What are our state Senators — Charles Trump and Craig Blair — doing on Valentine’s Day?
One thing they are doing is sponsoring legislation at the behest of the coal industry.
Charles Trump
Trump and Blair are sponsoring legislation — SB 357 — that would weaken the state’s coal mine safety laws.
As detailed by Ken Ward Jr. in the Charleston Gazette (Coal Lobby Bill Removes Longstanding Safety Protections), “the bill would remove several longstanding safety protections for West Virginia’s coal miners.”
“It would eliminate a labor-industry panel that reviews underground diesel equipment to ensure that miners are safe from toxic fumes,” Ward reported. “It would push back, from 500 feet to 1,500 feet, the maximum distances work areas can be from tracks that miners might have to use to escape in an emergency. It would remove language that ensures workers are kept in safe locations during potentially dangerous moves of mining equipment from one work area to another.”
Senator Craig Blair
And it would weaken a prohibition against using metal sideboards on shuttle cars — a prohibition that was included in West Virginia state law because the sideboards were blocking the view of the shuttle car operators and miners were being crushed to death as a result.
In a message to his constituents last week, Trump wrote that “to the special interests invested in the status quo, the coming changes are unwelcome and the special interests are resisting.”
Wait a second Charles.
The coal industry is the most powerful special interest in West Virginia.
You introduced SB 357 on their behalf.
The changes in that bill are not unwelcome to the coal barons.
You are doing their bidding. They are not resisting.
They love you for it.
Say that again?
They love you for it.
Happy Valentine’s Day.