rolling downhill, then as ever in the form of budget cuts that ultimately settled onto the necks of the folks in the field, the inspectors and the staff needed to support them. I mean, can an agency charged with meeting mine safety inspection schedules really be "bloated" with inspectors? Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting to find one.

I think this was just a matter of mixed priorities, i.e. trying to impress the voters with a lean and mean federal budget-- I don't think Clinton and dubya were really any different in that respect-- while the folks at the sharp end of providing government services were left to figure out how to make it happen. At the time there weren't any recent mine disasters to trouble voters outside of the big mining states, so the turds rolled as they will.

[sandnsea]

16. Were we mining?

I don't think we were mining as much in the 80's and 90's. We've taken nuclear plants offline, Hanford and Trojan in Washington State. Any others? Have we had to do more coal mining recently because of pressure from India and China? Could it be that it was acceptable to cut MSHA in the 90's because circumstances were different. I'm thinking out loud, or keymantically, or something. Anyway, I just know the 'fair and balanced' tendency of some journalists to be sure and blame Clinton too, along with the willingness of the lefties to get in a Clinton dig. There is a possibility he was acting responsibly and Bush just saw it as an opportunity to keep slashing away. I visited the Clinton library a couple years ago. I just wanted to sit in a corner and cry when I was done. It was one thing after another - Bush dismantled roadless areas, Bush underfunded Americorps, NKorea, program after program. It was clear that Bush just came into office with the specific intent of undoing every good thing Clinton had done. So while I think they could have done a whole lot more, we haven't gotten any long term benefits from what they did do because Bush undid it. I just like to be careful to put everything in context before I harp on the Clintons.

[mike_c]

17. yes....

As I understand it, MHSA staffing levels were determined by the legally mandated inspection schedules, e.g. a minimum of two general inspections per year for underground mines plus any number of targeted inspections. I don't have any data in hand about mining intensity-- and I'm on my way to bed-- but I don't think there was any lull in mining activity during the eighties and nineties-- remember that coal has been the backbone of electricity generation in the U.S. since the early part of last century. Like I said, I don't think Clinton targeted the MSHA or had any agenda antithetical to their mission, just that he put them in a hard position-- one that Bush continued-- that ultimately affected their ability to meet their responsibilities. That Ellen Smith interview is pretty interesting.

Regarding your last comment-- I've never understood the Bush administration's PATHOLOGICAL hatred of all things Clintonian.

[sandnsea]

21. Here's a graph

Scroll down. It looks like there was less coal production in the 50's & 60's, don't exactly know for sure why that would be. But it started going back up in the 70's and has just been up up ever since. There was a pretty big blip around 1995, so it would be interesting to see if that matched when Clinton cut MSHA and if there was some correlation to it.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coal_production_review.pdf

[liberaldemocrat7]

19. Who set the budget for the MSHA and the rest of the executive branch? The GOP congress.

The GOP congress did their damage from 1995 until Clinton left office in 2001. Don't blame Clinton. Blame the GOP.

You can also lay the blame for the Ford Explrer deaths on the GOP congress too as they don't like regulation of companies. Ford just loved the GOP congress until events blew up in their face.

[sandnsea]

22. Era of Big Government is Over

Clinton and Gore ran on cutting government. If they're to blame for some of this, they need to own it.

[mike_c]

23. while that's true, it begs the question whether we should then blame...

...the dem congress for the crimes and excesses of the latter Bush years. I mean, there isn't any indication I know of that the GOP somehow FORCED Clinton to begin underfunding the MHSA. Is the opposition party in congress automatically responsible for the failures of the executive? I doubt that's a road we really want to travel.

[sandnsea]

24. Heres another good article

It talks about Clinton's mine guy, named McAteer who used to work for Nader - and his replacement under Bush, Lauriski.

http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF2203/Ward/Ward.html

And, I recall Gore not being to keen on coal, so maybe their thought was to phase out coal mining, consequently we wouldn't need as big a safety department.

[liberaldemocrat7]

25. Yes, I assign more blame to the GOP congress.

The REPUBLIKLAN party has attempted to destroy the New Deal ever since FDR created it. The GOP leans too far in the direction of companies and not enough to middle class and poor people.

The Democratic congress has just taken power in January 2007.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. My we share radio host

:-)

[Bluebear]

11. 3 dead so far

[goodgd_yall]

13. Uh, not seismic activity

That's Murray's defense language. It was caused by pressure release which caused a cave-in of coal.

[mike_c]

15. that's the answer to the question I posed....

...in another thread. Thanks!

[Duppers]

18. Thanks. Let's stop using their term "seismic activity."

A tremor is a general sense is "seismic activity." But the term usually refers to a geological happening, i.e. Earthquake.

What's happening is NOT caused by earthquakes at all, but huge mine collapses >.<

This shit republican mine owner is trying to twist what happened.

I hope these poor folks sue his ass off.

[liberaldemocrat7]

20. Where Republicans tread, Inncent people end up dead.

Where Republicans tread, Inncent people end up dead.

[Nikki Stone1]

26. 3 rescue workers killed

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070817/ap_on_re_us/utah_mine_collapse