Republicans Just Handed Down a Death Sentence to the Nation's Coal Miners

Let me explain. The appropriations bill is nightmarish for labor for a variety of reasons, and Republican committee members seemed hellbent on trampling all over workers’ rights, safety, and overall well-being whenever they could find the opportunity. Their markup of the bill brags about slashing funding for the Department of Labor by 23%, leaving the already desperately underfunded agency with $10.5 billion ($3.6 billion less than requested in the president’s budget). It also cuts funding for the Wage and Hour Division and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration by $75 million. 

Aderholt (who holds a 0% rating from the AFL-CIO) may insist that the bill ​“puts workers first by ensuring businesses can stay open,” but in reality it makes it easier for those businesses to endanger and exploit their workforces in the name of speed and profits. The bill’s current form would prevent the Department of Labor from enforcing important protections for temporary agricultural workers and misclassified workers, making improvements to labor standards for apprenticeships, strengthening retirement funds, and expanding workers’ ability to choose their representatives during OSHA workplace inspections. 

It’s clear that the Republican committee members are determined to slash and burn away whatever ​“excesses” they can find, and nowhere is that more apparent than in their disgusting betrayal of the coal miners their party loves so dearly to pretend to respect. Section 123 of the bill reads, ​“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to administer, implement, or enforce the proposed rule entitled ​‘Lowering Miners’ Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica and Improving Respiratory Protection,’ published by the Department of Labor in the Federal Register on April 18, 2024.” The language is bloodless, but the intent is utterly vicious: These highly paid, pampered modern aristocrats sat back in their padded chairs and casually handed down a potential death sentence to 44,000 people. 

That’s how many coal miners currently work in the U.S. as of June 2024. One in 5 of those miners — those who have spent more than 20 years underground — is suffering from coal miner’s pneumoconiosis, the dreadful degenerative lung disease known more colloquially as black lung. As I reported in my 2023 In These Times investigation, ​“The Young Miners Dying of ​‘An Old Man’s Disease,’ ” the biggest direct cause of that spike in cases is silica dust. Coal miners across Central Appalachia are being overexposed to the toxic substance as they work underground, and it has been wreaking havoc upon their lungs and lives. While Rep. Aderholt has been enjoying his cushy office on Capitol Hill, they’ve been breathing in death.

Keep in mind that Aderholt represents Alabama’s 4^th congressional district, an oddly-drawn chunk of territory that curiously manages to skirt Birmingham and sits just a few miles west of Brookwood, the site of a protracted coal miners’ strike between 2021-2023. His Jasper, Ala., office is only about an hour’s drive from the Warrior Met Coal Mine where Alabamian members of the United Mine Workers picketed for nearly two straight years.

It’s well within the realm of possibility that he — or at least some of his staffers—heard about that strike, or drove down one of the winding country roads where the union’s ​“WE ARE ONE” strike signs sprouted like dandelions. It’s difficult to imagine that throughout his many years in office, he’s never met even one of the coal miners he’s paid to represent in Congress, yet that simply must be the case. Otherwise, what possible reason would he have had to oversee, praise and help push forward a poisonous piece of legislation that directly increases those constituents’ likelihood of contracting a deadly disease?

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has been calling for a federal regulation reducing the allowable amount of silica exposure since 1974, but a web of bureaucratic roadblocks (and a lack of political will) kept the issue on the regulatory backburner for half a century. In 2016, OSHA was able to implement a lower silica standard — but coal miners were explicitly excluded from the rule, and continued to have silica exposure limits twice as high as every other worker in the nation. Meanwhile, coal workers kept dying.

It wasn’t until April 18 of this year that the Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) finally published its new federal silica rule, which lowered the allowable silica limit to 50 micrograms per cubic meter… exactly what NIOSH called for back in 1974. The Department of Labor estimates that the new rule will prevent about 1,067 deaths and 3,746 cases of silica-related illnesses. Miners breathed a shallow sigh of relief, while ensuring that the agency knew that there was still a lot of work to do. At a public hearing on the proposed rule in Beckley, W.V., last August, miners with black lung and public health advocates spoke in favor of strengthening its language and placing more power in the hands of workers, instead of mine owners.

“We old-timers have already paid the price,” said John Robinson, a retired miner with advanced black lung whose wife, Vonda Robinson, serves as the vice president of the National Black Lung Association. ​“We’re going to die from this preventable disease. But we have got to take care of our younger guys. … Until we have a rule in place that protects our miners, keeps them employed, and eliminates fear and retaliation from these operators, it won’t be enough.”

Even with all of its lingering issues, most advocates agreed that the rule marked a step in the right direction. Something was better than nothing, and it gave rise to the hope of adding additional worker protections, employer penalties and strict enforcement as the implementation process was rolled out.

But now, thanks to Alabama millionaire Rep. Aderholt and his well-heeled pals on the Appropriations Committee, coal miners and the people who care about them have once again been cut off at the knees. United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts called him out by name.

“The miners in his district, many of whom already suffer from black lung disease, deserve better than this,” Roberts told The Alabama Political Reporter. ​“I can only conclude that Aderholt is telling his constituents that their lives and health are of no concern to him.”

It’s not the first time a Republican has stepped in to try and quash the rule. When it was still just a draft in 2023, Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry, a Republican from a coal-mining region, tried to preemptively block funding. Thankfully the effort failed, and with any luck, so will this one. 

“It is shameful that some in Congress would play politics with the lives of the coal miners who too often sacrifice their health to power our country,” commented Chelsea Barnes, director of government affairs and strategy for the clean-energy advocacy group Appalachian Voices, in a statement. ​“Make no mistake: blocking the silica dust standard will cost lives. It is imperative that Congress strike this reckless provision as the legislative process moves forward.”

This rule, for which so many workers fought for so long, is a part of what these Republican committee goons call a ​“destructive and anti-worker regulatory agenda.” The final vote was 31 to 25, which likely means that every single Republican voted for this — and a Democrat joined them (and I for one am awfully curious about who that is). The irony is painful, particularly when one considers the Republicans’ cringeworthy push to position themselves as a ​“blue-collar party” that fights for ​“American workers” against out-of-touch liberal elites. Even Donald Trump, who used to yammer constantly about how much he ​“loved” coal miners and how he was going to bring back the coal industry, has largely abandoned both during his current campaign of destruction.

When a coal miner is stricken with black lung and left unable to work, the absolute highest monthly payment that they can receive from the federal black lung benefits fund is $1,545.00, provided they have three or more dependents; if they’re all alone, it’s capped at $772. Meanwhile, members of Congress have access to the best medical care in the nation, thanks to their low-cost, gold-plated healthcare plans and six-figure salaries, both of which are paid for with workers’ tax dollars. Each one of the Representatives who voted to defund the silica rule brings home at least $174,000 per year. Aderholt himself is worth about $9 million, and took home $3.8 million in federal farm subsidies in 2023 for his spouse and businesses. All that filthy lucre could probably buy a lot of oxygen tanks for the coal miners that he and his colleagues just doomed.

“It’s very disheartening to see a handful of Washington politicians try and undo all this hard work on a whim,” said Robinson of the National Black Lung Association, in a statement. ​“If this policy becomes law, it will put the lives of countless miners at risk. Mining families deserve better, and we urge Congress to throw out this dangerous policy and get to work helping miners, not making their lives much harder.”