MINE SAFETY AGENCY NOT COLLECTING FINES
Topic: Yesterday's News?, Once in a Lifetime, Mine Safety & Health Administration29. January 2008 |
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Last fall the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration got into deep trouble for its lack of oversight at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah. Richard Stickler, the Acting Assistant Labor Secretary in Charge of MSHA, has subsequently promoted increased inspections, citations and fines as signs of a reborn, robust agency. But a story Sunday by Ken Ward, a staff writer for the Charleston, West Virginia’s Charleston Gazette, unveils that for years those fines have not been collected. Read Ken Ward here.
understandinggov.org
During the first year that Bu$hco was in power MSHA had Stephen Webber, a person with a criminal record serving as director of assessments. When he retired MSHA replaced him with Neil Merryfield, a person from the industry who had been personally assessed a huge fine for a multiple accident at his mine. It stands to reason that penalty assessments are in the toilet.
comment at 30. January 2008