Weekly Pulse: Rotten Eggs, Drowsy Doctors, and Expensive Insurance

Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul simply said with Republicans believe – that this country should focus on promoting corporations and those corporations should have privileges but not responsibilities. The Republican policy, apparently, is “Mine Baby Mine” and “Drill Baby Drill;” taxpayers will forgive “accidental” worker deaths and pay to clean “accidental” spills.

BP, Massey Energy and Tessoro are all using their safety award plaques like shields to deflect accusations of recklessness. The disconnect between safety prizes and dead workers has enabled these corporations to characterize the three explosions at their facilities in April that killed 47 workers as accidents, random events for which no one really is to blame. That’s why these pseudo-safety awards are so destructive. No agency or association should ever again deceive the public or delude workers by handing awards to corporations that fail to accomplish comprehensive hazard avoidance by meeting the standards of process safety management.

Last week, Massey Energy and its CEO Don Blankenship repeated their contention that although 29 of their workers died in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion earlier this month, they emphasize safety and no problems were found in the mine just before the blast. Blankenship suggested that the disaster was caused by nature or man. This bogus excuse — that workers died at their own hand or God’s — is a common dodge managers use to evade responsibility. It’s a lie.