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Remember that energy production company disaster that caused a lot of employee deaths? No, not the one in the Gulf of Mexico, the other one, in West Virginia, at the Upper Big Branch mine owned by Massey Energy. Turns out the negligence involved there by the employer may have been so great that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation:
Federal prosecutors said Friday they are investigating whether there was “willful criminal activity” by the company that operates the West Virginia coal mine where 29 workers died in an accident last month.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of West Virginia said in a letter that investigators are looking into possible criminal conduct by the mine’s operator, Performance Coal, and its directors, officers and agents.
The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, asks the Labor Department to hold off pursuing dozens of civil cases against Performance for alleged mine safety violations.
Performance is a subsidiary of Massey Energy Co., which owns the Upper Big Branch mine.
This is all fallout from a desiccated regulatory structure, battered by 30 years of nearly unbroken anti-government ideology in the executive branch. The mine had around 500 citations over a four-year period, and not only did they fail to improve the work environment, they fought out the citations to a draw. Some of these violations are three years old and more, without being fixed. The civil fines still in process have been put on hold until the DoJ probe is completed, as they could form the basis for the criminal charges.
Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, will face a Congressional committee this Thursday.
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Oh, I do hope so! Now to see if DOJ will carry this through–and how many years it will take.
Obama/Dems should be out there letting people know that this is what happens when people try to shrink government to the point it’ll do down the drain. Loudly and clearly.
David –
Glad this is happening, but you need to be a little more careful with headlines. What Massey is facing now is a criminal investigation. Only later will it be determined if they are to face criminal charges.
Obama will never let justice play out here. The man allowed his voice and image to be used by coal industry tv ads hawking “clean” coal. Like their spokesman. That was a first for a US President, no? TV pitchman.
Expect a slap on the wrist for Massey in the end. I expect it to be comparable to the sham wow justice Congress and our corporate SCOTUS allowed Exxon for the Valdez disaster.
It’s all bullshit theater. Nobody is gonna be held accountable.
Our entire system is corrupt, and there is no accountability or punishment. If the police suspected someone of stealing, guess what, they would arrest that person and haul them down to the station for questioning. Questioning suspects is part of the investigation.
Massry, BP and company killed people due to their ‘intentional’ negligence. Why have we not seen the executives of these companies hauled off to the police station?
Kangaroo Hearings at congress are a meaningless farce. It seems you can: Illegally take our country to war, Iraq (bush, cheney, and donald – the real ‘axis of evil’ Deregulate the oil industry – cheney and chums Deregulate the financial industry – the list s too long, but many of them now work for Obama Blow- up the economy – the list is even longer And guess what happens? NOTHING. All you have to do is show up at some toothless hearing, squirm a little, and then go back to collecting your big pay check, and business as usual. We do not live in a democracy. It take a billion dollars to run for the JOB of President, how is that democratic.? The game is rigged, and we get to vote for candidates funded by special interests.
We get a vote every few years, and the rest of the time we are kept in the dark. The Fed, our monetary policy, “SECRET” because it is in OUR BEST INTEREST. Our Foreign Policy, SECRET, because it is in our best interest. Does anyone believe they are working for us? While there are a few good men and women in politics they are in the minority, and have no hope – under the current system – to pass any meaningful legislation. Press time with the President is a joke. Most of the journalist dare not ask hard hitting questions, because they will probably lose their post.