Litigation

Will Mine Blast Probe Pinpoint Blankenship?

By Peter Hardin

Can blame be assigned personally to Massey Energy Chairman and CEO Don Blankenship in the deadly explosion at Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia?

That’s the question that writer Michael Shnayerson frames in a Vanity Fair article headlined, “The Truth About Don Blankenship.” Shnayerson, who wrote the 2008 book “Coal River,” offers some details about Blankenship’s direct and hands-on management style in the article but defers judgment to government investigators about blame for conditions at Upper Big Branch.

“Did Appalachia?s most notorious coal baron sign off himself on the decision to not worry about coal-dust build-ups and ventilation problems with deadly methane?” Shnayerson asks. He says these were “the very same issues that caused the fire at Aracoma” (a Massey mine) that killed two men.

A Blankenship memo about the high importance of running coal aided prosecutors  in concluding that Massey violated safety standards, and “Aracoma pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges.”

The article presents details about Blankenship’s hands-on style, including his helicopter visits to Upper Big Branch, a red phone in a manager’s office “with a direct line to Mr. B,” and requirements that Blankenship clear even the smallest purchase orders.

Blankenship is best known to Gavel Grab readers for spending  $3 million in 2004 to help elect a state Supreme Court justice. His coal company went on to benefit from two critical votes by the justice to overturn a massive jury award against it; the U.S. Supreme Court, in last year?s Caperton v. Massey decision, required the justice to disqualify himself  and pointed out the ?serious, objective risk of actual bias? arising from such a large campaign expenditure.

Shnayerson offers a vivid description of Blankenship at the Vanity Fair article’s outset, describing what national reporters to West Virginia have discovered that state residents already knew:

“Don Blankenship is the Snidely Whiplash of coal, a larger-than-life figure so swaggering and creepy that his each next outrageous claim as chairman and C.E.O. of Massey Energy makes wonderful copy.”

You can learn more about Caperton v. Massey, and about efforts taken in West Virginia and elsewhere to shield judges from big special-interest spending, in Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 19, 2010 (boomark / email).