Safety Agency Never Assessed Thousands of Fines—Including Mine Where Worker Died

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/01/28/safety-agency-never-assessed-thousands-of-finesincluding-mine-where-worker-died/

Since 2000, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has failed to issue more than 4,000 fines for violations of mine safety laws—including a mine where a Kentucky coal miner died in 2005.


According to a report published yesterday in the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette, MSHA inspectors had issued citations for safety violations in all the cases, but the fines were never assessed within 18 months of the citations. The 18-month time limit was spelled out in a 1999 MSHA policy memo.



Agency officials acknowledged the failure to assess the fines. Richard Stickler, acting head of the agency, told the paper:

There is no doubt that there is a problem. Any violation that we write and don’t asses a penalty for, that’s a big problem.

But Stickler and other MSHA officials offered no explanation how so many fines—according to MSHA’s own figures—could slip through the cracks. Between 1996 and 2000, the agency reports that about 400 penalties had never been assessed.


Apparently, the missing fines would have remained uncovered if it hadn’t been for a recent series of articles in the Louisville Courier-Journal exploring the lack of state action in the Dec. 30, 2005, death of miner Bud Morris at a mine in Harlan County, Ky.


FULL story at link.

[Submariner]

1. An EVIL presidency turns a blind eye to the common person

Bush is a petulant world class loser to the bitter end. No mine safety, no EPA regs, no Endangered Species Act, no clean water act, no clean air act, no fucking nothing!