Coal Money Stops Safety Bill

The Los Angeles Times and Center for Responsive Politics have produced a model expose of the mining industry’s use of campaign money and high-dollar lobbyists to kill mine safety legislation in Congress. The story documents the close correlation of campaign contributions and votes by Members of Congress, and the timing of when the donations were made. In painful detail, it shows why “a year after 29 coal miners were killed in West Virginia, a safety bill has failed and a backlog of safety cases has grown.”