When Mitch McConnell decided that coal baron Don Blankenship was a threat to Republican Senate chances in West Virginia, he started a war that has seen Republicans (accurately) calling candidate Blankenship “despicable” and Blankenship returning fire in the form of commercials labeling McConnell “Cocaine Mitch.” But when the only thing Blankenship was threatening was the lives of his workers and the environment of everyone near his mines, ProPublica shows that Mitch McConnell was happy to help.
Three hundred million gallons of coal slurry, the viscous mix of mud, coal waste, and chemicals left as a by-product from purifying coal, broke through the inadequate buffer that separated the 68-acre holding pond of the Martin County Coal Corporation’s Big Branch Refuse Impoundment from the surrounding mine. The dark sludge poured through two miles of mine tunnels — a miner had left the area just moments earlier — before oozing out of a mountainside opening into the hilly landscape of eastern Kentucky.
That giant slurry spill came courtesy of Blankenship in 2000. The giant spill, which fouled hundreds of miles of waterways, and affected the water supply for dozens of communities, might have been been the end of Blankenship and his company … but for a coal-mining miracle.
A team of investigators from MSHA was on its way to alleging eight separate violations against Massey that could have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines and laid the legal basis for criminal charges of willful negligence.
But in the midst of their work, the presidency fell to George W. Bush following the Florida recount and Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore. “I don’t think I have ever felt better, including my own election victories, than the night of the Supreme Court decision,” McConnell said later.
And together, Bush and McConnell saved Blankenship—making it possible for him to go on killing. Ten years later, Upper Big Branch Mine mine exploded, killing 29 miners. In between, Blankenship’s mines racked up more than 3,000 serious safety violations, at least two deaths, and $2 million in fines. Because Mitch McConnell and George W. Bush kept Blankenship and his “run coal at all cost” business in business.
The day of Bush’s inauguration, the head of the MSHA investigative team, Tony Oppegard, got a call from superiors alerting him that the Bush administration was declining to approve the six-month extension that had been arranged for him so he could finish the investigation.
Every family member of those miners killed at Upper Big Branch, and everyone affected by the Big Branch slurry spill, should send Mitch McConnell and Don Blankenship both a note. Let them know you remember.
Writer Alec MacGilliss shows how Bush’s team, extra-ironically headed by then Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao (who Blankenship now refers to as McConnell’s “Chinaperson”) acted fast to help Don Blankenship out of his 300-million-gallon oopsie.
The team had 30 people left to interview, but the new manager told them they had time for only six. “We were told, ‘Boys, you need to close out your investigation,’” Spadaro told me in an interview for the book. “We said, ‘No, we’re not done.’ He said, ‘You’re done.’”
The case against Blankenship and his company, Massey Energy, was pared back, pared back, pared back. Until a spill many times larger and more damaging than the Exxon Valdez resulted in a fine of … $5,600. Even though the people affected by the spill were in McConnell’s home state, he had bigger concerns.
Over McConnell’s career, his fifth-biggest source of campaign contributions was Peabody Energy, the largest coal company in the world. Between 1997 and 2000, when he led the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the coal industry gave $584,000 to the group, making it one of the group’s staunchest supporters.
Don Blankenship was a big Republican fundraiser and contributor. He was someone who not only brought in big money, but had demonstrated that he would open his pockets to pay for advertising to support Republican candidates—so long as they supported him.
Now that Don Blankenship is a threat to the Republican Party, the party wants him to sit down. But so long as Blankenship was only killing people by the dozens and causing major environmental catastrophes, McConnell had his back.
What’s more important: one Senate seat, or the lives of working class people? Mitch McConnell and Don Blankenship may not agree on everything, but they agree on the answer to that question.