Litigation

Blankenship to Get Grilling Before Congress

By Peter Hardin

CEO Don Blankenship of Massey Energy Co. will be thrust into the spotlight this week when he is called as a witness at a U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing on the rising backlog of disputed mine safety violations.

Through a subsidiary, Massey owns the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, recently the site of the worst mining disaster in four decades.

Since the blast, Massey has come under scrutiny, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, for a high rate of safety violation findings by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Blankenship spent $3 million in 2004 to help elect a state Supreme Court justice. That led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in Caperton v. Massey, that large campaign expenditures could create an unacceptable potential for bias. You can learn more about Caperton from Gavel Grab, and from Justice at Stake?s resource page about the case.

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 17, 2010 (boomark / email).