03-24-06,10:50am

Recent reports from the Associated Press and The New York Times, among others, highlight the government’s failure to collect fines from corporations involved in serious wrongdoing and the Bush administration’s track record of reducing or simply assessing nominal fines for coal mine safety violations.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA’s) recent announcement that it had assessed another round of fines for safety violations in 2005 at International Coal Group’s Sago Mine in Upshur County, W.Va., where 12 coal miners died Jan. 2, raises a couple of questions:

1. Will the money ever be collected?

2. Is the Bush administration just covering its behind against the growing backlash about its workplace safety enforcement record?

These latest fines are for 43 of the 208 safety violations cited in 2005. They total $105,840 or an average of $2,460 a violation. That is a significantly higher average than previous fines at Sago.



For example, inspections in the final three months of 2005, including a Dec. 21 inspection less than two weeks before the deadly explosion, found 46 safety violations at Sago, including 18 classified as “significant and substantial.” The proposed fines for the major safety violations totaled just $2,286 or about $127 for each significant and substantial violation.



In 2004, Sago received 68 safety violation citations with a total fine amount of $9,515 or $140 each.



Let’s rephrase the questions:

1. With these fines that are nearly 20 times higher then previous penalties, is MSHA showing a tougher, new enforcement philosophy, or is it simply a cynical public relations ploy to turn down the heat on the agency’s cozy relationship with coal companies?

2. When the public clamor dies down, will these latest higher penalties suddenly shrink to near nothing or will they even be collected at all?

Just asking.