Mine Tragedies Persist

This news about a mine collapse on top of a mine collapse, killing three more workers in Utah, is really horrible. The mine company owner, a caricature of an old-time robber baron, has been doing everything he can to evade responsibility for the disaster, which has now been compounded. Arianna writes:

Murray's role in all this is much darker than that of the compassionate boss given to delivering script-ready lines like, "Conditions are the most difficult I have seen in my 50 years of mining" and "There are many reasons to have hope still" (as he has been quoted saying in two other Times stories).

He is a politically-connected Big Energy player whose company, Murray Energy Corp., has 19 mines in five states, which have incurred millions of dollars in fines for safety violations over the last 18 months.

Probably won't see that in the TV movie.

Murray has also continued to insist that the mine collapse was the result of an earthquake -- a claim disputed by seismologists.

Yet he's become a carnival barker throughout this whole thing, giving continuous press conferences where he cheerleads and pontificates. He's liable and has been for some time, and so is the mine safety system in this country that is horrendous. The guy the Bush Administration picked to oversee the Utah disaster is has a Murray-like record as a mine owner. We have foxes guarding the hen house. It's criminal.