Coal Miners Protest Against Making Black Lung Great Again
The Trump administration keeps postponing a rule that would save thousands of lives.
Today, dozens of coal miners and their families are demonstrating outside the Labor Department, protesting the Trump administration’s failure to implement rules protecting them from the toxic silica dust that has been largely responsible for the rise in black lung in younger miners. Incredibly enough, the president’s great love of “beautiful, clean coal” has not translated into love for “beautiful, clean lungs.”
Sixteen months ago, in April of 2024, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) under President Joe Biden issued a new rule requiring coal companies to better protect workers from silica dust by cutting the federally allowed amount that they were allowed to be exposed to. The industry was given a year to comply before the rule officially went into effect.
A few months later, Donald Trump won the state of West Virginia with 69 percent of the vote. In fact, he won every single county in the whole state. He gleefully campaigned with a chorus of coal miners behind him, gushing about “beautiful, clean, coal.”
Then, on April 8, a week before the new rule was meant to be implemented, MSHA announced that the rule would be postponed from going into effect until August 18, citing the massive DOGE-chainsawed staffing cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). At that same time, industry groups, including the National Sand Stone and Gravel Association and the National Mining Association, asked a court of appeals to block the rule from taking effect, on the grounds that it would cost them money to implement the engineering controls necessary to limit silica dust exposure. They would prefer, they said, to decrease exposure through the less effective means of personal protective equipment. The Trump administration has, unsurprisingly, not moved to defend the rule in court.
The issue was once again tabled in August and meant to be addressed this month, but now the administration is saying they can’t do that because of the shutdown. In response, groups including “the National Black Lung Association, with support from the United Mine Workers of America, Fayette County Black Lung Association, Kanawha County Black Lung Association, Wyoming County Black Lung Association, Virginia Black Lung Association Chapter 1, Virginia Black Lung Association Chapter 2, the Alliance for Appalachia, Appalachian Voices, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, and the BlueGreen Alliance” have organized the demonstration today.
“Coal miners and their allies have fought for these life-saving protections from black lung disease for a generation, but now the Trump Administration and the coal companies are seemingly working hand-in-hand to slow down the process and weaken future protections,” said Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, when the rule was delayed on August 18. “Right now, miners are being put in danger and being exposed to deadly levels of dust. It doesn’t take long for silica dust exposure to take a toll; a few months of high exposure can make a person sick. These delays and efforts to weaken the rule are a disgrace, and undermine the claims of anyone in the Trump Administration who claims to be on the side of coal miners.”
Black lung, also known as pneumoconiosis, affects about 16 percent of miners and is caused by inhaling coal dust, which causes inflammation and scarring in the lungs, making breathing difficult and severely diminishing quality of life in many cases. However, in recent years, because the coal mines are mostly tapped out, workers must dig even deeper into the earth to get to the coal — and that means more exposure to respirable crystalline silica, which causes the disease even faster. This means that miners are getting it at increasingly younger ages. According to the Black Lung Association, mine workers are also getting the most severe form of the disease, Progressive Massive Fibrosis (PMF), at the highest rates ever recorded, sometimes even after only eight years of working in the mines.
The disease kills about 1000 coal miners a year, but the Biden administration estimated that cutting silica exposure in half could prevent 1,067 deaths and 3,746 cases. NIOSH actually recommended this standard over 50 years ago, but opposition from the industry has kept it from ever being implemented, because profits matter more than people’s lives.
“Sure, they talk about how much they care about coal but come down here and look,” West Virginia resident Judith Riffe, 80, who lost her husband to black lung disease, told the New York Times, adding, “The coal miners have supplied this country with electricity, and now they’re just cast aside to die.”
Well, it’s not like they can vote for Trump again, or do anything for him once he’s out of office the way the coal companies can, so they’re probably going to have to wait until the rest of the country does them a solid and votes for a Democrat who will actually care whether they live or die.
To listen to what the miners themselves have to say, you can watch the live Facebook feed of the protest.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
“ A few months later, Donald Trump won the state of West Virginia with 69 percent of the vote. In fact, he won every single county in the whole state. He gleefully campaigned with a chorus of coal miners behind him, gushing about “beautiful, clean, coal.”
It would be one thing if this was 2016
But it’s not
I don’t care how uneducated you are. You had 10 years now to learn how this works.
Midwest farmers say hello.