If the Big Branch disaster were a terrorist deed, Republicans would be jamming the hopper with legislative antidotes. But dead miners? No rush, although it’s clear that existing regulations are porous, underenforced and in crying need of repair by a responsible Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/opinion/19mon2.html?_r=2&th&emc=thPublished: July 18, 2010
If a sense of urgency is needed beyond the deaths of 29 coal miners last April in West Virginia, Congressional lawmakers better heed the latest news from the Upper Big Branch mine where the explosion occurred. A company electrician has admitted that he was ordered to bypass a methane detector alarm when it kept interrupting the flow of coal.
The highly risky silencing, first reported by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, occurred two months before the tragedy and four miles away. But a grand jury is reportedly looking into a possible pattern of detector-tampering, an outlawed practice that the company, Massey Energy, firmly denies.
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