As if on cue more news is coming out that shows how the government has let business say and do things that aren't good for the US public's health or overall working conditions.
Federal safety officials were negligent in their approval of work plans for a Utah coal mine that collapsed in August 2007, leaving nine dead, a Labor Department report concluded Monday.
The report does not reach conclusions about the cause of the collapse at the Crandall Canyon mine, which killed six miners and three would-be rescuers. But it found officials of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration could not demonstrate the agency did "everything appropriate" to protect workers when it approved a plan for the risky mining technique used at the site.
That technique, known as "retreat mining," is a process in which pillars of coal that support the roof of a mine chamber are removed one by one, allowing the roof to collapse behind miners. Investigators were concerned the mine operator pressured officials for permission to use the process.
"MSHA's actions and inactions, taken as a whole, lead us to conclude that [the administration] lacked care and attention in fulfilling its responsibilities to protect miners," the Labor Department inspector general's office reported.
"MSHA could not show how it analyzed roof control plans, the criteria it measured the plans against, the rationale for approving the plans, that the plans were properly implemented or that the plans continued to protect miners over time. These deficiencies evidence the agency's serious and systemic lack of diligence in protecting miners, and we do not believe it is misleading to use the term 'negligent.' "
My guess is the MSHA couldn't show it did anything because it didn't do anything. You can't show what you haven't done.
But that's not all. The FAA again is found to be falling asleep on the job:
Federal aviation regulators have issued a safety alert about a major aircraft-maintenance provider they contend supplied substandard landing-gear parts for hundreds of Boeing widebody jetliners around the world.
Issued a week ago in the midst of various high-profile U.S. government investigations of unrelated maintenance lapses, the Federal Aviation Administration's notice details more than 300 instances when an AAR Corp. unit shipped "unapproved" parts for use on Boeing aircraft in recent years. The agency asserts the landing-gear parts didn't comply with maintenance manuals and one of its mandatory safety directives from 2001.
Although the alert isn't one of the FAA's highest-priority, most-closely tracked safety announcements, critics are likely to seize on it as one more sign that the FAA's oversight of maintenance activities is lacking, particularly because AAR is a major repair company with annual revenue of more than $1 billion.
Such complex overhauls typically require multiple inspections by both the maintenance provider and the airline before the parts are installed on aircraft cleared for flight. No accidents have been caused by the affected parts. But US Airways, an AAR customer, said it voluntarily removed several parts after one of its Boeing 757s suffered a partial landing-gear failure in October while parked at a gate in Charlotte, N.C. Federal accident investigators continue to look into the incident.
Let me go on record here as saying I hate flying. It's not that I'm scared of flying, but planes are without a doubt the most uncomfortable place I have ever been. And now it turns out that flying planes may not be that safe Just what I needed to hear.
But wait, there's more:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. needs to change its advertising to avoid suggesting its shoppers save an annual US$2,500 per family, the advertising industry's self-regulatory body said in a report Monday.
But the report accepted Wal-Mart's claim that its efficiency and size drive down consumer prices across the entire U.S. economy, generating that $2,500 savings regardless of where consumers shop.
The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus singled out what it called implied claims in the retailer's ads that consumers who shop at Wal-Mart can realize that much in savings while people who shop elsewhere do not.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart said in response it never meant to imply the savings were only for its shoppers.
The world's largest retailer said it was pleased that NAD accepted the argument that Wal-Mart saves all consumers money through its overall impact on consumer prices.
You mean advertising might be deceptive? Say it isn't so!
So -- we now know the agency that was supposed to protect miners didn't. As a result people died.
We know the FAA has been sleeping on the job.
And we know that Wal-Mart might be, well, lying in their commercials.
Individually, these events are alarming.
Together, they are appalling.