Golf course seduction.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Ronald L. Wooten - Brief article

Foxes guarding chicken coops have been characteristic of regulatory agencies under the Bush administration. But what are we to make of the Democratic governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, who has just appointed Ronald L. Wooten, a lawyer and lobbyist from Consol Energy, a leading West Virginia mine-owner, to direct the state's Office of Miners' Health, Safety, and Training? Wooten has been a lobbyist not only for Consol but also for an industry group called the American Mining Congress and he admits to The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward that he has helped big law firms defend coal companies from wrongful-death and injury cases filed by miners and their families.

Ironically, Gov. Manchin had Davitt McAteer, a respected advocate for mine...