Mine Safety? Under Bush? Fuggeditaboutit!

From FireDogLake:

It's no secret to anyone with a ticking pulse that this has been a bad year for American coal miners. And for those people whose attention had moved on to other issues, the deaths earlier this week of five more miners served as a reminder that the problem hasn'’t gone away. 31 coal miners have been killed on the job already this year, compared to 5 at this time last year, 11 at this point in 2004, 13 at this date in 2003 and 12 at this time in 2002. And the problem shows no sign of abating. At this rate, we're heading toward the highest number of coal mine fatalities in 20 years, at time when we had over 60% more coal miners than we have today.

The underground carnage has occurred at a time when the job of Assistant Director of Labor for Mine Safety has been open. The position had been held during Bush's first term by former mining executive David Lauriski. Lauriski resigned in November 2004, and in September 2005 Bush nominated Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Stickler has spent his career in the mining industry, mostly as a mine manager, and as Director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety from 1997 to 2003. He was head of the Bureau during the 2002 Quecreek Mine flood that trapped 9 miners who were eventually rescued.

No one who has read the news reports on Mine deaths can do other than wonder what the removal of of mine inspections under Bush has done to kill miners.

This is another case of placing incompetents in charge of critical government agencies, like Michael Brown at FEMA. It takes a while to show up, but the results appear in the death statistics after a while.

Do we really need Republicans running government? How many have to die to show that their brand of ignorance selfishness and egotism simply won't do to run the government of a modern nation?

We need experts, not ideologues running government agencies. The mine companies and other being regulated don't like it, but their calculus is different. They don't mind more deaths if it saves money. Miners tend to disagree.

I'm on the miners side.