News outlets are appealing a judge’s ruling over a gag order in ex-Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship’s criminal case.
Blankenship was CEO when the Upper Big Branch Mine in southern West Virginia exploded, killing 29 men in 2010.
The Associated Press,NPR and other outlets appealed the ruling Friday in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Among those outlets are National Public Radio and Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting. It asks the court to make court documents public.
In January, U.S. District Judge Irene Berger ruled that much of her gag order was necessary to keep prospective jurors unbiased. Berger made opinions and orders public, but kept most documents sealed. She continued restricting attorneys or relatives of victims from discussing the case with reporters or releasing court documents.
Blankenship is charged with conspiring to violate safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch.
In his first year back as president of West Virginia University, Gordon Gee faced shrinking state funding and a high-profile student death on campus. He spoke recently with us about those challenges, and about his time serving on the board of directors for coal company Massey Energy.
Gee served as chairman of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee of Massey Energy’s board of directors before he resigned in 2009. Less than a year later, an explosion killed 29 men at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine.
Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship has been indicted on federal charges associated with Upper Big Branch and is awaiting trial. Gee declined to comment on the indictment.
“During my service on the Massey Board, that was clearly the focus on our board, was on safety and safety measures,” Gee said. “Saying that, it is probably inappropriate for me to comment on the indictment itself because I’m not engaged in it, I’m not familiar with it. I think this is a matter for the federal courts and a matter for them to resolve.”
Violations at Upper Big Branch were routine and widespread, according to Governor Tomblin’s independent investigation panel.
Its report says, “Massey Energy engaged in a process of ‘normalization of deviance’ that, in the push to produce coal, made allowances for a faulty ventilation system, inadequate rock-dusting and poorly maintained equipment.”
Credit Mine Safety and Health Administration
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Mine Safety and Health Administration
Upper Big Branch memorial
Gee said that safety was “always our number one concern” during his time on the board, and that they were “working very hard to solve the problems we had,” he said.
“These are large companies. I ran Ohio State University, which is the largest university in the country, and West Virginia University, which is one of the very large, complex institutions, and I don’t know everything that goes on there. So you have to have that sort of trusting relationship of having good people doing good things,” Gee said.
Changing the Campus Culture
Gee also said he was working with students to change a campus culture that focuses too much on binge drinking.
Earlier this week, WVU student Richard Schwartz was charged with conspiracy to commit hazing in connection with the death of another student, 18-year-old Nolan Burch.
Credit Twitter
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Former WVU student Nolan Burch, who died last fall after a fraternity party
Burch died from apparent alcohol poisoning after a fraternity party last fall. Schwartz was his so-called “big brother” at the Kappa Sigma fraternity.
Gee said the problem is not unique to WVU.
“This is not a West Virginia issue. This is a national issue,” he said, citing a study showing more than 1,800 college students die nationwide from alcohol-related causes every year.
“We cannot condemn the many because of the excesses of the few. And all too many institutions do that, so they come down with these hammer-like rules.”
He says his administration is having a healthier conversation around the issue with students: “You’re adults, this is your university, you develop strategies to make it the kind of place you want it to be.”
WVU’s Freedom Agenda
WVU and other universities face another round of cuts in this year’s state budget– although less than the last two years.
Gee said he’s found “strong receptivity to funding higher ed” in the new Republican-controlled Legislature, and hopes the cuts will come to an end.
This year, another priority is what Gee called the school’s “Freedom Agenda.” He is seeking increased flexibility in purchasing, the state’s PEIA health insurance plan, and other state rules.
“Let us do good things with the limited resources that we have. Right now, we are very limited in our ability to be creative,” Gee said.
Credit Scott Finn
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WVPB’s Beth Vorhees and WVU President Gordon Gee
“West Virginians love West Virginia”
Gee spent part of the last year traveling to all 55 West Virginia counties. He said he learned something important: “West Virginians love West Virginia.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this. That, of course, is a great strength, our people.
“Whether they find themselves in Singapore or Shanghai or Keokuk, Iowa, they want to return or they want to stay here. So we have to build on that,” Gee said.
He said WVU has a role in not just educating students, but developing the sort of economy, social and cultural opportunities that make them want to stay in West Virginia.
Coal mine safety was on the minds of Democrats in the house Tuesday; that issue was House Bill 2011, dealing with deliberate intent. The measure doesn’t address mine safety standards, but those opposed to the bill said it will hurt miners.
Emotions were high on the floor as House Bills 2005 and 2011 were discussed for passage.
House Bill 2005 relates to alternative programs for the education of teachers.
Delegate Amanda Pasdon, the House Education Chair, stood to explain the bill.
“We know that there’s many counties around the state that do not have a qualified pool of applicants,” Pasdon said, “There are classrooms without teachers, there are about 300 classrooms that do not have a highly qualified educator in them right now, which means they have someone filling a role, but they are not highly qualified. What this bill does is try to expand that pool of options for our counties. This is not a mandate from Charleston; this is a tool in the toolbox for our counties to give them the opportunity to look outside of our normal, traditional methods and hire in instances that they could find someone in their community that could fit their need.”
Many Democrats stood to oppose the bill saying it was cheapening the process many teachers have to go through to acquire their degrees.
Delegate Nancy Guthrie stood to oppose the bill saying the focus should be raising the wage for teachers.
“I was hoping that we would be able to count on all of us rallying together to fight against cuts for children and families as we did last year, to fight against cuts for higher education, as we all believe we should do, and yet what we’re doing in a tight budget year is something that every teacher that I’ve received letters from has said please don’t do,” Guthrie said, “I think it undermines the credibility when what we really ought to be doing is knuckling down and trying to prioritize our budget, so that we give teachers the pay raise that they need so that we can reduce the shortages that we’ve got.”
Delegate Pasdon stood again to support the bill in her closing remarks.
“We have over 700 teaching vacancies, as you’ve heard many times, through many references and speeches on this floor today, that number is from the Department of Education’s 2014 report,” Pasdon said, “We have over 300 teachers teaching outside of their field of study. This isn’t anything against teachers, for those teacher that have stood with us and worked hard to get their certification and their education, thank you, because we don’t pay you enough, and we don’t appreciate you enough. This isn’t against teachers, this is, as the gentleman from the 7th put it, about 280,000 little lives that are depending on us to do the right thing for them. It is our responsibility to make sure that we put the most effective educator in front of them to give them the best foundation that they could possibly have to take on the role of their dreams of the 21st Century.”
House Bill 2005 passed 60 to 35.
The next bill that caused a lot of debate on the floor was House Bill 2011, another priority tort reform bill. It’s called the deliberate intent bill…meaning an injured employee must provide proof that an employer deliberately intended to do something to cause the injury.
Delegate Shawn Fluharty opposed the bill.
“This is a public relations ploy, that’s what this is,” Fluharty said, “and you want to call it tort reform, but I think that’s a wrong assertion to make, it’s really safety reform, because what it’s doing is creating an environment that is created the likes of Sego, creating the environment of protectionism, making it impossible to bring a claim; protectionism of the likes of Don Blankenship, who currently is facing criminal indictment. We should just call this thing the Don Blankenship Protection Act, if you really want to get down to it.”
Numerous Democrats stood to oppose the bill calling the bill grotesque and impossible for employees to be protected. Delegate Barbara Fleischauer stood and said she had 29 reasons to oppose the bill and read the names of the 29 miners who died in the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in 2010.
By the end of the debate, Delegate John Shott, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Democrats are mischaracterizing the bill. He went on to point out that the disasters at Sago in 2006 and the Upper Big Branch disaster, had they happened today, those miners would be protected under the bill because of the immense about of evidence of violations.
Shott then held up an advertisement to further his point.
“This is an advertisement online from a local lawyer, and here’s what he says, if you are injured on the job under certain circumstances, you may be eligible for a deliberate intent and workplace injury case, which is unique to the state of West Virginia, which is unique to the state of West Virginia. Well ladies and gentlemen, we can remain unique and continue to kiss our kids goodbye, our grandkids goodbye, or we can get in line with the rest of the country, compete with our neighbors, and have a reasonable deliberate intent statue. We are not abandoning the idea that there are situations in which employers do extreme things that will injure our employees, that is preserved in here, but we do need predictability, we need certainty and we need to be in the mainstream of this country,” Shott said.
House Bill 2011 passed 59 to 38. It now heads to the senate for consideration.
Families of the 29 West Virginia coal miners killed in a 2010 explosion are asking a federal judge to lift a gag order in the criminal case against the mining company’s former chief executive.
The Charleston Gazette reports that lawyers for the estates of 14 of the victims filed the motion Thursday. The families want the gag order lifted so they can testify freely to West Virginia lawmakers about bills that would narrow the rights of workers to sue employers over workplace injuries and deaths.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger in Beckley imposed the gag order the day after former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was indicted on mine safety and security charges. Earlier this month, Berger denied a motion by five news organizations to remove the gag order.
Federal regulators issued 199 citations during impact inspections of U.S. mines in November.The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration conducted the…
Federal regulators issued 199 citations during impact inspections of U.S. mines in November.
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration conducted the inspections at 10 coal mines and six metal and nonmetal mines.
The agency said Monday in a news release that it ordered the shutdown of belt lines at Regent Allied Carbon Energy’s No. 2 mine in Wise County, Virginia, and issued 28 citations, along with seven orders. Federal inspectors found accumulations of combustible coal, coal dust and coal fines in violation of the mine’s ventilation plan.
The agency says the mine also lacked adequate fire and dust suppression.
The impact inspections began in 2010 after the Upper Big Branch mine explosion in West Virginia killed 29 miners.
The ACLU is supporting news organizations challenging a gag order in an ex-coal executive’s criminal case.
In a brief supporting the motion, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia Foundation says the order is prior restraint on speech. The organization filed the brief Thursday and distributed it to media outlets Friday.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger’s order restricts parties or victims from discussing former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship’s case with reporters or releasing court documents.
The Associated Press, The Charleston Gazette, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting are asking Berger to drop or modify the order.
Blankenship is charged with conspiring to violate safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch Mine, where a 2010 explosion killed 29 men.
