Retired coal miners, widows and Appalachian policy groups took to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, urging lawmakers to increase disability benefits and pressure federal regulators to protect existing workers.
Their advocacy comes on the heels of a recent report from the Appalachia Mid-South Newsroom and NPR showing the rate of black lung disease among underground coal miners is the worst in nearly half a century.
Legislation central to the rally is the “Support our Miners Act” and the “Black Lung Benefits Improvements Act.” Both bills would increase the monthly amount of federal disability benefits afforded to miners diagnosed with black lung disease or, if they die from it, their widows.
Currently, disabled miners are paid about a third of what an entry-level federal worker is paid each month. That rate was established in 1969. The most generous bill would raise the monthly benefit rate to $1,252.50 and allow for adjustments in later years based upon consumer price index estimates.
Bill author Democratic Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania says the changes are intended to keep up with the cost of living.
“For decades, disabled miners and their families have watched the value of their benefits shrink while the cost of housing, food, healthcare, and other necessities has continued to rise,” Lee said in a June press release.
In previous years, similar bills have proposed ways to make it easier to get black lung disability benefits or raise the amount of compensation. None have made significant legislative progress, but policy groups hope this time will be different.
Groups like Appalachian Voices, the Appalachian Citizen’s Law Center and Black Lung Association chapters have gotten local governments to pass resolutions in support of increasing benefits to sick miners.
“County officials are powerful voices in elevating their residents’ concerns to the national level, and it’s great that they’ve been so receptive to the black lung associations’ resolution requests this summer,” Appalachian Voices Community Outreach Coordinator Annie Jane Cotten said in a press release.
Those efforts are aimed at addressing miners who’ve already been diagnosed with black lung disease, but for healthy miners, changes may soon be coming that reduce protections and surveillance of toxic silica dust — the thing experts say is driving the surge in lung disease.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration has already indefinitely stalled enforcement of the toxic dust limits. The pause comes as President Donald Trump has entertained mine industry CEOs at the White House and ordered coal-fired power plants to stay open, against the plans of energy companies. At one event, coal company executives bestowed Trump with an “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful, Clean Coal” award.
MSHA now is in the process of permanently altering stricter dust limits and requirements to track miner health established during former president Joe Biden’s administration.
The exact changes aren’t public, but the agency’s preliminary guidance indicates it would likely result in cost-savings for mining companies and that “miner welfare advocates and organized labor groups are likely to oppose perceived rollback of protections.”
