So, it seems that back in August of 2004 the New York Times reported on the current administration’s efforts “to rewrite coal regulations is part of a broader push by the Bush administration to help an industry that had been out of favor in Washington.”
From the opening of the story…
In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.
Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official – Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease.
The reintroduction of the coal dust measure came after the federal agency had abandoned a series of Clinton-era safety proposals favored by coal miners while embracing others favored by mine owners.
Some might see that as letting the fox watch the henhouse. I might be among them.
But wait! There’s more!
But environmentalists were worried that some Bush appointees were too close to industry executives. They said they were particularly unnerved by the involvement of the deputy interior secretary, J. Steven Griles, who had been a lobbyist for mining interests before taking the department’s No. 2 job.
Hey, now it’s two foxes watching the henhouse! It’s a thing that makes you go, “Hmmm.” And that’s all I’m saying. For now.
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