Mine owner's sketchy ties to Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao

The collapse of the Genwal mine in Utah was an easily prevented tragedy.  From the first hours after yesterday's cave-in, Robert Murray, the owner of the mine, has been out in front, speaking to the press and throwing maps of the mine tunnels against the wall to show their exact plan to find the miners, as Murray puts, it "dead or alive."

Unfortunately, the outspoken Murray hasn't been such a fan of mine safety in the past.  Buried in the CNN article is this revealing reality:

Inspectors have cited Genwal Resources, owner of the mine, for 30 violations in 2007, MSHA records show. Recommended fines in the 10 cases where penalties have been leveled so far range from $60 to $524.

The mine was cited at least 300 times total in the past three years -- with 118 of those citations for violations serious enough to cause death, records show.

Murray knew about his mines' safety violations.  So much so that he thought he could name-drop his way out of the problems.  Unfortunately, it didn't go over so well:

Millionaire coal magnate Bob Murray knew the name to drop in September 2002, when Mine Safety Health Administration inspectors confronted him about safety problems at his mines: Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Murray, a large man with a fierce temper, is a huge donor to Republican senators. McConnell, R-Ky., rose through the ranks by raising money for those senators. And McConnell is married to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, whose agency oversees MSHA.

Shouting at a table full of MSHA officials at their district office in Morgantown, W.Va., Murray said: "Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss," according to notes of the meeting. "They," Murray added, pointing at two MSHA men, "are gone."

Ahem.  Well now.  Glad we got that out of the way.  That outburst maybe helps explain why he called Al Gore a "shaman of gloom and doom", and maybe also why Murray is frantically trying to blame an earthquake for the collapse of the mine, when in reality, Murray is trying to distract from his will to protect the workers who are deep in his mines (and that the 'earthquake' was the collapse of the mine).

And as for his connection to McConnell, look no further than his wife: Elaine Chao, Bush's Secretary of Labor.

Few industries were happier to see Chao bring that philosophy to the Labor Department than mining, which has given more than $400,000 to McConnell's Senate campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In early 2001, industry magazine Coal Age listed the various mining executives invited to shape the agency's agenda and wrote that they were "benefiting from high-level access to policymakers in the new administration."

At the Mine Safety and Health Administration, Chao named Utah coal operator David Lauriski as director, assisted by former McConnell aide Andrew Rajec. (Lauriski resigned in 2004, citing family concerns, after the Labor Department's inspector general questioned no-bid MSHA contracts that went to firms connected to him.)

Murray Energy could and should have prevented the collapse of this mine.  It's unfortunate that political money and cronyship won out over the safety of the six miners still trapped in Utah.

UPDATE:  Murray Energy has its own PAC, which has given $360,000 to Republican candidates.

•  Murray was a disaster at his "CYA" press conf.

  today.  It's everybody else's fault--not mine!!!

  Same old repub meme!!!!

  by Phil S 33 on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 06:54:53 PM PDT

  •  so true.

    Murray's doing anything and everything to distract from his own lack of will to protect his own workers.

    by thsisnotanexit on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 05:34:21 AM PDT

•  sonofabitch is muzzling the families

  Officials of Murray Energy Corp., which owns and operates the Crandall mine, told the estimated group of 75 family members and friends not to speak with members of the media, who had gathered in large numbers outside the senior center. That led to several flare-ups between officials and reporters.

  http://www.sltrib.com/...

  by skywriter on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 06:55:23 PM PDT

•  Premature

  This is premature.  We still don't know for sure exactly what caused this collapse.

  by brouski on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 06:57:59 PM PDT

  •  But We Do Know This Mine Was Unsafe

    It had many citations for safety violations and paid fines (some still owing).

    Thank you, thsisnotanexit. I didn't know about the Murray/McConnell connection. Not that I needed one more reason to detest McConnell. I hope that KY will unseat him come '08.

    by Empower Ink on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 07:07:24 PM PDT

  •  Science versus the rich fat cat

    Scientist types say:

    ... the pattern of ground-shaking picked up by their instruments around the time of the accident Monday appeared to have been caused not by an earthquake, but by the cave-in itself.

    Murray says:

    "It was a natural disaster. An earthquake. And I'm going to prove it to you."

    and, Step-1 of exactly what not to do in crisis management:

    Murray lashed out at the news media ...

    by BigiMac on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 07:19:22 PM PDT

•  I heard an NPR piece

  on this guy. Not much of an NPR fan but I could appreciate their willingness to show Murray as an unrepentant, "ain't my fault" asshole. It was also very interesting to hear geologists discuss the difference between man-made and naturally occurring seismic events. Fuck him...It was no earthquake.

  by mikolo on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 07:39:43 PM PDT

•  comparison of U.S. mine disaster with Canada

  I heard Tom Hartmann on Air America this morning compare a mine disaster in Canada with one in the U. S.  The Canadian mine followed union rules and had sealed off rooms in the mines with food and air in each.  They all came out alive.  (What I have said is from memory and I think it is right).

  by realtime on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 07:40:52 PM PDT

•  i saw this murray character trying to order

  the removal of the helicopters, blah, blah, blah. No emergency here, this asshole said. if i had been in the same room with him, i'd been happy to explain to him the dire consequences for those miners is a fxxxxxx emergency. major asshole!

  by stodghie on Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 08:16:22 PM PDT