PROTECT CONSUMER JUSTICE.ORG

Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette: The disaster that killed 29 miners at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in April 2010 was “entirely preventable,” according to a report on the incident by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette: The owners of a West Virginia coal mine where 29 miners died in an explosion in April 2010 will pay $200 million to resolve civil enforcement actions and some criminal matters relating to the disaster.

Wall Street Journal: A federal grand jury indicted the chief of security at the Massey Energy Company on charges of lying to investigators and ordering the destruction of security-related documents.

Rolling Stone: Reporter Jeff Goodell tells the story of Don Blankenship, the coal mining executive who turned Massey Energy into a “national symbol of lethal greed.”

A new report by Fair Warning charges that federal protections against job-site whistle-blowers have failed because the U.S. Solicitor’s office often fails to defend whistle-blowers fired for alerting OSHA to safety problems.

Scientific American: The Environmental Protection Agency will ban the use of endosulfan, which “can pose unacceptable neurological and reproductive risks to farmworkers and wildlife and can persist in the environment.”

Bloomberg BusinessWeek: The nation’s second-largest public pension fund has joined in a shareholder lawsuit against the officers and directors of the company that operates a West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 29 workers in April, claiming the officials chose not to comply with federal and state law.