The Ashford Zone Blog

(1) West Virginia coal firms raised $275,000 for Bush.

(2) The Bush administration cut 170 positions from federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and has not proposed a single new mine-safety standard or rule during its tenure.

(3)  Only 1 miner survives West Virginia coal mine incident.

Now, am I suggesting that Bush is responsible for the Sago explosion?  Of course not.  He’s no more responsible for that than he is for creating a hurricane called Katrina, which subsequently causes levees to break. 

But both incidents should provide an abject lesson in what happens when people who disdain government are put in charge of a government.

UPDATE:  Here’s the quote of the day, although it is nearly five years old.  It comes from a Washington Monthly article in their Jan/Feb 2005 edition:

At the annual meeting of the West Virginia Coal Association a few months after Bush’s inauguration, the group’s director told 150 industry executives, “You did everything you could to elect a Republican president. [Now] you are already seeing in his actions the payback.”

Well, it doesn’t look good for the 13 miners, according to the latest stories.

Whether they survive or not, it’ll take months — maybe years — to determine what caused the mine mishap and whether it could have been prevented.

But right now, one wonders if this could have been avoided.  Scott Shields finds an interesting article from the New York Times (August 9, 2004):

In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.

Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official – Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease….

Safety and environmental regulations often shift with control of the White House, but the Bush administration’s approach to coal mining has been a particularly potent example of the blend of politics and policy.

In addition to Mr. Lauriski, who spent 30 years in the coal industry, Mr. Bush tapped a handful of other industry executives and lobbyists to help oversee safety and environmental regulations.

In all, the mine safety agency has rescinded more than a half-dozen proposals intended to make coal miners’ jobs safer, including steps to limit miners’ exposure to toxic chemicals. One rule pushed by the agency would make it easier for companies to use diesel generators underground, which miners say could increase the risk of fire.

In an interview, Mr. Lauriski said that the proposals that were canceled were unnecessary. He said the agency had instead concentrated on other measures "we believed were important to pursue."…

The clock is now ticking to the moment when Bush says, "You’re doing a heckuva job, Lauriski".

Not long ago, I made an off-the-cuff comment that Bush must have a lot of brush at his Texas ranch, since he seems to be clearing it much of the time.

Apparently, the Bush devotion to brush-clearing is pathological:

On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush’s idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.

If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch — or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.

President Bush, shown clearing cedar at his Crawford, Tex., ranch in 2002, has not lost his enthusiasm for the task during recent trips to what aides call the Western White House.

Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush.

This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw’s buzz.

For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession.