Owner of mine rumbles onto public scene

The owner of the collapsed Utah mine draws criticism for his combative tone.

HUNTINGTON, Utah (AP) — He’s a bulldog in a 5-foot-11 frame, bellowing about earthquakes, global warming, helicopter noise and traffic on national TV as six of his miners lay trapped underground, their families and people across the country anxiously awaiting word of their fate.

Bob Murray, though, prefers another description for himself: underdog.

A fourth-generation miner who grew up poor in the hills of southeastern Ohio, Murray chose mining over medical school and says he has the scars — which he readily displays — that come from years of toiling underground.

A simple miner, he considers himself — “That’s all I am. That’s all I am” — despite rising to become chairman of the nation’s 12th-largest coal company, Murray Energy Corp. of Cleveland.

What he has become this week is the very public and complex face of the nation’s latest mine disaster — so belligerent at times that he has drawn criticism from members of Congress.

Murray’s company owns the Crandall Canyon mine, where six workers were buried 1,500 feet down in a cave-in early Monday. The 67-year-old Murray was working in Montana when he got word of the collapse. He hopped on a private jet and was on the scene within hours.

Outspoken

He since has been the main spokesman in front of the cameras, holding nothing back as he takes on scientists, the media and federal regulators in a way that leads some to wonder why he isn’t expending more of his considerable energy instead on trying to reach the miners.

His main beef has to do with the possible cause of the collapse, which Murray insists was triggered by a 3.9-magnitude earthquake. Government seismologists say the ground-shaking was caused not by a quake, but by the cave-in itself.

Murray spent much of one news briefing Tuesday angrily defending his earthquake theory, declaring at one point: “I’m going to prove it to you.”

He then spoke of building his company from a mortgaged home — “The United States of America is a GREAT country!” — and made a pitch for coal as an essential industry while bashing global warming proposals in Congress as something that would eliminate the coal industry and “increase your electric rates four- to fivefold.”

Stirs criticism

All of this came before he provided an update on the rescue operation, prompting Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers union, to comment: “It is very unfortunate that at a time when six miners remain trapped underground and rescuers ... are risking their lives to find them, Mr. Murray has chosen to take time away from his urgent responsibilities to conduct himself in this manner.”

While not mentioning Murray by name, two members of Congress — including Democratic Rep. George Miller, who chairs the House committee that has jurisdiction over the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration — issued a statement saying the briefing failed to provide the most accurate possible information and urging that further briefings be conducted by MSHA officials.

“The families ... need and have a right to the most credible, objective and up-to-date information available about the status of the rescue effort,” the statement read.