Litigation

Sen. Byrd to Massey?s Blankenship: ?Shame!?

By Peter Hardin

Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia scolded Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship at a Senate hearing, saying the company has final responsibility for its workers’ health and safety.

Shaking a finger at Blankenship, Byrd declared, according to an AOL News article, “I cannot fathom how an American business could practice such disgraceful health and safety policies while simultaneously boasting about its commitment to the safety of its workers. I can’t understand that. The Upper Big Branch mine had an alarming — an alarming — record.” Byrd added, “Shame!”

Blankenship, however, insisted that “Massey does not place profits over safety.”

Giving his first testimony since the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion in West Virginia,  the worst mining disaster in four decades, Blankenship “came out swinging,” the New York Times reported. He asserted that his company was “about average” for 23 miner deaths in the preceding decade, and he characterized the company as a leader in innovating for safety.

Blankenship’s $3 million spending to elect a West Virginia judge in 2004 figured centrally in a landmark Supreme Court decision last year, Caperton v. Massey, about the risk posed by excessive special-interest spending in judicial campaigns.

You can read more about Caperton in Gavel Grab. You also can visit Justice at Stake’s online Caperton v. Massey resource page, which includes a JAS amicus brief to the high court.

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 21, 2010 (boomark / email).