MSHA inspector advocates killing environmentalists ("Hang a tree-hugger today")

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Federal mine safety officials are looking into a comment by one of its Kentucky-based inspectors on the social networking site, Facebook, that proclaimed, "Hang a tree-hugger today."

Amy Louviere, the public affairs director for the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, issued a statement late Tuesday that her agency "does not condone these kinds of provocative comments in any social media forum.

"However, it is MSHA's understanding, after consulting the Department of Labor's legal office, that when making this comment, the individual was not acting in an official capacity or within the scope of his official duties."

<...>

David Cooper, an activist who opposes mountaintop removal coal mining, circulated via email the comment by Terry Phillips, who Louviere identified as a mine inspector based in Pikeville, on the Facebook page for the pro-coal Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security. Both that page, and a copy of Phillip's public page on Facebook, were published on this environmental website.

http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/bruggers/2010/01/mine-inspector-under-scrutiny.html

[fasttense]

1. And we pay people like this, through our taxes, to inspect our mines. He should lose his job

and join the rest of us on the unemployment lines.