Senate investigators said they asked Davis about that claim. He said he had assigned the complained-about inspector to certain Murray Energy mines because he knew the inspector would hold them to a strict standard. After the meeting described, he said he agreed to give the company "about a week" respite from enforcement.

Documents suggest that Murray Energy became even more combative.

A Nov. 7, 2007, e-mail by Cornett said an inspector reported that Murray's "mines are doing less in compliance since Murray took over and that if you want something corrected or done different, you would have to cite it to get it fixed. There is no grey area with management now, if you don't issue a citation or try to suggest they do something, they will not do anything without paper."

The same day, Kevin Stricklin wrote an e-mail saying he and MSHA chief Richard Stickler had met with Murray and that Murray was upset about inconsistency in enforcement at his mines. So Stricklin asked for a breakdown of inspections at Murray's Utah mines. "All in all, it wasn't that bad of a meeting. I have been in a lot worse ones with him (Murray,)" he wrote.

In a Feb. 1, 2007, memo to Murray, UtahAmerican Energy Inc. President Bruce Hill reports that MSHA's Davis agreed to keep an inspector that Murray disliked away from their mines.

"Davis committed that he would do whatever he could to keep Durant off UtahAmerican property, but would not promise that Durant would never again appear. Durant is currently a temporary field office supervisor in Craig, Colo., but that job will eventually end. Davis stated that Durant received a reprimand for his actions but had been cleared by two government agencies to resume work at UEI. Davis acknowledged that it would be hard for Durant to inspect a UEI mine without bias."

Finally, an Aug. 3, 2007, memo, written just days before the Crandall Canyon disaster, Hill wrote a report to Murray that it instituted a blanket policy of contesting all MSHA safety citations, regardless of their merit.

"We (Murray Energy) are now contesting all violations issued to UEI mines as discussed on our conference call this week." That included, he said, one fine of $75,400 for having 29 citations in 24 months for violating a rule about accumulation of combustible materials such as coal dust.

The Senate report says, "Such an institutionalized policy of battling regulators without regard to the merits of a particular citation bespeaks an inappropriate attitude toward safety."

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com