From The Salt Lake Tribune
A lawyer for The Salt Lake Tribune and other news media on Thursday asked a federal judge to allow public access to fact-finding procedures by the Mine Safety and Health Administration into the Crandall Canyon mine disaster.
Michael O'Brien argued that the First Amendment and court precedent require interviews being conducted by an MSHA panel be open. ......
The Tribune and other news outlets - including CNN, The Associated Press and the Deseret Morning News, as well as the Utah Media Coalition - filed suit Monday against U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao for access to the fact-finding meetings.
The media asked to be allowed to observe the proceedings, based on a federal court ruling stemming from the 1984 Wilberg mine disaster. That ruling held the MSHA investigation should be open to the public.
MSHA is claiming that making the investigation public "could cause information to become distorted". But it's recently been that revealed that concerns about the mine's safety had been ignored and workers were afraid to push the issue because of reprisals. Could this be the beginnings of an attempt to cover up MSHA's role? The House Committee on Education and Labor held an oversight hearing to hear the family's complaints. From CNN
The company that operated the Crandall Canyon mine in central Utah valued "production over safety," said Cesar Sanchez, brother of miner Manuel Sanchez.
Manuel Sanchez, who had been a miner for 17 years, had asked for a meeting to discuss his safety concerns, his brother said, without elaborating.
"He said the mine safety was not right," Cesar Sanchez said.
Sanchez was among four relatives who testified that those who died in the collapse had been concerned about mine safety, but were reluctant to push too hard for fear of losing their jobs.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) called the collapse a "preventable tragedy". No wonder MSHA doesn't want these hearings made public. The video of the hearing is below:
The collapse appeared to be a "preventable tragedy," he said."In late August, we requested a comprehensive list of critical documents and communications from both Murray Energy Corporation and the Department of Labor to help us with our independent investigation," Miller said. The department oversees the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA.
"I regret to say that neither the department nor the company has been fully cooperative with us to date. They have yet to comply with many of the basic requests for information," Miller said. The Department of Labor has created additional problems by cutting staff, hiring officials from the coal industry, failing to move decisively to require miners to be provided modern wireless communications and underground rescue chambers, and failing to track mine operators' compliance with rescue plans, he said.
Cutting staff, hiring insiders etc., that's the SOP for the Bush Administration. And it looks like they are trying to trying to keep their secrets like the Bush Administration too. But slowly, and I do mean slowly, some parts of the media are starting to come around and stand up to the machinations. Hopefully, for the sake of the families touched by this mine disaster and others, this WILL be made public. It's inconceivable that an investigation into a disaster that killed not once but TWICE wouldn't be made public.
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