This quote from an article in today's Washington Post catches my eye:
"The story of 2010 is not that nothing happened after the BP spill, or after the coal-mine explosion that killed 29 in West Virginia on April 5. It's that much of the reaction has focused on preventing accidents -- on tighter scrutiny of rigs and mines -- rather than broader changes in the use of oil and coal."
While the major issue in the article is the failure of environmentalists to use incidents to provoke wider change, I want to talk today about the "miner" issue. I haven't even heard that much of that scrutiny is happening, particularly with respect to the coal mine incident. This US government website says that from 2001-2005 an average of 30 people died each year in coal mines, but 65 died in 2007. 41 have died so far this year in coal mines and another 11 in metal mines.
Given that we're so reliant on coal, it seems likely that the mining companies are getting decent returns on their investments. I'd like to see a little more pressure from the government on companies to turn some profits back to investments in safety! I wonder how the free market contingent feels about OSHA and MSHA. Some West Virginians, for example, often have few economic alternatives, so they can't easily turn down mining jobs- the mining companies are monopsonists (i.e. the only buyers) for people selling their labor. Those are problems with the market process that the government should correct!
