Utah Mine Owner On the Offensive

Robert Murray, owner of the mine in Utah where six miners are currently trapped, is not shy in front of the cameras. Murray isn't just dealing with the unfolding problem in his mine, but with the way the story is being reported and other threats to his industry.

Yesterday Rush Limbaugh played a couple of excerpts from Mr. Murray. In the first he takes on global warming legislation that could destroy the coal mining industry after being asked why dangerous coal mining still goes on:

MURRAY: Without coal to manufacture our electricity, our products will not compete in the global marketplace against foreign countries because our manufacturers depend on coal for low-cost electricity, and people on fixed incomes will not be able to pay foyer electric bills. And every one of these global warming bills that has been introduced in Congress today will eliminate the coal industry and increase your electric rates four to five fold. So we are an essential industry.

In the second excerpt Mr. Murray names names in his disgust with the reporting on the mine's problem:

MURRAY: They know nothing about the natural disaster that occurred here. They know nothing about the damage in the mine, and the circumstances surrounding the trapped miners. I caution the media to very much question the veracity of these sources and their motivations. I particularly cite Mr. Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press for particularly bad reporting, and the Fox News network, on what has occurred here. Rather than utilizing the truthful statements that you heard here, Mr. Borenstein chose to use statements from Mrs. McAteer that were totally false and have nothing to do with or have any understanding of what's happened here. And this morning, Fox News network was at it also. I hope you report that.

Mr. Murray is waging one losing P.R. war. He's insisted quite adamantly from the start that the cave-in was caused by an earthquake, but expert after expert who has looked at the data insists that there was no earthquake and the tremors recorded on seismographs were a result of the cave-in itself. The geologists can compare the wave forms generated by this event to other cave-ins and so far they match up. Of course, Mr. Murray is trying to protect his business since an earthquake is an unforeseen situation while an error on the part of the miners will bring a great deal of liability on the business. I can understand his desire to protect his interests, but he'll quickly lose whatever credibility he has if he insists on flying in the face of the earthquake experts.