Today, the U.S. Senate confirmed Joe Main—by unanimous consent—as the new leader of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration MSHA.Main is a longtime advocate for safety and health in the mining industry. He worked 22 years as director of Occupational Health and Safety for the Mine Workers UMWA. That’s a huge change from the Bush-era head of MSHA, coal-industry lobbyist Richard Stickler, who came under fire for failure to enforce mining safety laws.

via AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | New Mine Safety Chief: The Change We Needed.

Think of some of the recent mine disasters. You had the Sago Mine in West Virginia, the Darby Mine in Kentucky and of course the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah (with that rotund fool of a mine owner all over TV after the incident). All of these disasters were made worse or could have been prevented if the MSHA under Bush did what it was supposed to do.

Of course the MSHA under Bush could not regulate mines. It was run by a former mining industry insider! Just with the US Senate confirming a new chief, miners are already safer. Joe Main hasn’t even done anything yet and he is already better than the previous head of MSHA. It’s hard to say who was worse in the Bush administration: Richard Stickler or Heckuva Job Brownie?