No, he is no such thing. And neither is the CDM. U

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From The Charleston Daily Mail:

Violations of health and safety standards wouldn't produce state citations and fines, either. Mine operators would receive "compliance assistance visit notices." And West Virginia regulators wouldn't have authority to write safety and health regulations. Instead, they could only "adopt policies ... [for] improving compliance assistance" in the state's mines.

Those and other significant changes in a new industry-backed bill would produce a wholesale elimination of most enforcement of longstanding laws and rules put in place over many years — as a result of hundreds of deaths — to protect the health and safety of West Virginia's coal miners.

Opponents are furious about the proposed changes but also fearful that backers of the bill could easily have the votes to push through any language they want. Longtime mine safety experts and advocates are shocked at the breadth of the attack on current authorities of the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training and the Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety.

There are a surprising number of people who think this is a good idea, just as there were a surprising number of people that thought The Man On The Golden Throne was going to wave his magic 3-iron and bring back an industry that died of a thousand wounds.

People, of course, will die if this becomes law, and they won't be the people who lobbied for it, and they won't be the people who voted for it. They will be the people who voted for the people who voted for it, and nothing will stop them from dying.

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