In this July 17, 2016 file photo, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., check out the stage during preparation for the Republican National Convention inside Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. President-elect Donald Trump has picked Elaine Chao to become transportation secretary, according to a Trump source.  (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

It was certainly interesting to see Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s statement about President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to nominate former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao as his transportation secretary:

Elaine Chao is an excellent choice for transportation secretary. She is a trail blazer with a proven record of leadership. I enjoyed hosting Elaine in West Virginia during the Bush Administration and hope she will visit again in her role as transportation secretary to see why infrastructure is a top priority for the Mountain State.

When I heard about this particular cabinet pick, my own memories went back to the speech that Secretary Chao gave after 13 coal miners were killed in a massive series of underground explosions at the Jim Walter Resources No. 5 Mine in Brookwood, Alabama, in September 2001.

Of course, President-elect Trump has already nominated Wilbur Ross — who owned the Sago Mine when it blew up and killed 12 miners — to be his commerce secretary. And now Chao. It certainly takes those of us who follow mine safety issues back in time.

It was less than two weeks after the terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon. Speaking at a memorial service in Alabama, Secretary Chao compared the efforts of a dozen miners who died trying to save a coworker to the heroic efforts of those firefighters and police officers who died trying to save 9/11 victims:

In the deepest darkness of these tragedies, we have also seen the best that America has to offer.

Then, Secretary Chao made a promise to the miners’ families:

Whether it be the terrorist attack on September 11 or the mine disaster that claimed thirteen lives this last weekend, we are determined to do everything we possibly can to keep it from ever happening again.

Of course, that wasn’t exactly what Chao did at Labor, or what the Bush administration’s pick to run the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, Dave Lauriski, did either.  The Bush administration’s record on mine safety speaks for itself, really … After Jim Walter came Sago, Aracoma, Kentucky Darby, Crandall Canyon … Forty-one coal miners killed in those disastrous — and preventable — incidents alone.

The Bush administration had quietly stopped work on more than a dozen regulations aimed at improving mine safety, promoted budget cuts at MSHA, and encouraged regulators to regulate less and cooperate more with a highly hazardous industry with a history of death and disaster. The results eroded the ability of MSHA to protect the health and safety of miners, and a series of the agency’s own internal reviews reflected lack of resources and political will to do the job Congress had set out for its inspectors. MSHA was left unable to perform its most basic task — the mandated quarterly inspections of all of the nation’s coal mines.

I wonder why Sen. Capito didn’t mention any of that in her statement on Secretary Chao.