Declarations

Yes, You Can

“They said, ‘Yes, we have that authority.'”

—Elaine Skorich, an assistant attorney general in West Virginia praising a state Supreme Court ruling upholding the authority of West Virginia’s mine safety office to suspend coal miners. The decision stems from the death of a locomotive driver two years ago. The state Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training suspended the miner’s certificate of another locomotive driver in the accident, after a drug test found he’d taken a pain medication without a prescription before the accident.

Bus Money

“If the money is available, it would be much better spent training drivers, teachers and students.”

—Dan Turner, a retired University of Alabama professor who led a study on whether the state should mandate seat belts in school buses. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley ordered the study after four students were killed in 2006 when a school bus without seat belts crashed in Huntsville. The study found that students don’t put on the belts and that most deaths occur when children are getting off the bus, crossing roads or crowding around the bus to board it.

Roller Coaster

“This has been as much of a roller coaster ride as anything that I have participated in since I’ve been governor. I hope that Mr. Feinberg understands he holds the future of all these small businesses in south Alabama in his hands.”

—Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, after meeting with BP oil spill claims fund administrator Ken Feinberg, maintaining that the claims process speeds up when leaders call a meeting to air complaints and slows down again soon after.

Proper Procedures

“We don’t think they followed the proper procedures.”

—Robert Outten, spokesman for North Carolina municipalities that sued to overturn a 2008 homeowners insurance rate agreement that raised rates in some cases up to 29 percent. Municipalities had argued that the insurance department should have held public hearings. But the North Carolina Court of Appeals rejected the complaint, ruling that municipalities under current state law do not have standing to challenge decisions on insurance rates issued by the state insurance department.