Just before the July 4 recess, Representative George Miller, Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced the Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010. Recent explosions at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine, Tesoro’s Anacortes (WA) refinery, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, and U.S. Steel’s coke oven in Clairton (PA), highlight the life-threatening hazards that American workers face on a daily basis. Despite these hazards—and the myriad other less serious or even chronic hazards that don’t make headlines—workers continue to do their jobs day in and day out.
Contrast these workers’ diligence with that of certain members of Congress, who, in advance of today’s committee vote on the Miner Safety and Health Act, have said that they want to hold off on legislating until they see the official reports on the causes of the Upper Big Branch explosion. Sure, official reports on that explosion will reveal important details about exactly what caused that particular disaster, notable for its severity and harrowing death toll. But as MSHA proved with its five-day “inspection blitz” of 57 underground coal mines in April, miners continue to work in conditions that we know are hazardous. The problem isn’t that we don’t understand the hazards that lead to explosions or other dangerous conditions, it’s that companies are choosing not to comply with the standards that would protect their workers. In just three days, MSHA issued more than 1,500 citations for violations of federal mine health and safety standards. MSHA had to order a halt to operations at six mines in Kentucky because of rampant violations. Clearly, economics—not workers’ safety—is the driving force for these companies’ decisions about compliance with federal law.
The Miner Safety and Health Act is designed to alter the current economics of noncompliance, where the penalties for violating worker safety protections are too often seen as just the cost of doing business. Among other things, the law would increase penalties, force mining companies to fix workplace hazards while they contest citations, and give whistleblowers a right to sue employers on their own behalf when the government’s whistleblower protection agency works too slowly. The bill is a systemic response to systemic problems. Waiting for official reports about the specific causes of one disaster will only shift the debate toward piecemeal reforms that will leave millions working in the same dangerous conditions without the full array of new protections afforded by the bill as introduced.
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Matt Shudtz | July 21, 2010
Just before the July 4 recess, Representative George Miller, Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced the Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010. Recent explosions at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine, Tesoro’s Anacortes (WA) refinery, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, and U.S. Steel’s coke oven in Clairton (PA), highlight the life-threatening hazards […]
Holly Doremus | July 21, 2010
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Last year, I noted that the interim report of the Interagency Ocean Task Force appointed by President Obama marked a promising step toward a national ocean policy. Now the Task Force has issued its final recommendations, which the President promptly began implementing. A national ocean policy has been a long time […]
Daniel Farber | July 16, 2010
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. According to Thursday’s NY Times, Senate Democrats have agreed to include a utilities-only cap-and-trade program in their energy bill. That’s certainly not ideal — it excludes a large number of industrial sources, which limits its environmental effectiveness. The utilities-only program will also be less economically efficient, since it precludes taking advantage […]
Ben Somberg | July 15, 2010
The last time the WSJ attempted a big scoop on the Toyota story (attempting to discredit the Prius driver case in California), the article did not hold up well. This week’s story (“Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers”) has caught attention, and a response from NHTSA: the agency has “several more months of work […]
Ben Somberg | July 14, 2010
A report released in Washington this morning highlights “The Hidden Struggles of Migrant Worker Women In The Maryland Crab Industry.” The paper, by Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. and the International Human Right Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, is focused mostly on immigration policy issues (a little outside our […]
Holly Doremus | July 13, 2010
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. As he had promised, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday issued a new decision memorandum suspending certain deepwater drilling operations.Monday’s decision replaces the moratorium that the federal District Court in New Orleans enjoined on June 22, and which the Fifth Circuit declined to reinstate last week. As I made clear in […]
Rena Steinzor | July 13, 2010
This post was written by CPR President Rena Steinzor and Michael Patoka, a student at the University of Maryland School of Law and research assistant to Steinzor. Last October, the EPA proposed to regulate, for the first time, the toxic coal ash that sits in massive landfills and ponds next to coal-fired power plants across […]
Holly Doremus | July 9, 2010
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit heard arguments Thursday on the Obama administration’s request that it stay the District Court’s injunction of the 6-month deepwater oil development moratorium, and by a 2-1 vote quickly rejected the request. The moratorium halted any new drilling, and the granting of any new permits […]
Victor Flatt | July 8, 2010
On Tuesday, the EPA released its long awaited rule to replace the Bush era Clean Air Interstate Rule, invalidated by the DC Circuit in 2008’s North Carolina v. EPA. There are many things that could have been different or improved, but given the EPA’s need to get a rule out quickly to replace the existing rule, […]