For anyone who has yet to connect the dots between Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's history of buying judicial seats, his ability to dodge multi-million dollar lawsuits and his attempts to de-unionize and de-regulate the mining industry, a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calling for a RICO investigation into Blankenship's criminal behavior lays it out clearly.
The letter, penned by Attorney Kevin Zeese, on behalf of StoptheChamber.com and Velvet Revolution, a non-profit watchdog group, provides Holder a punch list of Blankenship's alleged illegal activity including what Zeese says is prima facie evidence of obstruction of justice, fraud and homicide.
"Massey Energy consistently sacrifices the welfare of its employees in order to boost the bottom line. The latest death of 29 miners represents the fourth fatal accident in 12 years at Massey mines. The Upper Big Branch mine has racked up 1,342 safety violations since 2005, drawing $1.89 million in fines. And, 86 of those violations were for an inadequate ventilation plan that prevents the very type of explosions that caused these deaths. Last year alone, Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine was cited for 495 violations and $911,802 in fines. So far this year, regulators have found 105 violations at the mine. Twelve of those citations were issued in the last month. The same day of the explosion, the Upper Big Branch mine was hit with two additional safety violations."
Blankenship refuses to pay these million dollar fines and cleverly avoids Massey shutdowns by tying up the courts with appeals cases.
"Mr. Blankenship has challenged hundreds of citations and refused to pay fines. Figures show that Massey tops the coal industry in challenging citations. Last year, Massey contested 34 percent of its alleged violations, compared with the national average of 27 percent that year. Massey is contesting violations valued at $10 million, a total of 11.2 percent of all the contested violations before the commission. While Massey contests these citations, it ignores the safety violations."
Massey, the parent company of Martin County Coal was also responsible for the October 2000 Kentucky coal slurry spill that has been characterized as the "nation's largest man-made environmental disaster east of the Mississippi," three times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill. Despite this environmental catastrophe, Blankenship was able to dodge fines, largely in part due to his ties with the GOP leadership in Congress. The letter indicates:
"After the Martin County Coal spill, then-U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, who oversaw the MSHA, "put on the brakes" on an agency investigation into the spill by placing a staffer to her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), in charge. In 2002, a Labor Department judge levied a $5,600 fine. "In September 2002, Massey's PAC gave $100,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee," which McConnell had previously chaired. Overall, McConnell has been one of the top recipients of Massey-related contributions, collecting $13,550 from Massey-connected contributors. Blankenship's contributions to Republicans helped him place allies at the highest levels of the federal mine safety system during the Bush administration. Massey COO Stanley Suboleski was named a commissioner of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission in 2003 and was nominated in December 2007 to run the Energy Department's Office of Fossil Energy. Suboleski is now again on the Massey board. After being rejected twice by the Senate, President Bush put one-time Massey executive Dick Stickler in charge of the MSHA by a recess appointment in October 2006. In the 1990s, Stickler oversaw Massey subsidiary Performance Coal, the operator of the deadly Upper Big Branch Mine, after managing Beth Energy mines, which "incurred injury rates double the national average." Bush named Stickler acting secretary when the recess appointment expired in January 2008."
Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Recently, the U.S. Chamber spent over $1 million sponsoring a Labor Day Tea Party Rally. Massey has given vast amounts of money to the U.S. Chamber while refusing to pay for the safety of his employees. But that's no surprise as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent millions to elect State Supreme Court judges who will rule the bench in favor of big business. Zeese notes:
"As a board member of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Blankenship has a direct hand in how they spend their money. And over the last decade, the Chamber has spent over $50 million to elect judges that agree with its ideological position. For instance, in Michigan, one of the judges the Chamber spent millions to elect in 2000 was Judge Robert Young of the Michigan Supreme Court. Young has paid back the Chamber and Blankenship in spades, even co-signing an amicus brief in 2009 to the Supreme Court in the Caperton v. Massey case. Mr. Blankenship's involvement in Chamber expenditures amounts to a quid-pro-quo and a conflict of interest."
In 2004 Blankenship, under Massey, spent $3 million to elect West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals Judge Brent Benjamin during an appeal to overturn a huge damage award for forcing competitor Harman Mining Corporation into bankruptcy. Not surprisingly, Benjamin ruled in favor of Massey. Zeese states:
"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co that Mr. Blankenship's spending $3 million on a successful campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently opposed him "had a significant and disproportionate influence" on the election's outcome. It reversed the decision that favored Massey."
Blankenship's trend of discriminating against union workers and ignoring government regulation is part of a broader policy by the U.S. Chamber to protect the coal and oil industry from government restrictions. The Chamber has spent billions of dollars on behalf of big business lobbying to loosen government controls on safety and pollutants. So it comes as no surprise that Blankenship put his employee's safety second to company profits. Zeese writes:
"It is clear from the above list that Mr. Blankenship 1) does not want his mines to be regulated, 2) does not believe that public officials in Washington have a right to regulate the safety of his mines, 3) will avoid and ignore regulations, citations, and fines, 4) considers the bottom line and profits as more important than the safety of his workers, 5) treats worker deaths as a cost of business and a public relations problem that must not be allowed to affect the stock of Massey, 6) sees politicians and judges as mere pawns who can be bought to protect him and his company, 7) considers the Chamber of Commerce, with its army of lobbyists and lawyers, and unlimited funds, as his front line of defense to any problem he or his company faces, and 8) will make broad use of fear, intimidation, threats, suits and even violence to avoid scrutiny."
Zeese warns Holder that Blankenship will further evade scrutiny if the mine deaths are treated as a Labor Department administrative or investigative issue.
"The only way that Blankenship will be stopped is through the criminal justice system. He has thumbed his nose at regulators, paid off politicians and judges, and views himself as entitled and above the law. The time has come to stop this man's crime spree, which has left a wide path of death and destruction, broken families, and fatherless children. There can be no more business as usual with ineffective agency investigations, fines that are written off or ignored, and legislation that can be circumvented. The reason we have law enforcement is to protect us from harm, and we have now officially called on the Attorney General to stop Don Blankenship before he kills again."
Erich Pica: Difficult Questions in the Wake of a Coal Tragedy
Published by Steve Spires
Open Secrets
April 16, 2010 6:10 PM
"...Numerous federal politicians have accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from individual and PACs associated with Massey Energy, which operates the Upper Big Branch mine where an explosion tragically killed 29 miners earlier last week, as Capital Eye previous reported.
Yesterday, President Barack Obama condemned the management of Massey Energy, charging that the owners "put their bottom line before the safety of their workers."
The company has a history of safety violations and run-ins with federal regulators, but claims it has made major improvements. The company accused its critics of "rushing to judgment for political gain or to avoid blame" in a statement issued yesterday.
With Massey employees contributing nearly $37,000 to federal politicians and committees so far this cycle, might any of the beneficiaries of this cash share Obama's harsh view of the company?
The bulk of this sum comes from $30,400 contribution to the National Republican Senatorial Committee last year from Massey CEO Don Blankenship.
The NRSC has no plans to part ways with it..."
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/04/beneficiaries-of-massey-energy-camp.html
Most responsible parents do their best to keep hazardous materials away from their children, but accidents DO happen, sometimes due to inattention or even negligence.
Operating a business, that is as unsafe as underground mining, can not be made safe only by the owner, the CEO or the Chamber of Commerce anymore than a prison can if the inmates are the only guards.
When people are injured on a job, the last thing the boss should do is hire a team of lawyers to cover up a multitude of 'sins', in the name of profit, only to find out that it would have been more profitable to spend a few dollars and make the job site safe initially.
Covering up by paying meager fines, tying up the legal system with endless litigation and other tactics, to avoid prosecution, is very good example of when the RICO law should be used.
Sadly, but not coincidentally, the Obama admin is almost as mobbed up with the corporations as Bushco was. Here's a HuffPo article about our attorney general: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/lawyer-for-chiquita-in-co_b_141919.html
So we'll see if Blankenship ever pays the price for his crimes.
It's how cheaply they can be bought.
Disgusting business. McConnell is going to be fighting rearguard for a while. Meanwhile, I am hoping Blankenship does some time.
Blankenship and Massey Energy need to be brought to justice for their complicity in the death of these miners.
He had a huge hand in allowing the conditions that killed those miners and in sustaining, even aggravating them, by telling his mine supervisors to take workers away from mine safety work and to make all workers work only on producing coal. There is a document he wrote that proves this. The document actually caused him to lose a lawsuit brought by a miner's family.
He also prevented union membership for his miners by threatening (three times) to close the mine if they voted for union activity there. 70% of his workers favored the union, but they voted it down rather than lose their jobs.
This is a creature - a monster of the first order.
Locking him up is the only protection society has from him.
Blankenship For Homicide
29 Dead In West Virginia Mine Because Of Chamber Policies
Congress Members Must Order Halt To Contact With Chamber Lobbyists
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/stop_chamber/images/Press_Release.pdf