{"id":2992,"date":"2018-03-09T16:55:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T21:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=2992"},"modified":"2018-04-17T12:14:24","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T16:14:24","slug":"dispatches-from-front-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2018\/03\/09\/dispatches-from-front-lines\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatches From The Front Lines of the Battle For Workplace Safety: Short Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"More Freedom and More Catastrophic Fertilizer Explosions:<\/strong> After a catastrophic ammonium nitrate explosion at West Fertilizer exploded in 2013 killed 15 people, injured 130 more and destroyed much of the town of West, OSHA discovered that the facility was not covered by OSHA’s Process Safety Management and had therefore not been inspected since the mid-1980s. The reason was the little known “retail exemption” that categorized the fertilizer facility as a retail establishment, exempted from the PSM standard, despite the thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate and ammonia it contained. Working under a Chemical Safety and Security Executive Order issued by President Obama, OSHA set out to fix the flawed definition of a retail establishment, but the Agricultural Retailers Association<\/a> successfully lobbied Congress to stop OSHA from regulating such establishments.\u00a0 Last month, the ARA award its Legislator of the Year award to Oklahoma Senator James Lankford for leading the effort to defend “the industry’s freedom to operate,” as well as their freedom to blow up workers, emergency responders and towns.<\/p>\n

Coal Baron Report:<\/strong>\u00a0 You gotta feel for them. Coal barons who kill miners are a persecuted, sorry, disliked, persecuted bunch of sad sacks. And when you’re down, the only thing you can do is blame the government or God for killing your miners, run for the Senate and sue anyone who reminds the public of your past misdeeds. We’ll see how that works out for them.<\/p>\n

Coal Baron No. 1, Don Blankenship, who was CEO of the company that experienced the\u00a0devastating explosion in the Upper Big Branch coal mine that\u00a0killed 29 men in 2010, and spent a year in jail, is running for the Senate<\/a> in West Virginia. Blankenship blamed the Mine Safety and Health Administration for causing the explosion, despite the fact that all of the reports on the explosion blamed Mr. Blankenship’s negligence. Surprisingly, he actually has some support in West Virginia from those who blame President Obama for the decline of the coal industry. But others, like\u00a0Judy Jones Petersen whose brother, Dean Jones, was killed in the disaster, told Blankenship \u201cYou took 29 lives away from families like mine. Shame on you for coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

But shame doesn’t seem to be on the mind of Blankenship, nor of Murray Energy Corporation owner Bob Murray, who owned the Crandall Canyon mine where 6 workers died in a collapse in 2007. Murray blamed an earthquake for the collapse, despite the fact that not even the Bush administration’s investigation found any evidence that God used an earthquake to smite the miners.\u00a0 Murray, like another politician in the news lately, is notoriously sensitive to any public criticism and\u00a0he\u00a0sued comedian John Oliver<\/a>\u00a0who did a hilarious piece on Murray on\u00a0Last Week Tonight.\u00a0<\/em>Murray Energy had sent a cease and desist order to the show when he heard that Oliver would be highlighting Murray’s safety record and opposition to coal dust regulations.\u00a0 The bad news for Murray is that a\u00a0West Virginia judge dismissed the defamation lawsuit<\/a> filed by Murray against\u00a0Oliver.\u00a0 Murray is considering appealing to the West Virginia Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

You can watch the Oliver’s hilarious take-down of Murray here:
\n