Shelley Wellons Moore Capito is an American politician and retired educator serving in her second term as the junior United States senator from West Virginia,a post she has held since 2015. A member of the Republican Party,Capito served seven terms as the U.S. representative from West Virginia's 2nd congressional district from 2001 to 2015. The daughter of three-term West Virginia governor Arch Alfred Moore Jr.,she is the dean of West Virginia's congressional delegation.
Joseph Manchin III is an American politician and businessman serving as the senior United States senator from West Virginia,a seat he has held since 2010. A moderate member of the Democratic Party,Manchin was the 34th governor of West Virginia from 2005 to 2010 and the 27th secretary of state of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005. He became the state's senior U.S. senator when Jay Rockefeller retired in 2015 and has since been West Virginia's only congressional Democrat. Before entering politics,Manchin helped found and was the president of Enersystems,a coal brokerage company his family owns and operates.
For most of the 20th century,the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary United States government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction,processing,use,and conservation of mineral resources. The Bureau was abolished in 1996.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is a large agency of the United States Department of Labor which administers the provisions of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 to enforce compliance with mandatory safety and health standards as a means to eliminate fatal accidents,to reduce the frequency and severity of nonfatal accidents,to minimize health hazards,and to promote improved safety and health conditions in the nation's mines. MSHA carries out the mandates of the Mine Act at all mining and mineral processing operations in the United States,regardless of size,number of employees,commodity mined,or method of extraction. David Zatezalo was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health,and head of MSHA,on November 30,2017. He served until January 20,2021. Jeannette Galanais served as Acting Assistant Secretary by President Joe Biden on February 1,2021 until Christopher Williamson took office on April 11,2022.
Massey Energy Company was a coal extractor in the United States with substantial operations in West Virginia,Kentucky and Virginia. By revenue,it was the fourth largest producer of coal in the United States and the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia. By coal production weight,it was the sixth largest producer of coal in the United States.
Donald Leon Blankenship is an American business executive,political candidate,and criminal. He was chairman and CEO of the Massey Energy Company—the sixth-largest coal company in the United States—from 2000 until 2010 when an explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine resulted in the death of 29 workers. He was imprisoned for 1 year for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards.
The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969,U.S. Public Law 91-173,generally referred to as the Coal Act,was passed by the 91st United States Congressional session and enacted into law by the 37th President of the United States Richard Nixon on December 30,1969.
International Coal Group,Inc. (ICG),is a company headquartered in Teays Valley,West Virginia that was incorporated in May 2004 by WL Ross &Co for the sole purpose of acquiring certain assets of Horizon. ICG eventually operated 12 mining complexes in Northern and Central Appalachia and one complex in the Illinois Basin. In November 2005,ICG had a stock offering on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2011 ICG became a subsidiary of Arch Coal,Inc in 2011.
The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion on January 2,2006,at the Sago Mine in Sago,West Virginia,United States,near the Upshur County seat of Buckhannon. The blast and collapse trapped 13 miners for nearly two days;only one survived. It was the worst mining disaster in the United States since the Jim Walter Resources Mine disaster in Alabama on September 23,2001,and the worst disaster in West Virginia since the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster. It was exceeded four years later by the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster,also a coal mine explosion in West Virginia,which killed 29 miners in April 2010.
Safety and Health in Mines Convention,1995 is an International Labour Organization Convention. It was adopted at the 82nd International Labour Conference (ILC) of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO is an agency under the United Nations that deals with international labor issues while promoting workers rights and opportunities. One of ILO's goals is to hold annual labor conventions to create legally binding contracts for participating nations to ratify. During the Safety and Health in Mines Convention (C176),it was recognized that there are inherent hazards in the mining workplace,and a need for a convention was mandatory.
Evan Hollin Jenkins is an American politician and judge. He served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia,joining the Court in 2018 and serving as chief justice in 2021. He resigned from the court on February 4,2022. He served as a U.S. Representative from West Virginia from 2015 to 2018. He is a Republican,having switched his party affiliation from Democratic in 2013.
Joe Main is an American government official who formerly served as the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health and head of the United States Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration. He was nominated to serve the position by Barack Obama and took office after being confirmed by the United States Senate on October 21,2009.
The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5,2010 roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County,West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed. The coal dust explosion occurred at 3:27 pm. The accident was the worst in the United States since 1970,when 38 miners were killed at Finley Coal Company's No. 15 and 16 mines in Hyden,Kentucky. A state funded independent investigation later found Massey Energy directly responsible for the blast.
The 2016 West Virginia gubernatorial election took place on November 8,2016,to elect the Governor of West Virginia,concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election,as well as elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. The primaries were held on May 10.
James Conley Justice II is an American businessman and politician who has served as the 36th governor of West Virginia since 2017. Justice was once a billionaire,but his net worth had declined to $513.3 million as of 2021. He inherited a coal mining business from his father and built a business empire with 94 companies,including the Greenbrier,a luxury resort in White Sulphur Springs.
American Consolidated Natural Resources,previously known as Murray Energy,is a US-based coal mining company. It is the fourth largest coal producer in the country,and the largest privately-owned coal company. Founded in 1988 by Robert E. Murray,the company filed for bankruptcy in 2019. The company gained notoriety following the collapse of the Crandall Canyon Mine in 2007,following a number of citations and fines for safety practices at the site.
Andrew R. Wheeler is an American attorney who served as the 15th administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2019 to 2021. He served as the deputy administrator from April to July 2018,and served as the acting administrator from July 2018 to February 2019. He has been a senior advisor to Governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin since March 2022. He previously worked in the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels,representing coal magnate Robert E. Murray and lobbying against the Obama Administration's environmental regulations. Wheeler served as chief counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and to the chairman U.S. senator James Inhofe,prominent for his rejection of climate change. Wheeler is a critic of limits on greenhouse gas emissions and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
David Patrick Ross is an American environmental and land-use lawyer who served as the Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2018 to 2021. Prior to his EPA role,he was a Wisconsin assistant attorney general and director of the state's environmental-protection judicial unit.
Michael L. Dourson is an American toxicologist and Director of Science at the nonprofit organization,Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment. He was formerly a senior advisor to the Administrator of EPA,and prior to that,a professor at the Risk Science Center at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Prior to joining the University of Cincinnati,he was founder and president of the nonprofit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment. Earlier in his career,he was employed by the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office,among other assignments.
J. Davitt McAteer is an American lawyer,author,and activist from Fairmont,West Virginia. McAteer was appointed to the position of assistant secretary for the Mine Safety and Health Administration from 1993 to 2000 under President Bill Clinton. Throughout his career,McAteer has been an advocate for safe working conditions for miners,particularly in the coal industry. After the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster of 2010,where an explosion caused by negligence led to the death of 29 miners,McAteer Served on Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's independent investigation panel to determine the cause of the explosion. McAteer is the author of "Monongah:The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster".
