Pat Toomey, the Republican running for the open Senate seat from Pennsylvania currently held by retiring Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter (?-PA), says on his website that "Washington is threatening new and heavy costs and burdens on businesses", and that government instead should be "cutting taxes and decreasing regulation." This has apparently attracted the interest, and money, of a multimillionaire coal executive who normally confines his political activity to West Virginia.
Don Blankenship is the Chairman and CEO of Massey Energy, a job which paid him $17.8 million in 2009. Massey was in the news this past April when an explosion at their Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 mine workers. Although the investigation is still ongoing, it appears that high levels of methane gas inside the mine may have led to the explosion. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) had repeatedly fined Massey for violating safety regulations, including those requiring proper ventilation to prevent the buildup of methane. Presumably these are among those pesky regulations that Toomey wants to decrease if he's elected to the Senate.
According to the Federal Election Commission
website, Blankenship gave a personal contribution of $2,000 to Toomey's campaign in September 2009. He is also a director of the National Mining Association, whose two political action committees COALPAC and MINEPAC have also contributed to Toomey.
Blankenship has a history of involvement in his native West Virginian politics. In 2004 he spent $3 million to help defeat state Supreme Court justice Warren McGraw. He was photographed vacationing on the French Riviera with another state judge, Elliot "Spike" Maynard, who later voted to set aside a $76 million judgement against Massey Energy. Having lost his re-election to the court, Maynard is running this year for Congress against Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall. Blankenship, of course, is listed among Maynard's contributors.
Blankenship's newfound interest in Pennsylvania campaigns may have something to do with Massey Energy's expansion into the state. In May 2010, Massey got permission to buy the Mathies coal mine near Pittsburgh, which is now the first Massey-owned mine in Pennsylvania. Given Massey's record of safety and health violations, many people living near the Mathies mine are concerned about this takeover.
Blankenship claims he cares about the safety of coal miners, as well as creating more mining jobs. If that's so, then you would expect the coal miners to follow his political priorities. However, the United Mine Workers of America labor union, through its PAC, has contributed not to Toomey but to Joe Sestak, the Democratic House representative from the Philadelphia suburbs who defeated Specter in the primary. It seems that the mine workers know that Sestak is more likely to be on their side than Blankenship's friend Toomey.
Hopefully, when Pennsylvania voters go to the polls on November 2, they will remember the song "Which Side Are You On?", written by the wife of a UMW coal miner in Kentucky, and vote against the candidate funded by a coal CEO who profits while his employees are killed on the job.
