Thursday, January 05, 2006

Bush Ignored Explicit Warnings in 2002 About Mine Safety from Democrats

SirotaBlog: "The tragic news about the death of 12 mine workers in WV has brought up all sorts of questions about the Bush admin's record protecting mine workers. Back in '02, I was working for the House Appropriations Comm. At the time, there was a big mining accident in Western Pennsylvania. Pres Bush held a big photo-op to pretend like he cared - but he never responded to the fact sheet that House Dems put out questioning why he had made so many cuts to mine safety programs. The Chicago Tribune covered this info w/a big story on 8/6/02. Now, after another bad accident (and info that the mine received over 200 safety violations in '05 alone), we find out that since the last accident in 2002, not only did the Pres ignore calls by Dems to address the situation seriously, but he actually enacted more cuts to mine safety programs and weakened mine safety regulations. The 2002 fact sheet and the Chicago Tribune article shows that Bush knew full well that mine safety was suffering - and now we know he didn't do anything about it, to tragic consequences. They can put out GOP hacks and admin spokespeople to deny this reality - but the facts are there. Here's hoping Dems are able to force an investigation, as requested by Reps. George Miller (CA) and Major Owens (NY) - it's high time the WH answer for its negligence.
Posted by Tina :: 12:24 AM :: 3 Comments:

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