Massey CEO Denies Responsibility for Deadly West Virginia Blast

Bloomberg had the money interview with Don Blankenship:

“Whatever happened at UBB is something that needs to be figured out, but it’s not the result of my management style,” Blankenship said in a telephone interview. “I’ve been running Massey effectively for 22 years. I know the properties, the challenges, the opportunities better than anyone else could possibly know them.”

Massey’s pugnacious CEO then makes the odd claim that the critics blasting his awful safety record are really targeting his financial success.

“Anyone that’s doing this job effectively in this area will have a certain element of society that’s opposed to them,” Blankenship told Bloomberg.

Increasingly, one such element of society is Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who made clear today that his definition of “doing this job effectively” includes doing whatever it takes to keep miners safe on the job.