Robert Murray, center, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., embraces Dave Canning, left, and Mike Glassom, right, two miners in charge of drilling bore holes into the Crandall Canyon Mine, during a news conference northwest of Huntington Utah, on Sunday, Aug, 26, 2007.
updated March 09, 2012 at 5:59 PM
...In documents (click here) filed in federal court in Salt Lake City Friday, attorneys for Genwal Resources Inc. noted that while it agreed to plead guilty to two counts of violating mandatory health and safety standards and pay the fine, the company can withdraw the agreement should the court not accept the plea....
It doesn't get worse than Murray Mining. He has been paying off Republicans for decades to effect federal law. Boo, hoo, boo, hoo, hand the man a crying towel.
...Government mine inspectors have issued 325 citations against the Utah mine since January 2004, according to federal Mine Safety and Health Administration online records. Of those, 116 were what the government considered "significant and substantial," meaning they are likely to cause injury....
...Murray Energy Corp.'s political action committee has been an active contributor to GOP candidates.
The Murray Energy Corp. Political Action Committee has given more than $155,000 to Republican candidates, including $30,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, since 2005, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The committee donated to Republican Senate candidates such as George Allen in Virginia, now presidential candidate Sam Brownback of Kansas and Katherine Harris of Florida. It also gave to Ohio Republican Reps. Deborah Pryce and Patrick Tiberi, and Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich. The committee did not give to any Democrats during the same period, FEC records show.
In 2004, Murray gave $15,000 of his own money to the NRSC, and he gave $10,000 in 2006. Among other donations in the last election cycle, he gave $2,000 to Ohio Republican Sen. Mike DeWine's unsuccessful re-election campaign....
...The companies controlled by Murray Energy include The Ohio Valley Coal Co.'s Powhatan No. 6 mine in Ohio. The Ohio Valley Coal PAC also gave thousands of dollars to Republican causes, including $10,000 for Bush-Cheney election in 2000....
You scratch my back, I scratch yours. That is how it works in 'real life' ya know. When I say corruption, I mean corruption. With 325 safety violations Murray Mining should have been shut down a long time ago and Crandall wasn't the only one.
...Six miners died at Crandall Canyon in central Utah in the August 2007 collapse so powerful that it initially registered as a 3.9-magnitude earthquake. Another cave-in 10 days later killed two rescuers and a federal inspector. The operation was eventually called off after drilling into the mountain found no sign of the trapped men. Their bodies remain deep in the mine's catacombs....
Would anyone expect anything less from Murray Mining. It has been a corrupt and dangerous business from the day it opened. The "Rap Sheet" is as long as a mine shaft.
Prior to the collapse, the Crandall Canyon Mine had received 64 violations and $12,000 in fines
Has Murray Mining paid all their fines yet? WITH INTEREST?
...It was a public relations meltdown that prompted the chairman of the U.S. House labor committee to demand that federal officials take the helm of all future briefings on the cave-in that trapped six men in the Crandall Canyon coal mine.
But in many ways it appears to have been Murray being Murray - an eccentric, passionate, politically connected coal executive who has never shied from speaking his mind.
In his briefing, an update of the Crandall Canyon mine collapse that was carried live on national television, Murray defended the coal industry, attacked the media and railed against what he called a foolhardy crusade against global warming that jeopardized his industry and America's economy....
Murray has severe emotional problems. He turns on the anger in public to draw attention away from gross mismanagement. He is histrionic and a drama queen. His public meltdowns are suppose cause political damage to anyone that should have protected him from financial losses and from being blamed for deaths. After all he is just trying to make a living.
Bob Murray, though, prefers another description for himself: underdog.
A fourth-generation miner who grew up poor in the hills of southeastern Ohio, Murray chose mining over medical school and says he has the scars -- which he readily displays -- that come from years of toiling underground.
A simple miner, he considers himself, ("That's all I am. That's all I am.''), despite rising through the industry to become chairman of the nation's 12th-largest coal company, Murray Energy Corp. of Cleveland.
What he has become this week is the very public and complex face of the nation's latest mine disaster -- so belligerent at times that he has drawn criticism from members of Congress....
Bulldog? He reminds me of a sick cow. Tantrums. No leadership. Tantrums and handing out paychecks to make sure the mines are making as much money as possible everyday.
June 19, 2014
By Joanna M. Foster
Ohio-based Murray Energy, (click here) the nation’s largest privately owned coal company, has made good on its threat to sue over the EPA’s proposed new carbon emission rule.
On Wednesday, as the rule was being published in the Federal Register, the lawsuit against the EPA was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The suit requests that the Court issue a writ to prevent the EPA from implementing the “disastrous” carbon-cutting rule.
“This is clearly an illegal attempt by the Obama EPA to impose irrational and destructive cap-and-tax mandates, which Congress and the American people have consistently rejected,” Gary M. Broadbent, assistant general counsel and media director for Murray Energy, said in a statement. “These proposed rules will cause immediate and irreparable harm to Americans, including our citizens on fixed incomes and our manufacturers of products that compete in the global marketplace.”
BY MIKE GORRELL THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Thursday's $950,000 fine (click here) to end the disaster investigation itself was almost twice as big as the fine Murray Energy Co. paid earlier to end a criminal probe into the 2007 Crandall Canyon mine disaster.
That provided some consolation to loved ones of eight miners and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) inspector who were killed in two implosions 10 days apart at the Emery County coal mine.
But there was continued aggravation, too.
Most stemmed from the fact that, in addressing a settlement reached with MSHA to end the civil case, Murray Energy still proclaimed it was not responsible for the disaster that began Aug. 6, 2007, when the mine's walls blew in on a six-man crew deep underground. The disaster worsened Aug. 16 when another implosion ripped into rescuers clawing their way toward the trapped miners through rubble-filled tunnels, killing three more men and injuring six others.
"Had the matter gone to a hearing," said a Murray Energy statement Thursday, "[we] would have presented evidence that the alleged violations did not contribute to the cause or effect of the 2007 accidents."...
