About 120 coal miners with black-lung disease and their families went to Capitol Hill Tuesday to ask lawmakers to fully restore a coal tax that pays for medical care and some living expenses for miners with their condition. "The tax was cut more than 50 percent at the end of last year. It supports the federal Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which is more than $4 billion in debt," Howard Berkes and Huo Jingnan report for NPR. Berkes has reported doggedly on black lung for years, and his reporting helped earn him a Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism.
"The Government Accountability Office has said without an extension of previous tax levels the fund’s debt will rise from $5 billion to $15 billion by 2050 – a burden that would likely have to be met by U.S. taxpayers instead of coal companies," Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters. "Coal company bankruptcies and a resurgence of the disease are accelerating the risk of insolvency for the fund, according to the accountability office."
Some miners told Volcovici they were left disappointed after a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. She reports: "McConnell, the Republican leader who represents Kentucky, one of the states that has seen a rebound in the progressive respiratory illness, told them their benefits would be safe, but gave no assurances about the excise tax and left without answering questions or offering details, several of the miners who attended the meeting said."
George Massey, a retired miner from Harlan County, Kentucky, who is on disability, told Volcovici he was disappointed by the brief meeting: "We rode up here for 10 hours by bus to get some answers from him because he represents our state . . . For him to come in for just two minutes was a low-down shame."
"The Government Accountability Office has said without an extension of previous tax levels the fund’s debt will rise from $5 billion to $15 billion by 2050 – a burden that would likely have to be met by U.S. taxpayers instead of coal companies," Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters. "Coal company bankruptcies and a resurgence of the disease are accelerating the risk of insolvency for the fund, according to the accountability office."
Some miners told Volcovici they were left disappointed after a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. She reports: "McConnell, the Republican leader who represents Kentucky, one of the states that has seen a rebound in the progressive respiratory illness, told them their benefits would be safe, but gave no assurances about the excise tax and left without answering questions or offering details, several of the miners who attended the meeting said."
George Massey, a retired miner from Harlan County, Kentucky, who is on disability, told Volcovici he was disappointed by the brief meeting: "We rode up here for 10 hours by bus to get some answers from him because he represents our state . . . For him to come in for just two minutes was a low-down shame."
The miners' presence in Washington was meant to increase pressure on the Mine Safety and Health Administration, "which has resisted direct and quick responses to the epidemic and silica dust exposure," Berkes and Jingnan report. "As NPR and PBS Frontline have reported, MSHA and the mining industry failed to respond to clear agency data showing three decades of overexposure to toxic silica dust. They also failed to respond to warnings more than 20 years ago about clusters of sick miners exposed to silica and to an urgent call for direct and tougher regulation of silica dust in coal mines. In the wake of the NPR/Frontline investigation, the agency did restart an abandoned effort to consider direct and tougher regulation of silica, but the process could take years."
The miners' visit came a week after the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health published a summary of studies that confirmed an increase in black lung among coal miners, especially in Appalachia. "NIOSH cited NPR and PBS Frontline reporting in the review, including detailed and systematic interviews of 34 miners from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky, all diagnosed with PMF," Berkes and Jingnan report. The reporting of Berkes in the last few years formed the basis of a recent documentary on "Frontline."
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