BUSH DOE APPTMT: FROM COAL, WITH TROUBLE

In the aftermath of the Crandall Canyon mine disasters last summer (see THE DOWNSIDE OF COAL), it was revealed that the Bush administration had demonstrated a pattern of putting men with questionable safety records in charge of mine safety. Is this another disaster-in-the-making for the United States of fossil fools?

Bush energy nominee worked for company with record of safety, environmental violations
Samira Jafari, December 17, 2007 (AP via Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

WHO
Stanley C. Suboleski, former executive for Big Coal company Massey Energy and nominated by President Bush as Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy (DOE)

During Suboleski's tenure, Massey Energy's environmental and safety record has not been without blemishes - like landscape-destroying mountaintop shredding and stream-defiling sludge dumping.

WHAT
Massey Energy, one of the biggest US coal companies, faces huge federal fines for thousands of alleged environmental violations during the period that Suboleski was the chief operating officer and then an independent contractor for the company. Suboleski’s duties at DOE would include the development of clean-coal technology and other fossil-fuel projects.

WHEN
- Suboleski was chief operating officer of Massey Energy from 2001 to 2003. He continues with the company as an independent contractor.
- The alleged violations by Massey Energy came throughout Suboleski’s tenure.
- The Suboleski nomination was made the week of December 14.

WHERE
- The problems for Massey Energy are associated with its West Virginia and Kentucky coal operations.
- Massey Energy is based in Richmond, Va.

WHY
- Massey Energy may have to pay as much as $2.4 billion in federal fines for some 4,000+ alleged environmental violations.
- The White House sees Suboleski’s experience as “expertise in coal.”
- Suboleski was a mine engineering professor and worked for Massey from the 1980s. He served 4 years as president of Massey’s United Coal Co.

Robert Murray, owner/operator of the Crandall Canyon mines that caved in twice last summer, had an abhorrent safety record and could have been stopped - but not by the men then appointed to watch over mines.

QUOTES
- J. Davitt McAteer, former director, Mine Safety and Health Administration: "An ideal person is someone who can look at both sides of the issues and suggest way that we might move forward with fossil fuels and still decrease harm to the environment…I'm not sure that job criteria and Mr. Suboleski's background are a good match."
- Blair Jones, White House spokesman: "He has decades of experience in the energy sector, serving in a number of private and public roles…"