The Failing Mine Safety and Health Administration

An article in the Wall Street Journal talks about the faulty Mine and Safety Health Administration.

According the the Labor Department's inspector general, the administration has failed to toughen up regulations for mines. There hasn't been an a single mine that has been added to the list of "having patters or violation," despite the numerous mines that have clearly violated safety regulations.

This could be due to the competing interest of the company, therefore influencing the agenda of this agency. "The report noted that it took the agency 13 years to finalize pattern-of- violation regulations. The agency then failed to set reliable standards for determining when violations at a particular mine should trigger tougher enforcement," but it didn't. After this report, the Mine and Safety Administration are making a lot changes.

I find this particularly disturbing. Mining is a dangerous industry, so regulators should feel obligated to tighten up their policies; the safety of the miners should be their main concern, and if a company fails to do that, they should be penalized. In class, we were talking about ethics and to hear that the regulators are actually the ones who aren't doing what they are suppose to do. They are setting a bad example, so maybe that's why the there's so much corruption in the energy industry?