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Mr. Massey, I’d like to thank you for taking the time. Absolutely, son, happy to do it. I do want to remind you, that we have an agreement: you use this interview in its entirety- no editing, splicing, none of them voiceovers or layering pictures over my face to twist my words. I know how you mainstream media people do. Yes, it’s in the release you signed. We can use the entire interview or none of it. That’s right. I just think it’s time my side of this story got out there, without your media filters on it. Okay. We’ll start with a softball. You’re Chairman and CEO of Masterson Energy. There’s been some ribbing about your company trading on the New York Stock Exchange under MEE. Entirely accidental. If I’d been thinking about it, sure, I’d have tried to get that, but I wasn’t. “Masterson” came from a combination of the names of my family and my grandfather’s original partner, Jeff Peterson, and it just happened that was the acronym we got when the company went public. Might as well leap headlong into some of your previous controversies. You spent about $3 million dollars founding Keeping Innocent children out of Dangerous Situations, KIDS. The purpose for the organization, basically, was spending money to defeat the reelection of State Supreme Court Justice McGraw. Critics have accused you of basically buying the election, and the support, of his successor, Justice Brent. I’ve been in West Virginia a long time- I grew up in Mingo County- and I’ve seen enough to know you don’t buy a politician, because once they’re in office, there’s very little incentive for them to stay bought- especially a judge with a twelve year term. But you can replace a politician who proves to be a problem for your interests. That’s the American way. I’m sorry, did you just say the American way is bribing and threatening judges and politicians? Are you stupid or something? That’s not what I said. I said taking care of yourself, financially, that’s the American way. And that’s all I was doing. So then you’d support the recent Supreme Court decision overturning most campaign finance laws preventing corporate spending in political campaigns. Yes. But haven’t you in the past said that government and corporations are responsible for creating an environment hostile to American business, one that favors moving jobs overseas, and doesn’t removing that barrier to political donations increase the size of the problem? That’s the problem right there. If the courts and the government didn’t have that power in the first place, they couldn’t be corrupted, and corporations wouldn’t be able to buy that influence. But haven’t corporate interests shown that they’ll act in their own interests, even unlawfully? Why do you think without regulation they’d suddenly act like responsible citizens? I think what you’re expressing is a difference in belief. You think the American people need to be protected; I think the American people can take care of themselves. If a corporation acts against the American people’s interests, I’d expect the American people to boycott, and refuse to work there. And I’d be remiss as a journalist if I didn’t bring up that issue with the photographer in Monaco. Oh that thing. I didn’t know you were that kind of reporter. But it was nothing. I was vacationing with Justice Spike Elliot, who is a friend of mine. I should clarify, that’s former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Maynard Elliot. Former, that’s right. We were on vacation, and some snoop of a photographer decided to take him some pictures. And I told him flat blank that a man sneaking in another man’s bushes with a telephoto lens was like to get himself shot at. He claimed you said shot, not shot at. Shot, shot at, I don’t see as there’s a world of difference between them. But I’m still a mite pissed at that. See, Maynard- Spike to his friends, and I been one of them for 30 years- lost his reelection bid, because of that photographer raising a stink, and people said him being on vacation with me was somehow a conflict of interests. Well, you do have court cases before the state Supreme Court on a fairly regular basis; in fact, Elliot voted with a 3-2 majority overturning a $76.3 million dollar settlement against your company shortly after that trip. You can see how that might constitute a conflict. I have a right to be a friend to any man or woman I see fit. Now, the reason we’re talking today is you’ve been under increasing scrutiny since the disaster at the Lower Big Branch mine. 29 dead. A lot has been made of your safety record, and the fact that you seem to disdain being fined. I know the safety of miners is my number one job. Like most Americans, I don’t like Washington politicians tell me how to do my job. They have no idea how to make miners safe, and the idea they care more about mine safety than me is as silly as the Earth getting warmer. Your company has the dubious honor of paying out the highest financial settlement in the industry’s history, $4.2 million dollars in fines for a fire that claimed the lives of 2 workers. Coal mining is an absolutely dangerous industry. But I always compare it to smokers. Back in the sixties, everybody smoked, because nobody thought it was bad for you- cigarette companies even found doctors who told people cigarettes were good for you. People who got hooked then, people who died from lung cancer because they smoked then, it wasn’t their fault. Mining was the same. But now we know that mining is dangerous. Now miners know about the dangers. They’re making an informed decision to work in an industry that has dangers related to it. Just this year, Lower Big Branch has been cited for an inadequate escape way plan, and accumulations of coal dust and a failure to maintain adequate air ventilation- all of which likely factor in to the explosion. And last year, the mine amassed 50 violations for willful or gross negligence- that’s “unwarrantable failure to comply” in industry parlance. Frankly, it would cost me more money to follow the safety plans more closely, than to pay the fines. That’s capitalism. It’s the same as when a car company uses equations to figure out whether lawsuits would cost more than a recall- except that here the federal government is forcing me to pay. At least in a court, a man has a fair shake to keep what he’s earned. I don’t think the federal government should be able to say how safe I should make my mine. Why should the government be able to tell me what to do with my money? If I can convince miners to work under certain circumstances, why shouldn’t I be able to do that? I think the same thing about wages. That brings up something I wanted to ask. In the winter of 2001-2001, the price of coal basically doubled, sending wages across the industry skyrocketing. You refused to match the wage increases of your competitors. Isn’t it true that keeping wages artificially low caused more than half of your veteran staff quit? That’s a market correction. We disagreed what their labor was worth. They thought they could make more money somewhere else, so they left. I thought I could pay someone less to do their job. But wasn’t the net result of that a less experienced mining crew, more likely to make mistakes and less likely to know how to mitigate a mistake once it was made? If your question is was the resulting crew less experienced, yes. If you’re asking if they were less safe, and that it was somehow my fault, no, I don’t believe that. I pay a fair wage, an honest wage. I don’t push people into my shaft with a loaded gun. They know the risks, and that’s part of the pay they get as compensation. Here’s food for thinking; let’s just say you’re right, and I can tell you’re a Democrat by the questions you ask, but let’s say you’re right, and the government ought to be regulating my business. Well, the government has been regulating us, but the explosion at Lower Big Branch happened; the government failed. By the same count, your stance that you can create safety better seems flawed as well, since you failed to prevent the explosion, too. And the flaw common in both seems to be you. Now I don’t like your tone there, boy, but I don’t want to say anything you might misconstrue, in your delicate sensibilities, as threatening, but just maybe the time and money I’d save not chasing the government’s tail could be put to use making the mine’s safer. Wouldn’t that imply, then, that you’re currently operating mines you consider to be unsafe, to the detriment of your workforce? Ain’t what I said. But it does seem to be implied. But I’m not looking to point fingers- I think as a society we make choices, and currently we’ve chosen to have a government and a court system that assigns liability and regulates dangerous situations to mitigate them. And I think it’s safe to say you take issue with that system as it stands. It stands on shaky ground. Point to me where it says in the Constitution my business has to ingratiate itself to a Mine Safety commission. Um, I’m not a Constitutional scholar, but as I understand it usually the clause referred to is the one allowing for regulation of interstate commerce. And that seems like a dodge; the Constitution is intentionally written to be broad and vague, to allow the laws created by the Congress to be both more specific and more malleable. But I’m afraid we’re verging on a political debate, here, and all that happens there is people who agree with you will like what you have to say, and people who agree with me will applaud me, and it’s a waste of your time not to talk about your business specifically. Ignoring the larger disasters, you’ve already talked about how mining is dangerous. So what do you think about some of those dangers, say black lung disease for an example, which the CDC says kills about a thousand miners a year? They say that, that’s true. I think the most of those deaths are just families looking for a payout. Because the government created the Black Lung Disability Trust, which is basically a malingerers lottery funded by a tax on coal, which hurts my business. Stats I’ve seen say about 9% of workers with 25 years of experience or more in the mining industry are diagnosed with black lung disease. Why do you think the CDC, an arm of the government, would push for deaths to be classified as caused by black lung when the government could just pocket the money otherwise? The government has never been any good at business. That’s why socialized medicine will fail. I assume by “will” that you’re referring to the new healthcare act. Otherwise I would have said “has,” like Medicare. I’m not going to bite on that one; but the main crux of what you’re saying is you disagree with any federal, um, intrusion, I guess, into your business, including the coal tax that finances the trust. That’s correct. It may sound hard-hearted, but like I said, miner’s aren’t dumb- they don’t need the federal government to protect them. They know that mining’s dangerous, and a part of their compensation ought to cover that. If the value of their pay wasn’t worth the risks, they’d go flip burgers at McDonald’s. Capitalism, which is the American way, is survival of the most productive. But what do you produce? I work hard for my money. I want you to note that I’m not going to make the easy Donna Summer joke. I don’t like to be interrupted. I produce coal. Now- I’m not saying I made it, or that I’m the one that hauls it out of the Earth. But I maneuver resources to maximize the amount of coal Masterson gets out of the ground. You’ve spent millions of dollars, personally, on political contributions alone. Now you’re a businessman, so I’m assuming you’ll see a relatively decent return on investment, or at least in the long haul to break even on that. I don’t even want to guess at how much money you make every year- then again, I don’t have to, because the AP puts it at $19.7 million annually. Your companies combined have a staff of about 5000 workers, workers who as we’ve discussed work in a dangerous industry, and make about $68,000 a year. Your salary represents $4,000 per employee that you, personally, are earning. Do you think that’s fair? Fair isn’t in a businessman’s vocabulary. There’s what a man can and what he can’t do. If I can take home that kind of salary- and I’m not saying I do- who are you to tell me I shouldn’t, huh? Just who the fuck are you? U.S. Fines Mine Owner $20 Million for Pollution Don Blankenship is an Evil Bastard The Kingmaker, WV Public Broadcasting documentary Night Shift |
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