These ghosts will haunt us

Jay Bookman
Nov. 20, 2017

As head of Rhino Resources, David Zatezalo oversaw a coal-mining company with one of the worst safety records in the industry. Conditions in Rhino mines were so bad that the U.S. Mine Health and Safety Administration twice cited the company for broad “pattern of violations,” a rare designation “reserved for mines that pose the greatest risk to the health and safety of miners, particularly those with chronic violation records.”

Thanks to President Trump and his Republican colleagues in the Senate, Zatezalo now runs the Mine Health and Safety Administration, the agency that gave him so much trouble.

Brett Talley is a 36-year-old lawyer from Alabama who began his practice of law just three years ago, has never tried a case and has yet to even argue a motion in a courtroom.

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Yet earlier this month, even after the American Bar Association unanimously rated Talley “unqualified,” the Senate Judiciary Committee — voting along strict party lines — recommended Talley’s confirmation to a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.

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All over the administration, this game is being played. People who would never make the first cut in any other administration, Republican or Democrat, are being installed in important policy-making jobs. Others, like Zatezalo at the mine safety agency, have been put in positions where they undermine their agency’s mission. The Environmental Protection Agency has been remade as the Industry Protection Agency, with scientists pushed aside in favor of corporate lobbyists. At the State Department, an entire generation of experienced diplomats is being pushed out the door, with no replacement.

Long after this is over, the quiet damage now being done will haunt us in ways we can’t even imagine.