Taylor Sisk
In early April, President Donald Trump gathered dozens of hard-hat-clad coal miners round him within the White House East Room. He joked about arm-wrestling them and introduced he was signing govt orders to spice up coal manufacturing, “bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” and to “put the miners back to work.”
Trump mentioned he calls it “beautiful, clean” coal. “I tell my people never use the word ‘coal’ unless you put ‘beautiful, clean’ before it.”
That similar day, the Trump administration paused implementation of a rule that may assist defend coal miners from an aggressive type of black lung illness. Enforcement of the brand new protections is formally halted till a minimum of mid-August, according to a federal announcement that got here just a few days after a federal courtroom agreed to place enforcement on maintain to listen to an business problem. But even when the rule takes full pressure after the delay, the federal company tasked with imposing it in Appalachia and elsewhere might not be as much as the duty after sweeping layoffs and workplace closures.
Deaths from black lung — a persistent situation attributable to inhaling coal mud — had been in decline because the introduction of federal regulations over a half-century in the past. But in latest many years, cases have risen precipitously. By 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that the lungs of about 1 in 5 coal miners in central Appalachia confirmed proof of black lung. It is being recognized in youthful miners. And the deadliest kind, progressive huge fibrosis, has elevated tenfold amongst long-term miners.
Silica is the first offender. Exposure to it has elevated since mining operations started slicing via extra sandstone to achieve deeper coal deposits. The stone breaks into sharp particles that, when airborne, can change into trapped in lung tissue and trigger a debilitating, generally deadly situation.
The new rule was set to take impact in April, slicing the allowable stage of silica mud within the air inside mines by half — to the restrict already in place for different industries — and set stricter tips for enforcement.
Years within the making, advocates for miners heralded the brand new requirements as a breakthrough. “It is unconscionable that our nation’s miners have worked without adequate protection from silica dust despite it being a known health hazard for decades,” acting Labor Secretary Julie Su mentioned when the rule was introduced final spring underneath the Biden administration.
The rule pause got here on high of one other blow to mine security oversight. In March, the Department of Government Efficiency, created by a Trump govt order, introduced it could finish leases for as many as three dozen area workplaces of the Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, with the way forward for these workers undetermined. That company is accountable for imposing mining security legal guidelines.
Then in April, two-thirds — almost 900 — of the employees on the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, an company inside the Department of Health and Human Services, had been fired. As a outcome, NIOSH’s Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, which supplied miners free screenings from a cellular clinic, ceased operations.
An announcement by MSHA of the silica rule delay cited the “unforeseen NIOSH restructuring and other technical reasons” as catalysts for the pause however didn’t point out the federal courtroom resolution within the case looking for to rescind the rule.
Separately, on May 7, legal professional Sam Petsonk filed a class-action lawsuit towards Health and Human Services and its head, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to reinstate this system. His consumer within the case, Harry Wiley, a West Virginia coal miner, was recognized with an early stage of black lung and utilized to NIOSH for a switch to an surroundings with much less mud publicity however by no means obtained a response. He continues to work underground.
On May 13, U.S. District Judge Irene Berger issued a preliminary injunction to reinstate the surveillance program workers. The subsequent day, Kennedy mentioned the administration would reverse the firings of 328 NIOSH employees. That day, they had been again at work.
“Remaining in a dusty job may reduce the years in which Mr. Wiley can walk and breathe unassisted, in addition to hastening his death,” Berger wrote. “It is difficult to imagine a clearer case of irreparable harm.”
MSHA officers declined to answer particular questions concerning the silica rule or plans to implement and implement it, citing the continuing litigation.
In an emailed assertion, Labor Department spokesperson Courtney Parella mentioned, “The Mine Safety and Health Administration is confident it can enforce all regulations under its purview. MSHA inspectors continue to conduct legally required inspections and remain focused on MSHA’s core mission to prevent death, illness, and injury from mining and promote safe and healthful workplaces for U.S. miners.”
Wes Addington is fast to say a profession within the mines isn’t essentially a demise sentence. He comes from generations of miners. One of his great-grandfathers labored 48 years underground and died at 88.
But Addington additionally mentioned defending the protection and well being of miners requires diligence. He’s govt director of the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, a Whitesburg, Kentucky, nonprofit that represents and advocates for miners and their households. A research the middle performed discovered that staffers on the MSHA workplaces scheduled to shut carried out virtually 17,000 health and safety inspections from January 2024 via February 2025.
Addington mentioned NIOSH offered the info to doc worsening circumstances over the previous few many years.
Addington’s group has advocated for the brand new silica rule for 17 years. “We didn’t think it was perfect,” he mentioned. He would have most popular decrease publicity limits and extra stringent monitoring necessities. “But, as it was, it was going to save lives.”
The cuts to the company, Addington mentioned, may have an effect on each American employee who is likely to be uncovered to dangerous parts within the office. NIOSH approves respirators prescribed by Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws.
With fewer inspectors, miners are “more likely to get hurt on the job and those injuries could be fatal,” he mentioned.
“And if you’re a miner that’s lucky enough to navigate that gantlet and make it through a 20-, 25-year career,” Addington mentioned, “the likelihood that you develop disabling lung disease that ultimately kills you at an early age is much increased.”
The black lung clinic at Stone Mountain Health Services in southwestern Virginia has recognized 75 new instances of progressive huge fibrosis previously yr, in response to its medical director, Drew Harris.
“People are dying from a dust-related disease that’s 100% preventable, and we’re not using all the things we could use to help prevent their disease and save their lives,” Harris mentioned. “It’s just all very disheartening.”
He believes it could be a mistake for Kennedy to reorganize NIOSH as he has proposed, shifting the surveillance program crew’s tasks to different workers.
“It’s a very unique expertise,” Harris mentioned. The company can be “losing the people that know how to do this well and that have been doing this for decades.”
Rex Fields first went to work within the mines in 1967, a yr earlier than an explosion killed 78 miners close to the small city of Farmington, West Virginia. His spouse, Tilda Fields, was conscious of the hazards her husband would encounter — the protection points, the long-term well being issues. Her dad died of black lung when she was 7. But it meant a well-paying job in a area that has perpetually supplied valuable few.
Rex, 77, now lives with a complicated stage of black lung illness. He’s nonetheless in a position to mow his garden however is definitely winded when strolling uphill. It took him a number of weeks and two rounds of antibiotics to recuperate from a bout with bronchitis in March.
Throughout his profession, Rex advocated for his fellow miners: He stepped in when he noticed somebody mistreated; he as soon as tried, unsuccessfully, to assist a unionization effort. For these efforts, he mentioned, “I got transferred from the day shift to the third shift a time or two.”
Today, the Fieldses foyer on behalf of miners and share details about occupational risks. Tilda organized a assist group for households and widows. She worries concerning the subsequent technology. Two of the Fieldses’ sons additionally went into mining.
“People in the mountains here, we learn to make do,” Tilda mentioned. “But you want better. You want better for your kids than what we had, and you surely want their safety.”
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working applications at KFF—an unbiased supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Learn extra about KFF.
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