would bring into question whether that is the right question to ask me. on the other hand, i should report to you that we reduced the number of accidents over the last 20 years by 90%. the things we have tons in the area of safety are second to none in the industry. we have 120 rules at massey that exceed the requirements of federal law. we're very frustrated that many times the technical competence of the government inspectors are far less than the technical competence of our engineers. many times, our engineers are overruled by the engineers of other places. we have had a policy for the last 30 years of recovery in the top engineers credit rating from top senate -- top universities. many times, these people are local. coal mining does not rank at the top 12 of the most dangerous occupations in america. it is more dangerous to drive a

cab in new york or to work at 7- 11. if you said you want to create a factory and make it safe, you wanted to be well lit, the floor to be nonskid, the roof to be good. all of those things you want existing in a coal mine from the start. the industry unless he has done a good job at doing that over the last several decades. >> reporters have interviewed more than a dozen former and current messy employees and the state fear you. they're afraid of criticizing massey safety for fear of their jobs. >> it would not surprise me that you can find two dozen that would say that or feel that. however, we did uphold -- 92% of

our people say they feel safer an our competitors coal mines. that our rules make them sar than the federal law. 94% or so are aware of the 100 number that allows them to report accidents or unsafe hazards. it is difficult to get 90 something% of the people to agree on anything. .

>> what is called scrubbers that remove the dust from the air and the methane from the face, only to be effective to turn half of them off. we have situation that is we believe that the air that has been used in the mining process needs to be ten ouide of the mine as quick as possible. but they often disagree with that. what we need is independent,

pragmatic, scitific determinations to put in place of laws to improve the safety of mini mining as opposed to others. the idea of having self rescue every 500 feet, as opposed to removing the oxygen in times of an explosion, thas a misplaced priority. there are hundreds of examples of trying to improve mine safety, and many times we feel we are going backwards. >> part of the act will strengthen top violators and for violations that lead to deaths. do you think that top management should be held accountable to the law? >> i think that anyone that actually causes someone death or

serious injury needs to be subject to the law. i think that we need to be careful of eliminating due process as a fundamental processing right. 40% of the time in have violations that get turned with the government. you have to worry about the consistency of the government and the ability of the

>> we need to have interaction

with our customers, that's what fundamentally supports our business and jobs. and we do entertainment like other companies, much less expensively than new york. certainly if you wanted to pay up to to $1,000 and i live in same house that i lived in, as i raised, reared my children, to use the proper word. and i have had all the experiences of life there, including divorce and then the death of ex-wife and the death of my mother, it's home. and i live in the middle of t it's a house that is worth $250,000, we live modestly. i live four-wheelers on the

property, and picked raspberries from the hills. and we are comfortable and no shame of how we interact with the people. and most my massey managers are community members or member of appalachia. >> why you are noonger on the board of the chamber commerce? >> you probably have to ask them, they rotate people off and i have talked with tom donahue about america and the jobs. thomas jefferson said in 1776 that merchants only pay loyalty to the countries that they make

their money in. i do think that american businesses need to be honest as opposed to politically correct. it's real important in my opinion that people understand

as you know it's not always easy to speak out. you get a lot of criticism for it and a lot of bad press and a lot of people that stand up in front of the podium with signs and stuff. but the issue is if you are productive to the society, we

produce a lot of energy that is fundamentally important. the greatest thing you with do in a charitable way is to produce something. at the end othe day, the production of the population is providing quality of life. and we are helping the world to have a prosperous life. >> many in the environment community would say that along with the dollar cost of the productivity, there are other costs not reflected in dollars and cents but do take a toll. the price of the environment and air that is not clean. is that a factor that is easily factored or a myth? >> i think it's overfactored and we all know about al gore's

extrainality cost, that's a good word. and we have a budget to partially keep the seas open for oil. we have a situation where we subsidize winds with taxpayers expense for people that can hardly afford to pay. and we have people losing their jobs because of extrainality extremism. should it be considered? yes, it should be considered. the question is not to be good stewards of the environment o productive, and it's how you find that balance. what i suggest to you when you eliminate so much of the mercury emissions and sulfur emissions in ts country, it makes no sense to transfer those jobs

offshore where you don't have that same stewardship. some studies show that for every job you transfer offshores you emit those emissio. and what extrainality costs do you address if you are worried about those in the ocean. i say form your opinio there is a book t called "power hungry," it's an interesting book about the facts of these energy issues. >> if you would follow your assumption that there is an extrainality extremism, why would itxist? if acid rain is not a big deal asou say, why wasn't it a big

deal if harmful consequences? >> the big issue is co 2, you have an environmental movement that is a business competing against other businesses. again, i don't know whether the world is warming or cooling. but i know that you can eliminate the industry and eliminate all the people and all that, it wouldn't make that much difference. there is 7.8 billions of tons of coal burned in the world. that number will increase. every 36 months the increase burning of coal will increase by the production. that's a fact of life. and that's how the people will get out of poverty and how we stop the child dying every three 3.7 seconds.

you have to look at things pragmatically. environmentalism should be no different than business, a cost difference ratio. >> speaking on facts and metric, one clear metric in the mining industry is the number of deaths. even before the tragedy massey had the highest fatality number and you said that they averaged in fatalities, and how can you say that wn other companies have less over that period? >> the thing that coal mining in appalachia is more difficult. i don't know if those statistics are right, one thing about massey, it's been around for years and it's still massey. and other companies are made up

of properties, and how that would look, i don't know. but we are the larst producer in central appalachia and one of the most difficult areas. i know that we spend tens of millions of dollars on safety improvements. i know that personally look at every accident and attempt to figure out what would avoid it. again the tragedy is something we have our views about, what caused it and so forth. but when you have mining in central appalachia, you have a risky business. we know that we do it better than others have done in the last 10-20 years, fatalities are way down. but let me give you a comparable statistic, there are 42,000 people killed on the highways in the united states.

and the safety aspects that could be introduced into industrynd life, if they tried as hard as the coal industry, they would clearly save thousands of lives. >> this spring 29 people who worked for you died on the job, how did that experience affect you? and what you are doing now to prevent this from others dying? >> the biggest thing is you are heart broken, i was perturbed by the press, i was with the families and i was there when they were told that their loved ones perished. i met individually with the 25 of the 29 and spent time explaining how their loved one perish. where he was at. explained any question i could of what they wanted to know.

didn't sleep for two or three days deali with the issue surrounding the aftermath. again the tragedy occurred is something i am not sure yet how to avoid. but the thing that is most disruptive in the press is the idea that we as appalachians or coal miners or executives or business people don't value life. because we would nev put profits abe safety, never will. and no one would want to experience the feeling of informing 29 families they had lost their loved ones. >> on a personal level, do you feel guilty about the 29 deaths at upper big branch? >> i think that the word guilty is not the right word. i feel that i don't want to experience it again. i feel sorry for thefamilies. i feel concern for our current

workers. i feel motivated to figure out what happened and prevent it again. as i noted in my commentary at the front, i am a realist. the politicians say we will do this so it won't happen again. you won't hear me say that, because i think that the physics of natural law and god trump what man tries to do. whether you get earthquakes or broken floors or roof falls, often are unavoidable as accidents in society. so to say that we won't have it happen again, i am cautious about that but there is no one more intent to prevent it from happening again. >> the mind safy department

has gone back and forth, is the department effective in preventing accidents? should the u.s. create a new arm? >> i don't like to say what they say about us, we said that massey had more fateals this year. but the bottom line is that the physics have to be the focus. you can't focus on surviving an explosion. because a human body can't survive an explosion. and that's what i speak out about being focused on problems. and when they had the creek about the problem of mapping. the government could do more about mapping, the state has better rules. there are things we can do with gas wells, and the mapping of e gas wells is what

cooperation between the gas companies and the coal companies. it's not something that is gps gas wells. sometimes they are in there because of gps. there are a lot of things that can be done and we are dedicated to doing that. as far as how i feel about it is not as important as what would do as an industry and government going forward. >> was the ventilation at upper branch proper? >> the ventilation was that there be public air before the explosion and 60,000 cubic feet of air. and we run ourong walls at 100,000 if we can, because of the safety factor. on a normal day, years and

years, and 30,000 or 60,000 is enough. but when you have somethingab normal happen, you want more. and the things that the scrubbers or others are doing we think are counter productive. but it's hard to get true dialogue about that, and we hope as we speak out we will get some attention to ventilation. >> when you were seeing the readings and the ventilation was less than ideal. why did you not shut the mine? >> again we didn't see the readings and know that the ventilation was less than ideal. what we had was a two-day shut down as we argued and discussed that we didn't like the ventilation plan. we ultimately decided that the ventilation plan would be safe, even though we didn't think it was the safest. and didn't like the gas that

appeared that we had. we thought that the mine was safe, but liked more protection and higher areas of air. we like to rub our scrapers and get out of the mine once they are used in the face of the miners. we like to use bleeders and don't believe in checking air when you can check in and out. there is a long list of things that you couldn't follow nothing else you were a coal miner. but the thing is that law of physics pay no attention to that of politicians. only to the science and math. >> with the benefit of hindsight whatould you have done and have done to minimize the explosion of the one that claimed 29 lives? >> what i could have done is do what i normally am is sue them

than to wait for them to shut off a scrubber. it's a situation where we live in a situation with the rles and laws. and we believe in the rule of law and the constitution and so forth. so it's a big step for a big corporation to resist what a government is requiring them to do. you know when you sue e.p.a. or take those kinds off actions, they are extremely bold and get you a terrible reputation. but actually that is anybodyibe more and more necessary, the more that the country goes in that direction, i think you will see the coal companies and many

who resist the epa and impede their business and careers and happiness, i guess. >> since the explosion in the spring, there is recent news report that is massey had a monitor shut down on a machine, is that what happened? >> there is two methane monitors on the lon wall. massey experts have had access to that long wall now for a couple of months. if someone believed that the methane monitors were bridged up, they should take the lid off and check. but we aren't allowed them. and a large number of people get discharged at massey over safety

violations. my check was that the bridge out for the methane monitors was not disabled. we don't believe in brging out methane monitors and i persally are confident that bridging out methane monitors is not a method at massey. and i am equally confident that people dthings they are not supposed to do. >> there are safety violations at areas of a union. for example, there was one killed at a union location and none killed this year are union. given the fact of those killed,

and how do you account for this. and how do you oppose union miners? >> there are not a lot of union miners around, but a lot of union mines in play in the past had major explosions. i am not sure but i suspect that farmington was union. and it's dangerous for the mine workers to suggest that union mines are safer than non-union mines, because you don't know what will happen next. how i explain that most mines are non-union, i don't know any other explanation than these things tend to run in cycles. like at massey we went a year-and-a-half without a single fatality. and then had a rash of fataties and hope to go on a

streak and not have one for years. >> a research factor found that a fraction of mining was reclaimed for economic development, given this why should

if you come to appalachia in 25 years, i doubt you can find the sight of the surface mines active today. >> how big of a customer is china for your coal? >> not big, asia is big, and india is big. and not a lot of people realize that china and india are greater different in respect to coal. the chinese have tremendousoal reserves to meet their need india has little to no coal by

high quality standards and have to import. china is pretty well self-contaed and india is the primary customer in asia. >> this questioner writes, i am concerned that we may be running out of coal, in virginia, the largest producer in the state. >> you have to divide virginia in the southern and northern part, bun central appalachia we estimate there is six to seven tons and you could go for 40 years. that number will probably grow as technology improves. but u.s. has 250 billion tons of

coal. it's our greatest resource for having a strong economy and homeland security, and it's one that we should cherish than vulify. >> how important is the energy and (inaudible) and clean coal? >> clean coal can be called to describe a lot of things, it's important to remember that coal is 70% cleaner than it was 20-30 years ago. all the sulfur removalals. the big difference between co 2 and other pollutants, there is no known technology to remove co 2. ccs is not a proven technology. and pumping co 2 takes

tremendous effort to pump in. and you go fwook pragmatism and i think that's what has to drive every effort of our political thought, or environmental thought or national security thought. is just common sense and thinking through the issues and looking at the facts. >> are efforts to regulate co 2 in the united states completely misguided? >> i think that we are misguided if you regulate them in the united states. you can't solve the co 2 in the atmosphere or cap it at parts per million. so it's misguided to regulate. peop think that regulation means green. regulati doesn't mean een if all you do is transfer six times the pollution outside the country. so you shouldn't think of

yourself as an environmentalis if you want to cause the u.s. economy to get weaker and weaker because you are actually a polluter. >> if one is an environmentalist of the type you speak, and one can only affect the environment in the united states and not china. what is the most effective approach to limit co 2 emissions worldwide? >> first of all you can impact chinese and anywhere in the world, co 2 emissions. it depends on what sacrifice you want to make. i don't want get into influencing your buying habits. but the bottom line is that it all comesack to the facts. these questions and words, what would you do if you want to reduce mercury in numbs, would you go to where there is 5,000 ns or 50 tons? would you continue to loan money

to countrys to put in coal while you drive out coal miners in this country. would you transfer your industry to other countries that don't have the environmental internship we have. i don't know what you do, i consider myself a competitionist. i believe if you support free trade, you have to be a competitionist. you have to let the american worker going on the playing field. you can't put him on the playing field and put regulations and employment standards and litigation and expect him to ep his job in competition with countries that don't have that. we need to consider and ask ourselves what environmental impact

ago, was less regulation. you have to get somewhere between the chinese approach and the american approach. in china they built a high hi dro ectric dam, and if they close the gates, you better move. and here it's nonsensical as well. we need reasonable regulation and understand the cost benefit of what regulation we have. and need to have businesses function as businesses. the government can't run all the businesses and private business and corporate business is what built america, in my opinion. we need to let it thrive, in a sense by leaving it alone. >> we are almost out of time, but before we ask the last question, first to remind our guests of future speakers, next

week secretary arne duncan of the u.s. department of education will address the national press club. and on september 13th, mr. beckman will speak on eliminating hunger, people and congress. second i would like to present our guests with the traditional gifts we give all, the treasured national press club mug. thank you for coming today. we have one final question for you. this is not been the best year in newseadlines for energy extraction. the massey coal company explosion in april was dominating headlines. but even then was another story getting headlines was the bp oil spill. and that's still underway and as

you watched that and what lessons does this spill hold for your industry? >> that's a tough question, i have been a little busy in the bp oil spill as well. i think that the lesson that we need to remember is to rely on truth and fact. if it's more dangerous and safety wise to drill in 500 feet of water and can drill in 200 water, you should push back on drilling in 500 feet of water. if you are working in a manner that is not safety, you need to push back. we nd to operate in free press and approximate -- speech, and

those are the things that we have to learn to do. we are allowing a small group of peopleo dictate what we do in the field of energy. and many times the industry is falling in line to avoid the criticism and press and to avoid being called something more than green. we need not to do that. we need to be compelled to speak out, and the knowledge and vantage point we have is we owe it to our workers and the company. >> thank you to the c.e.o. of massey, don blankenship. [applause] >> and thank you to the staff for organizing today's event. for more and how to acquire today's program, go to our

website, thank you. this meeting is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> on today's "washington journal," -- charles drevna.

"washington journal" begins life that 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> you can go to cspan's the video library. you can look up bills and what congressional hearings and previous debate on the house and senate floor. it is all line and freight. it is washington your way. >> cspan is now available in over 100 million homes, bringing you washington your way, a public service created by america's cable companies. >> senate majority leader harry reid yesterday outlined an energy bill that he says will receive bipartisan support. the majority leader is joined at this of went by energy sponsored senator john kerry and carol

browner, the head of the white house committee on climate change. >> we have responsibilities not only to our constituents and our children and grandchildren to take on the energy challenge we have in america. not once, not twice, but very often. many of us want to do a thorough and comprehensive bill that creates jobs break their addiction to foreign oil and curbs pollution. unfortunately, we don't have a single republican to work with in achieving this goal. for me, that is terribly disappointing and is also very dangerous. the president, senator kerry, and i and others, large numbers of my caucus will continue to

reach out to republicans and work with environmental and energy committees and communities to garner the support needed to get a much larger and more comprehensive bill and i will outline in a few minutes. this does not change our obligation to lay the foundation of a safer and stronger future. in the next few days, i will introduce a four-part bill. we will hold bp accountable to assure that they clean up their mess and things like this that happened in the future can stop them from happening but there will be a process to move forward. number two, we need to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. that is very, very important. our country is blessed with abundant resources and we must tap into natural gas which we

have more of than any country in the world. we will get into the production of natural gas vehicles, mainly big trucks. number three, we need to do something that creates jobs and we will do that. this is something that has been talked about and now we will legislate an energy-efficient program that is key to the future of what we do with energy in this country. it creates jobs, lower consumer energy costs, and of this like they menedez-hatch provision will work. number 4, we will put some money back end of water and land conservation fund which is essential to the future environment of this country.

senator kerry? >> i want to thank senate majority leader rate for his significant leadership over the past several years. you helped to build a strong consensus and a growing coalition with respect to climate and energy comprehensive legislation. over the past year-and-a-half working with harry reid, we have had hundreds of meetings and negotiations and we have built an unprecedented coalition of support which has moved us further along of this process than at any time in this effort. we today have support from industries and stakeholders that have opposed previous bills. that is a very, very important achievement. we have always known from day one that in order to pass comprehensive energy

legislation, you have to reach 60 votes. to reach those 60 votes, you have to have some republicans. as we stand here today, we do not have one republican. i think that it is possible to get there. even this morning, senator lieberman and i had a meeting with one republican who has indicated a willingness to begin working toward something. harry reid today is committed to giving us that opportunity, that open door, if you will, over the next weeks, days, months, what ever it takes to find those 60 votes. the work will continue every single day. in the meantime, as senator reid has just said, we have an obligation to the american people. we have an obligation to our country and that is to respond to the oil spill in the gulf.

that is why senator reid will bring this admittedly narrow limited bill to the floor because he is determined to do what we can in the timeframe that we have before the august break. that will address some of our energy independence and some of -- some of our energy dependence and some of the oil spill issues. let me be crystal clear -- this legislation that he has proposed does not replace climate legislation. it does not replace comprehensive energy legislation president obama call me before this meeting and said point blank that he has committed to working in these next days at a more intensive pace together with carol browner and other members of the administration to help bring together the ability to find 60 votes for that comprehensive

legislation. the leader is committed to getting that comprehensive legislation to the floor as soon as possible, whenever that might turn out to the parent senator lieberman and i will continue to work with our colleagues and the stakeholders to carve a path to 60 votes for comprehensive legislation that appropriately targets carbon so that we can send signals to the marketplace and change the direction and create jobs for america and improve our security. the work we have done all the last past year and a half will remain a foundation for all of this effort. i want to say to all of you on a personal level that i watched ted kennedy over 26 years fight to get tough things past. in 1970, he began that ever to pass health care reform. we got it just this year. this will not take that long.

this will not take close to that long. i am absolutely confident that as the american people make their voices heard and as our colleagues go home and listen to them, we will grow in our ability to pass this. i just want to thank those who have helped bring this issue a long, long way. we have had a remarkable caucus of some 20 senators plus who have met week after week and in the 26 years i have been here, i have never seen as many senators from as many different places come together consistently to move legislation forward. that effort will continue and i am grateful to senator reid and the president for their commitment to put this country on the right path. >> let me start by thanking the leader, senator kerry, and all the members we have worked with to try to craft a comprehensive energy legislation. we appreciate your commitment

and leadership. the president has made clear throughout his campaign and continues to make clear that we need to have a comprehensive energy policy for this country, that we need a policy that will break our dependence on foreign oil, that will create a new generation of energy jobs and put a cap on the dangerous pollutants that contribute to global warming and climate change. the administration has taken steps to address this problem through the recovery act. we are investing $80 billion to create jobs and take major strides toward creating new clean energy jobs and technology. we set tough new fuel the efficiency standards for cars and the first evergreen as gas emissions for cars. we will continue to use our existing tools to address these problems. obviously, everyone is disappointed that we do not yet have agreement on comprehensive legislation. we will continue to work with senators to craft important

comprehensive legislation. in the meantime, the leader has suggested that there are steps we can take today, important steps and we support his decision to move forward and to take those steps the weekend began this process. we will work with him in the coming weeks to see if we cannot achieve passage of this legislation while we continue to work to secure comprehensive energy and kind of change or just -- energy and climate change legislation, thank you. >> questions? >> each provision we have is bipartisan. the second provision i talked about is menendez-hatch and the third one is home to start. some republicans said they liked the program. >> they have opposed the oil

spill liability language on the floor. >> i would not be moving on this if i did not think that. >> are you committed to a [unintelligible] >> i am committed to taking this up now. it will move to the floor before this session ends. this is not the only energy legislation we will do. this is what we can do now. we are running out of time because of the long delays we have had on the senate floor over the last year. we will continue to work on energy legislation. think about this briefly. the one thing that we agree is that we need a bridge to move to renewable energy. they agree on batteries and

natural gas. batteries as technology going on. the president did a great job with what he did with the stimulus bill in reactivating battery technology in our country. there are 6,000,018 wheelers are around america driving around. the life span of a truck is not long. during the good times, three years ago or so, one major trucking company was buying 175 new 18-wheel trucks every week. this legislation allows the conversion of those trucks and diesel fuel to natural gas. this will lessen our dependence on foreign oil as far as jobs, we are doing everything we can to increase employment. this home start bill will increase employment in every state of the union by a significant amount. it is estimated that with the

money we have with homes start, we are talking about -- we could have as many as 400,000 jobs. i am very satisfied with what we have here. this is something we need to do. there are a number of steps. we need to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. every senator can do a snap quiz and have different -- have 25 different ways how we could do that. on what we want to do with jobs, they could do the same thing. i had to make a decision and here is the decision. i appreciate the president and i appreciate all my chairman. they work hard on this. we have had meetings.

we have had many meetings. they have all been extremely understanding of where we are today is easy to count to 60. we learned to do that -- i did it by the time i was in eighth grade. [laughter] we know where we are. we know we don't have the votes. this is a step for repair and -- this is a step forward. no one has worked harder than senator kerry but that does not take away from the other senators involved. this is a step forward, a small step, but very, very important them. >> settlement money? republicans are blocking it because they do not like how it

is paid for a pair o. >> it is an interesting game we're playing around here. first of all, they want everything paid for and when we try to figure out how to pay for it, they don't know. this is an effort for them to stall. there is a judgment against our country on the preferred matter. -- on theypickford matter. republicans say we need to pay for it. we said fine. now they don't like the pay for. that is a stall. when we get to the supplemental bill. this is the proverbial stall i have had for 18 months.

>> [unintelligible] >> we will see what is in it. know everything about the bp oil spill. >> [unintelligible] >> what do you mean legislative role? >> [unintelligible] >> i am happy to answer that question. president obama personally has talked to me many times about energy legislation and the need for it. he did this starting back in the campaign and did not stop. his people are talking to me all

the time about energy. for anyone to think the president has not been involved is simply mistaken. >> [unintelligible] >> you cannot make that statement parent. it is not a black-and-white issue. we are trying to thread that needle. we have almost all of a coal- state senators agreeing with us. we have come a long way. [inaudible]o

>> we will take a look at that. >> coming up today on c-span, guest"washington journal is livh your phone calls. steny hoyer talks about american progress and later a look at the economic effects of stimulus spending at the american enterprise institute. in 45 minutes, we will talk with the president of the national petrochemical and r