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CNN
6 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Coal miners backed Trump. He's dismantled their safety net
After decades of mining coal deep below the mountains of West Virginia, David Bounds now struggles to carry a gallon of milk to the breakfast table without gasping for breath. The black lung disease that forced him to retire eventually may kill him, Bounds believes. He's proud of being a coal miner. But he doesn't want anyone else to face his fate – or the myriad other dangers miners confront on the job. 'It's getting worse, and worse, and worse as I go along. I don't want to see nobody in that shape, if it can be prevented,' he told CNN. So Bounds has watched in dismay as the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have slashed protections for coal miners. A CNN investigation has found that in just five months, President Donald Trump dismantled the safety net that has for years protected miners from lung disease, aided those already afflicted and kept miners safe on the job. Since January, 'impact' inspections targeting mines with immediate dangers or the most troubling records of health and safety violations have dropped by 75 percent from the same period a year ago, according to data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). They are at their lowest level for any year with data available since such 'impact' inspections began in 2010. Those inspections 'are geared to save miners' lives,' said Joe Main, the former head of MSHA under President Barack Obama. 'If you take that component out, then you've placed more risk on the potential for mine disasters in the United States. It's that simple.' As Trump has tapped a former mining industry executive to lead MSHA, the agency has halted enforcement of a rule miners sought for decades to protect them against the silica dust that ravages their lungs – citing 'unforeseen' restructuring at government offices charged with protecting miners. As part of Musk's DOGE efforts to reduce government, the mine agency rescinded job offers, froze hiring and reduced its ranks through deferred resignations. DOGE also ordered the closure of about three dozen of MSHA's offices around the country. Though most of those orders were rescinded last week, at least four offices are still slated to shut down, according to a memo obtained by CNN. That includes one in Pineville, West Virginia, created after 29 coal miners died in an explosion in 2010 at the Upper Big Branch mine. The administration also gutted the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), firing most of its staff in April and May, and shuttering regional offices in coal country, putting in limbo black lung and silicosis programs. While a judge recently ordered some NIOSH staffers to be reinstated, epidemiologists and other researchers told CNN that many remain on administrative leave and expect to lose their jobs. The president's proposed budget for fiscal 2026 would further cut MSHA's budget by 10%, eliminating 47 positions and a grant program that trains miners to better identify, avoid and prevent unsafe working conditions in mines. A spokesperson for the Department of Labor said MSHA inspectors were exempted from the deferred resignation program, that overall inspection numbers 'are similar to historical trends' and the agency 'is confident that it will achieve its statutory yearly inspection obligations.' A Health and Human Services spokesperson said the 'Trump Administration is committed to supporting coal miners' and added that 'NIOSH's essential services will continue as HHS streamlines its operations.' Trump has argued that he can reinvigorate the coal industry by cutting red tape and 'removing Federal regulatory barriers that undermine coal production.' He's signed executive orders intended to boost the coal industry and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to end federal limits on coal- and gas-fired power-plant pollution that's been tied to climate change. 'We're ending Joe Biden's war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all,' Trump said at an April 8 signing ceremony for his executive orders. 'And we're going to put the miners back to work.' But many in mine country fear that Trump – who won 70 percent of West Virginia's vote in 2024, with equally strong support among the mining regions across Appalachia – is boosting the coal industry at the expense of the miners who actually carry out the dirty, dangerous work. 'People are going to die because of this,' said Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America. He said, of Trump, 'Look, we're the biggest cheerleader he could possibly have in creating new jobs, because Appalachia is in desperate need of jobs. We don't fault the president on that end. But you can't bring people back and kill them. I mean, how much sense does that make?' Miners have long faced grave health threats. Between 1900 and 1960, cave-ins, explosions, other disasters and mining accidents killed nearly 100,000 coal miners on the job. It's unclear exactly how many more miners died in those years from black lung. In 1969, a year after an explosion killed 78 West Virginia miners, Congress passed the landmark Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which created what became MSHA. The act also established health standards; set fines and criminal penalties for repeated willful safety violations; set strict inspection schedules; and required compensation for miners who developed black lung disease. From when it began tracking black lung in 1970 to 2016, the Centers for Disease Control reported that the condition was the underlying or contributing cause of death for more than 75,000 miners. Since 1997, research into preventing black lung disease and other mining dangers has been conducted by NIOSH, an institute responsible for studying worker risks across many industries. At the institute's offices in Morgantown, West Virginia, epidemiologists and researchers in the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program have long provided free health checks for miners, and documented diagnoses of black lung so affected miners can legally demand to be moved to mine jobs that reduce their exposure to coal and silica dust. Those programs have recently grown in importance, as thinning coal seams force mining operations to dig through thicker layers of sandstone – a process that creates more silica dust, which has led to a steep rise in irreversible lung damage. About one in five of the 4,000 to 6,000 miners the program screens each year have developed black lung disease, researchers testified. That's one reason researchers and miners' advocates have pushed for the new silica dust regulations, which would have cut allowable exposure in half. But after Trump won election back to the White House, buoyed by his strong support in coal country, his administration moved quickly to walk back many of those programs. In April, MSHA suspended the new silica-dust rule until mid-August and declined to argue against a mining industry court request to stay the rule, which a court granted. Around the same time, two thirds of the institute's staff were laid off under orders from DOGE and HHS – including all the members of the surveillance program in Morgantown. 'We found out through a Signal chat,' said Anthony Scott Laney, an epidemiologist who has worked at the program since 2008. 'They were having a meeting of the CDC division directors. Someone at the meeting sent out a Signal message that said, 'Oh no, sorry NIOSH,' with a frowny-face emoji.' Some lawmakers, including West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, lobbied to reverse the cuts. On May 13, a federal judge in West Virginia, in a lawsuit brought by a miner with black lung, ordered the 'full restoration' of the NIOSH Respiratory Health Division, including the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program. At a House budget hearing the next day, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. told lawmakers that the surveillance and black lung programs would be fully reinstated. Even with the firings of the respiratory workers in Morgantown rescinded, other parts of the institute that contribute to miner safety remain closed, said Cathy Tinney-Zara, president of the union chapter that represents the scientists and staff in Morgantown. 'What wasn't rescinded was the group of persons who do the laboratory work. If new exposures for workers are found, that's where the lab division looks at that and studies it and gives documentation as to 'this level of particulates does this type of damage,'' she said. Laney said shuttered labs in Morgantown and Pittsburgh were vital to the respiratory division's work. 'How do you do a black lung program if you don't have laboratories?' he asked. And other pieces of the institute that work on miner safety issues, in Morgantown and elsewhere, still face deep cuts. 'I have been on admin leave since April, but effectively I have lost my job,' said Catherine Blackwood, who studies occupational allergies and microbial triggers of disease. 'We've received next to no communication from leadership.' 'I don't think the president or Secretary Kennedy understand the long-term impacts of gutting NIOSH,' she said. 'It will impact every single worker in the United States.' Brendan Demich came from a long line of coal miners – including an uncle buried in rubble at one mine and a grandfather with black lung – to work at a Pittsburgh mine research division of NIOSH. Now, his whole team has been cut. 'If they had come to any of our facilities, asked any questions to NIOSH leadership, asked any questions to people on the ground, there's no way that these cuts would be going through, as we protect everybody from coal miners to construction workers to tradesmen,' said Demich. 'It boggled my mind that somebody decided that work is not important.' Jennica Bellanca, a NIOSH engineer in Pittsburgh who worked on improving responses to mine emergencies, is one of many union members who have filed grievances to challenge their terminations. She said she fears that without NIOSH, research on how to improve the safety of miners simply won't get done. MSHA has long scheduled quarterly inspections at sub-surface mines and semi-annual inspections at surface mines. But after the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in 2010, the agency also began conducting 'impact inspections' at mines that repeatedly violate health and safety standards, or to address specific risks raised by miners or operators. Main, the former MSHA head, said those inspections have helped prevent any major coal-mining disasters over the past 15 years. Under Trump, though, such inspections have plummeted. In the first five months of this year, the mining administration conducted one-fourth as many impact inspections as over the same period last year: 18 impact inspections, down from 72, issuing 274 citations for violations, down from 1,141. That is the fewest impact inspections MSHA has completed in the first five months of any year with available data since the inspection program began. (In 2021 and 2022, the agency stopped releasing inspection data during the Covid-19 pandemic.) 'I can tell you what's going on: They are too short of inspectors to carry them out. That's my gut feeling,' said Main. He said it worries him. 'When you start messing with these things that we know work, we know protect miners,' the risk increases, he said. 'If there is a lack of inspections to fine them and catch them and get them fixed, miners are going to pay the price.' A Department of Labor spokesperson said that MSHA has 'additional inspectors in the training pipeline,' and noted that its overall inspection numbers through May 20 were higher than in 2024. Some shortcomings at the mining agency predate Trump's administration. An inspector general report released toward the end of the Biden administration cited shortcomings at MSHA with completing inspections, writing violations and other issues as one of the top 'performance challenges' facing the Department of Labor. But Carey Clarkson, the West Virginia-based vice president of a union that represents MSHA workers, said he worries that, with the changes under the Trump administration, 'the safety aspect is gone.' He said the new administration rescinded job offers to about 90 people in the process of being hired at MSHA, including roughly 50 inspectors who were 'justified and severely needed.' He said about 170 people, more than 11% of the workforce, left in DOGE's deferred resignation program. 'The mission was not taken into account. It was 'we need to get rid of bodies, we don't care from what areas, we don't care what it affects,'' he said. To lead MSHA, Trump has appointed Wayne Palmer, a former executive at the Essential Minerals Association, a trade group that has supported a legal challenge against the since-suspended silica rule. Palmer has repeatedly jumped between government and private sector jobs in Washington, DC. In addition to lobbying on behalf of mining interests, he previously registered to lobby for health care clients, as well as a foundation criticized by some US lawmakers and watchdog groups as linked to the Chinese Communist Party's broader effort to influence the United States. That foundation has described itself as an independent group. Asked about his work for that foundation, a Department of Labor spokesperson said about a decade ago Palmer organized trips for bipartisan delegations of state and local US officials and assisted in organizing events but did not speak at them. Palmer also served as a senior official at MSHA in Trump's first administration. At that time, a report by the Department of Labor's inspector general found the mine-safety agency did too little to protect miners from silica dust, sticking to outdated standards even as the number of miners developing black lung soared. 'Every single day the silica dust rule is delayed is a day our miners are contracting black lung, and it is killing them,' said Erin Bates, a spokeswoman for the United Mine Workers of America, which fought against the pause. Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that works on mine safety issues, called getting the silica rule in place foundational for protecting miners. 'But if you don't have MSHA inspectors,' she added, 'it doesn't matter how good your rule is, because you can't enforce it.' At his home in Oak Hill, in the heart of West Virginia's coal country, Bounds sits hooked up to the oxygen machine that helps him breathe. 'With the black lung, it thickens your wall, and it's hard to get that breath in there,' he explained. He said most of the damage to his lungs comes from decades of exposure to coal dust. 'We'd go down to Myrtle Beach for a vacation, lay on the beach, and spit up coal dust. Even after being down there for a week, you're still spitting up coal dust. You know there's a lot of dust down in your system when you do that a week later.' But, as NIOSH researchers have determined, Bounds said the silica dust now affecting younger miners is worse – damaging lungs more quickly and severely. It's one reason Bounds joined the fight for the rule to reduce silica exposure and celebrated when the new rule was approved. 'We was tickled with that,' he said. 'It was a big thing for us.' 'Now, it's come down to the same thing it was before. 'We'll take care of it in the fall, we'll do it in spring, we'll do it in fall.'' He pauses. 'I just gotta get a little bit of wind. I'm talking too much.' Bounds, who said he did not cast a vote for a presidential candidate in the last election, said he doesn't think Trump and others in Washington understand the effect the program and inspection cutbacks will have on miners. Coal miners 'depend on NIOSH. They depend on mine inspectors. They depend on things being right,' he says. 'Mine operators get rich, but the… coal miner himself is getting sicker and sicker. And they want to go the wrong route. They're trying to go a wrong route by cutting the people that's there to help us.' Anna-Maja Rappard contributed to this report.
CNN
6 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Coal miners backed Trump. He's dismantled their safety net
After decades of mining coal deep below the mountains of West Virginia, David Bounds now struggles to carry a gallon of milk to the breakfast table without gasping for breath. The black lung disease that forced him to retire eventually may kill him, Bounds believes. He's proud of being a coal miner. But he doesn't want anyone else to face his fate – or the myriad other dangers miners confront on the job. 'It's getting worse, and worse, and worse as I go along. I don't want to see nobody in that shape, if it can be prevented,' he told CNN. So Bounds has watched in dismay as the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have slashed protections for coal miners. A CNN investigation has found that in just five months, President Donald Trump dismantled the safety net that has for years protected miners from lung disease, aided those already afflicted and kept miners safe on the job. Since January, 'impact' inspections targeting mines with immediate dangers or the most troubling records of health and safety violations have dropped by 75 percent from the same period a year ago, according to data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). They are at their lowest level for any year with data available since such 'impact' inspections began in 2010. Those inspections 'are geared to save miners' lives,' said Joe Main, the former head of MSHA under President Barack Obama. 'If you take that component out, then you've placed more risk on the potential for mine disasters in the United States. It's that simple.' As Trump has tapped a former mining industry executive to lead MSHA, the agency has halted enforcement of a rule miners sought for decades to protect them against the silica dust that ravages their lungs – citing 'unforeseen' restructuring at government offices charged with protecting miners. As part of Musk's DOGE efforts to reduce government, the mine agency rescinded job offers, froze hiring and reduced its ranks through deferred resignations. DOGE also ordered the closure of about three dozen of MSHA's offices around the country. Though most of those orders were rescinded last week, at least four offices are still slated to shut down, according to a memo obtained by CNN. That includes one in Pineville, West Virginia, created after 29 coal miners died in an explosion in 2010 at the Upper Big Branch mine. The administration also gutted the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), firing most of its staff in April and May, and shuttering regional offices in coal country, putting in limbo black lung and silicosis programs. While a judge recently ordered some NIOSH staffers to be reinstated, epidemiologists and other researchers told CNN that many remain on administrative leave and expect to lose their jobs. The president's proposed budget for fiscal 2026 would further cut MSHA's budget by 10%, eliminating 47 positions and a grant program that trains miners to better identify, avoid and prevent unsafe working conditions in mines. A spokesperson for the Department of Labor said MSHA inspectors were exempted from the deferred resignation program, that overall inspection numbers 'are similar to historical trends' and the agency 'is confident that it will achieve its statutory yearly inspection obligations.' A Health and Human Services spokesperson said the 'Trump Administration is committed to supporting coal miners' and added that 'NIOSH's essential services will continue as HHS streamlines its operations.' Trump has argued that he can reinvigorate the coal industry by cutting red tape and 'removing Federal regulatory barriers that undermine coal production.' He's signed executive orders intended to boost the coal industry and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to end federal limits on coal- and gas-fired power-plant pollution that's been tied to climate change. 'We're ending Joe Biden's war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all,' Trump said at an April 8 signing ceremony for his executive orders. 'And we're going to put the miners back to work.' But many in mine country fear that Trump – who won 70 percent of West Virginia's vote in 2024, with equally strong support among the mining regions across Appalachia – is boosting the coal industry at the expense of the miners who actually carry out the dirty, dangerous work. 'People are going to die because of this,' said Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America. He said, of Trump, 'Look, we're the biggest cheerleader he could possibly have in creating new jobs, because Appalachia is in desperate need of jobs. We don't fault the president on that end. But you can't bring people back and kill them. I mean, how much sense does that make?' Miners have long faced grave health threats. Between 1900 and 1960, cave-ins, explosions, other disasters and mining accidents killed nearly 100,000 coal miners on the job. It's unclear exactly how many more miners died in those years from black lung. In 1969, a year after an explosion killed 78 West Virginia miners, Congress passed the landmark Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which created what became MSHA. The act also established health standards; set fines and criminal penalties for repeated willful safety violations; set strict inspection schedules; and required compensation for miners who developed black lung disease. From when it began tracking black lung in 1970 to 2016, the Centers for Disease Control reported that the condition was the underlying or contributing cause of death for more than 75,000 miners. Since 1997, research into preventing black lung disease and other mining dangers has been conducted by NIOSH, an institute responsible for studying worker risks across many industries. At the institute's offices in Morgantown, West Virginia, epidemiologists and researchers in the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program have long provided free health checks for miners, and documented diagnoses of black lung so affected miners can legally demand to be moved to mine jobs that reduce their exposure to coal and silica dust. Those programs have recently grown in importance, as thinning coal seams force mining operations to dig through thicker layers of sandstone – a process that creates more silica dust, which has led to a steep rise in irreversible lung damage. About one in five of the 4,000 to 6,000 miners the program screens each year have developed black lung disease, researchers testified. That's one reason researchers and miners' advocates have pushed for the new silica dust regulations, which would have cut allowable exposure in half. But after Trump won election back to the White House, buoyed by his strong support in coal country, his administration moved quickly to walk back many of those programs. In April, MSHA suspended the new silica-dust rule until mid-August and declined to argue against a mining industry court request to stay the rule, which a court granted. Around the same time, two thirds of the institute's staff were laid off under orders from DOGE and HHS – including all the members of the surveillance program in Morgantown. 'We found out through a Signal chat,' said Anthony Scott Laney, an epidemiologist who has worked at the program since 2008. 'They were having a meeting of the CDC division directors. Someone at the meeting sent out a Signal message that said, 'Oh no, sorry NIOSH,' with a frowny-face emoji.' Some lawmakers, including West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, lobbied to reverse the cuts. On May 13, a federal judge in West Virginia, in a lawsuit brought by a miner with black lung, ordered the 'full restoration' of the NIOSH Respiratory Health Division, including the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program. At a House budget hearing the next day, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. told lawmakers that the surveillance and black lung programs would be fully reinstated. Even with the firings of the respiratory workers in Morgantown rescinded, other parts of the institute that contribute to miner safety remain closed, said Cathy Tinney-Zara, president of the union chapter that represents the scientists and staff in Morgantown. 'What wasn't rescinded was the group of persons who do the laboratory work. If new exposures for workers are found, that's where the lab division looks at that and studies it and gives documentation as to 'this level of particulates does this type of damage,'' she said. Laney said shuttered labs in Morgantown and Pittsburgh were vital to the respiratory division's work. 'How do you do a black lung program if you don't have laboratories?' he asked. And other pieces of the institute that work on miner safety issues, in Morgantown and elsewhere, still face deep cuts. 'I have been on admin leave since April, but effectively I have lost my job,' said Catherine Blackwood, who studies occupational allergies and microbial triggers of disease. 'We've received next to no communication from leadership.' 'I don't think the president or Secretary Kennedy understand the long-term impacts of gutting NIOSH,' she said. 'It will impact every single worker in the United States.' Brendan Demich came from a long line of coal miners – including an uncle buried in rubble at one mine and a grandfather with black lung – to work at a Pittsburgh mine research division of NIOSH. Now, his whole team has been cut. 'If they had come to any of our facilities, asked any questions to NIOSH leadership, asked any questions to people on the ground, there's no way that these cuts would be going through, as we protect everybody from coal miners to construction workers to tradesmen,' said Demich. 'It boggled my mind that somebody decided that work is not important.' Jennica Bellanca, a NIOSH engineer in Pittsburgh who worked on improving responses to mine emergencies, is one of many union members who have filed grievances to challenge their terminations. She said she fears that without NIOSH, research on how to improve the safety of miners simply won't get done. MSHA has long scheduled quarterly inspections at sub-surface mines and semi-annual inspections at surface mines. But after the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in 2010, the agency also began conducting 'impact inspections' at mines that repeatedly violate health and safety standards, or to address specific risks raised by miners or operators. Main, the former MSHA head, said those inspections have helped prevent any major coal-mining disasters over the past 15 years. Under Trump, though, such inspections have plummeted. In the first five months of this year, the mining administration conducted one-fourth as many impact inspections as over the same period last year: 18 impact inspections, down from 72, issuing 274 citations for violations, down from 1,141. That is the fewest impact inspections MSHA has completed in the first five months of any year with available data since the inspection program began. (In 2021 and 2022, the agency stopped releasing inspection data during the Covid-19 pandemic.) 'I can tell you what's going on: They are too short of inspectors to carry them out. That's my gut feeling,' said Main. He said it worries him. 'When you start messing with these things that we know work, we know protect miners,' the risk increases, he said. 'If there is a lack of inspections to fine them and catch them and get them fixed, miners are going to pay the price.' A Department of Labor spokesperson said that MSHA has 'additional inspectors in the training pipeline,' and noted that its overall inspection numbers through May 20 were higher than in 2024. Some shortcomings at the mining agency predate Trump's administration. An inspector general report released toward the end of the Biden administration cited shortcomings at MSHA with completing inspections, writing violations and other issues as one of the top 'performance challenges' facing the Department of Labor. But Carey Clarkson, the West Virginia-based vice president of a union that represents MSHA workers, said he worries that, with the changes under the Trump administration, 'the safety aspect is gone.' He said the new administration rescinded job offers to about 90 people in the process of being hired at MSHA, including roughly 50 inspectors who were 'justified and severely needed.' He said about 170 people, more than 11% of the workforce, left in DOGE's deferred resignation program. 'The mission was not taken into account. It was 'we need to get rid of bodies, we don't care from what areas, we don't care what it affects,'' he said. To lead MSHA, Trump has appointed Wayne Palmer, a former executive at the Essential Minerals Association, a trade group that has supported a legal challenge against the since-suspended silica rule. Palmer has repeatedly jumped between government and private sector jobs in Washington, DC. In addition to lobbying on behalf of mining interests, he previously registered to lobby for health care clients, as well as a foundation criticized by some US lawmakers and watchdog groups as linked to the Chinese Communist Party's broader effort to influence the United States. That foundation has described itself as an independent group. Asked about his work for that foundation, a Department of Labor spokesperson said about a decade ago Palmer organized trips for bipartisan delegations of state and local US officials and assisted in organizing events but did not speak at them. Palmer also served as a senior official at MSHA in Trump's first administration. At that time, a report by the Department of Labor's inspector general found the mine-safety agency did too little to protect miners from silica dust, sticking to outdated standards even as the number of miners developing black lung soared. 'Every single day the silica dust rule is delayed is a day our miners are contracting black lung, and it is killing them,' said Erin Bates, a spokeswoman for the United Mine Workers of America, which fought against the pause. Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that works on mine safety issues, called getting the silica rule in place foundational for protecting miners. 'But if you don't have MSHA inspectors,' she added, 'it doesn't matter how good your rule is, because you can't enforce it.' At his home in Oak Hill, in the heart of West Virginia's coal country, Bounds sits hooked up to the oxygen machine that helps him breathe. 'With the black lung, it thickens your wall, and it's hard to get that breath in there,' he explained. He said most of the damage to his lungs comes from decades of exposure to coal dust. 'We'd go down to Myrtle Beach for a vacation, lay on the beach, and spit up coal dust. Even after being down there for a week, you're still spitting up coal dust. You know there's a lot of dust down in your system when you do that a week later.' But, as NIOSH researchers have determined, Bounds said the silica dust now affecting younger miners is worse – damaging lungs more quickly and severely. It's one reason Bounds joined the fight for the rule to reduce silica exposure and celebrated when the new rule was approved. 'We was tickled with that,' he said. 'It was a big thing for us.' 'Now, it's come down to the same thing it was before. 'We'll take care of it in the fall, we'll do it in spring, we'll do it in fall.'' He pauses. 'I just gotta get a little bit of wind. I'm talking too much.' Bounds, who said he did not cast a vote for a presidential candidate in the last election, said he doesn't think Trump and others in Washington understand the effect the program and inspection cutbacks will have on miners. Coal miners 'depend on NIOSH. They depend on mine inspectors. They depend on things being right,' he says. 'Mine operators get rich, but the… coal miner himself is getting sicker and sicker. And they want to go the wrong route. They're trying to go a wrong route by cutting the people that's there to help us.' Anna-Maja Rappard contributed to this report.
CNN
26-05-2025
- Health
- CNN
Feds chop enforcement staff and halt rules meant to curb black lung in coal miners
In early April, President Donald Trump gathered dozens of hard-hat-clad coal miners around him in the White House East Room. He joked about arm-wrestling them and announced he was signing executive orders to boost coal production, 'bringing back an industry that was abandoned,' and to 'put the miners back to work.' Trump said he calls it 'beautiful, clean' coal. 'I tell my people never use the word 'coal' unless you put 'beautiful, clean' before it.' That same day, the Trump administration paused implementation of a rule that would help protect coal miners from an aggressive form of black lung disease. Enforcement of the new protections is officially halted until at least mid-August, according to a federal announcement that came a few days after a federal court agreed to put enforcement on hold to hear an industry challenge. But even if the rule takes full force after the delay, the federal agency tasked with enforcing it in Appalachia and elsewhere may not be up to the task after sweeping layoffs and office closures. Deaths from black lung — a chronic condition caused by inhaling coal dust — had been in decline since the introduction of federal regulations over a half-century ago. But in recent decades, 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 showed evidence of black lung. It is being diagnosed in younger miners. And the deadliest form, progressive massive fibrosis, has increased tenfold among long-term miners. Silica is the primary culprit. Exposure to it has increased since mining operations began cutting through more sandstone to reach deeper coal deposits. The stone breaks into sharp particles that, when airborne, can become trapped in lung tissue and cause a debilitating, sometimes fatal condition. The new rule was set to take effect in April, cutting the allowable level of silica dust in the air inside mines by half — to the limit already in place for other industries — and set stricter guidelines for enforcement. Years in the making, advocates for miners heralded the new standards 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 said when the rule was announced last spring under the Biden administration. The rule pause came on top of another blow to mine safety oversight. In March, the Department of Government Efficiency, created by a Trump executive order, announced it would end leases for as many as three dozen field offices of the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration, with the future of those employees undetermined. That agency is responsible for enforcing mining safety laws. Then in April, two-thirds — nearly 900 — of the workers at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, were fired. As a result, NIOSH's Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program, which offered miners free screenings from a mobile 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 but didn't mention the federal court decision in the case seeking to rescind the rule. Separately, on May 7, attorney Sam Petsonk filed a class-action lawsuit against Health and Human Services and its head, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to reinstate the program. His client in the case, Harry Wiley, a West Virginia coal miner, was diagnosed with an early stage of black lung and applied to NIOSH for a transfer to an environment with less dust exposure but never received 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 employees. The next day, Kennedy said the administration would reverse the firings of 328 NIOSH employees. That day, they were back 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 officials declined to respond to specific questions about the silica rule or plans to implement and enforce it, citing the ongoing litigation. In an emailed statement, Labor Department spokesperson Courtney Parella said, '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 quick to say a career in the mines isn't necessarily a death sentence. He comes from generations of miners. One of his great-grandfathers worked 48 years underground and died at 88. But Addington also said protecting the safety and health of miners requires diligence. He's executive director of the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, a Whitesburg, Kentucky, nonprofit that represents and advocates for miners and their families. A study the center conducted found that staffers at the MSHA offices scheduled to close performed almost 17,000 health and safety inspections from January 2024 through February 2025. Addington said NIOSH provided the data to document worsening conditions over the past few decades. Addington's organization has advocated for the new silica rule for 17 years. 'We didn't think it was perfect,' he said. He would have preferred lower exposure limits and more stringent monitoring requirements. 'But, as it was, it was going to save lives.' The cuts to the agency, Addington said, could affect every American worker who might be exposed to harmful elements in the workplace. NIOSH approves respirators prescribed by Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations. With fewer inspectors, miners are 'more likely to get hurt on the job and those injuries could be fatal,' he said. 'And if you're a miner that's lucky enough to navigate that gantlet and make it through a 20-, 25-year career,' Addington said, '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 diagnosed 75 new cases of progressive massive fibrosis in the past year, according 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 said. 'It's just all very disheartening.' He believes it would be a mistake for Kennedy to reorganize NIOSH as he has proposed, shifting the surveillance program team's responsibilities to other employees. 'It's a very unique expertise,' Harris said. The agency would 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 in the mines in 1967, a year before an explosion killed 78 miners near the small town of Farmington, West Virginia. His wife, Tilda Fields, was aware of the hazards her husband would encounter — the safety issues, the long-term health concerns. Her dad died of black lung when she was 7. But it meant a well-paying job in a region that has forever offered precious few. Rex, 77, now lives with an advanced stage of black lung disease. He's still able to mow his lawn but is easily winded when walking uphill. It took him several weeks and two rounds of antibiotics to recover from a bout with bronchitis in March. Throughout his career, Rex advocated for his fellow miners: He stepped in when he saw someone mistreated; he once tried, unsuccessfully, to help a unionization effort. For these efforts, he said, 'I got transferred from the day shift to the third shift a time or two.' Today, the Fieldses lobby on behalf of miners and share information about occupational dangers. Tilda organized a support group for families and widows. She worries about the next generation. Two of the Fieldses' sons also went into mining. 'People in the mountains here, we learn to make do,' Tilda said. '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 national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
CBS News
18-05-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Judge orders restoration of jobs in health program for West Virginia coal miners
CHARLESTON, (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered the restoration of a health monitoring program for coal miners in West Virginia and rescinded layoffs the federal government implemented in a unit of a small U.S. health agency. U.S. District Judge Irene Berger issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by a coal miner who was diagnosed with a respiratory ailment commonly known as black lung disease. Nearly 200 workers at a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health facility in Morgantown were told last month that their jobs were being terminated as part of restructuring within Health and Human Services. Berger ordered that jobs be restored within NIOSH's respiratory health division in Morgantown, although her ruling didn't specify a number. The division is responsible for screening and reviewing medical exams to determine whether there is evidence that miners have developed black lung. Federal law mandates that regular health screenings be made available to coal miners. Those diagnosed with black lung are also given the option to transfer to other positions in a mine to protect them from continued dust exposure without a pay reduction. Berger said the defendants "lack the authority to unilaterally cancel" the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program within NIOSH. She ordered both the surveillance and job transfer programs to be restored, saying that "there be no pause, stoppage or gap in the protections and services" mandated by the federal Mine Safety and Health Act. Poisonous silica dust has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of mine workers from black lung disease. Plaintiff Harry Wiley, a West Virginia mine electrician who has worked in coal mines for 38 years, was diagnosed with early-stage black lung last November. Canceling the health surveillance program would "cost lives," Berger wrote. "Remaining in a dusty job may reduce the years in which Mr. Wiley can walk and breathe unassisted, in addition to hastening his death. It is difficult to imagine a clearer case of irreparable harm." The judge gave Kennedy 20 days to show the federal government is complying with her order. An email seeking comment from Health and Human Services wasn't immediately returned Tuesday night. Wiley's attorney, Sam Brown Petsonk, said the preliminary injunction "had to happen, and the public, I think, understands the absolute necessity of this program. It cannot be hindered. It cannot be whittled away. It's essential because it saves the lives of some of he hardest-working people in this entire world." NIOSH was created under a 1970 law signed by President Richard Nixon. It started operations the following year and grew to have offices and labs in eight cities, including Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Morgantown, and Spokane, Washington.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Undermined: A small federal agency was investigating dangers to miners. Then came DOGE
The NIOSH Coal Worker's Health Surveillance Program offered periodic black lung screenings at no cost to coal miners in the U.S. (NIOSH photo) This story was originally published by InvestigateWest, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to change-making investigative journalism. Sign up for their Watchdog Weekly newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Like his father and his grandfather, Marshal Cummings grew up mining trona, a substance used in everything from glass to pharmaceuticals and baking soda. When he was 22, that meant spending 16-hour days in a trona mine in Green River, Wyoming, throwing heavy mining parts onto conveyor belts, up to his knees in muck, with clouds of dust in the air. 'I don't know what I did to myself,' said Cummings, now 36. 'I don't know what breathing all that dust did.' But he knows his collection of newspaper clippings about dead miners is growing. He knows that many of them died of cancer. And he knows that the levels of silica, a carcinogenic substance, in the mines has repeatedly been measured at dangerously high levels. What Cummings doesn't know is whether the trona they've been mining is adding to the danger. 'I know what silica does,' Cummings said. 'Nobody knows with trona.' In January, Genesis Alkali, the company that owned the mine, canceled a safety audit Cummings had scheduled, according to emails provided to InvestigateWest. Cummings had had enough: Asserting his role as a local union president, he called in the feds for help. In January, he appealed to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — or NIOSH — arguing that 'our miners have the right to know if their health is being compromised by inhaling trona dust.' By February, federal epidemiologist Anne Foreman reached out to him to confirm that she and two other investigators had been assigned to visit the mine to see what they could learn. 'NIOSH is going to identify what's getting people sick and what's killing people, and then they're gonna help solve the problem,' Cummings recalled thinking. The investigative team never arrived. They'd been ousted due to sweeping federal budget cuts. 'I've been fired in the cuts to NIOSH,' Foreman wrote in an April 9 email to Cummings. 'I'm emailing you as a concerned citizen now. 92% of NIOSH has been eliminated — including everyone who runs the Health Hazard Evaluation Program.' For 55 years, the small, little known federal agency has sent specialized teams of trained medical detectives into workplaces to investigate what could be making workers sick — everything from dust, fungus, asbestos and radiation. It's an agency that has dug into zoos, libraries, aluminum smelters, state crime labs and nuclear weapons facilities. Now, dozens of these ongoing investigations have been canceled. 'We finally get to the point we're going to have some solid data, and it just gets pulled out from under you? It's infuriating,' Cummings said. 'I was so mad.' The cuts to NIOSH have sparked alarm from Republicans, Democrats, coal miners, labor activists and academics. Beyond just conducting workplace investigations, NIOSH had run programs to test and treat miners for black lung disease, funded safety worker education and even certified the quality of n95 respirators. Jordan Barab, who worked on worker safety policy as a deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Labor for the Obama administration, told InvestigateWest the cuts to NIOSH could be 'catastrophic for workers across the country.' While legal challenges and the Trump administration have temporarily reversed some of the cuts, Barab says that 'lasting damage' has already been done. To Cummings, the contradiction is particularly frustrating: The same political party that he sees fighting to create more mining jobs is also the party least interested in protecting the miners working them. 'It's crazy that health and safety has been polarized by politics,' Cummings said. The cuts to NIOSH begin with the richest man in the world: Billionaire CEO Elon Musk, who had been tapped by President Donald Trump to reshape the federal government through an initiative dubbed the 'Department of Government Efficiency,' or DOGE. Musk brought the same cut-first-ask-questions-later philosophy he'd used to slash jobs after buying the social media site Twitter. Precision wasn't part of the plan. At a conservative political conference in February, Musk waved around a chainsaw, yelling that it was 'the chainsaw for bureaucracy.' The Trump White House has focused on portraying examples of federal spending it sees as particularly wasteful or absurd — like spending $32,000 for the U.S. Embassy in Peru to publish comic books intended to combat anti-gay prejudice. But the true scope of the planned cuts was far more sweeping: Roughly 10,000 full-time employees were cut from the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes NIOSH. 'Some people are saying, 'This is what we voted for the administration to do — make cuts,'' Cummings said. 'I get it, but health and safety is not the same thing as sending comics to Peru.' Asked in a CBS interview in April why his agency hadn't gone through each cut line by line, carefully considering each individually, Trump's Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., argued that that mentality was part of an old, failed approach. 'It takes too long. You lose political momentum,' Kennedy said, acknowledging 'there are going to be casualties and there are going to be mistakes.' In one part of the interview, he argued inaccurately that 'virtually all the cuts' in the agencies he oversaw related to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In another, he acknowledged that he himself was unaware of many of the cuts that had been made. 'I'm not even sure how much the new administration knows about what we do, which is maybe why they're cutting us,' said NIOSH industrial hygienist Hannah Echt, speaking with InvestigateWest as a steward for the federal employees union. In fact, NIOSH was created by Congress, not the executive branch. In 1970, Congress passed a law to create a research agency intentionally separate from regulatory agencies, intending to shelter pure scientific research from the kinds of political winds that could influence regulators. It also let NIOSH play the more likable 'good cop' where other federal agencies played the punitive 'bad cop.' 'We don't levy fines, we don't close businesses,' Foreman said. 'We're not there to be the bad guy.' But they still had the authority to access private office spaces and factory floors, take air readings, run tests, and interview employees. In his CBS interview, Kennedy insisted the purpose of the cuts was 'not to reduce any level of scientific research that's important.' And yet, NIOSH's scientific research, time and time again, had resulted in vital discoveries. It was a NIOSH investigation into a microwave popcorn plant in 2000 that led to the discovery of 'popcorn lung' — a dangerous respiratory condition caused by artificial butter flavorings. Numerous other NIOSH investigations, including into a coffee roasting facility in Oregon in 2017, have found elevated levels of the same dangerous substance at other workplaces. Foreman recounts speaking over the phone with 'people crying because they're scared and they're having cognitive symptoms' from poor indoor air quality. There have been flight attendants worried about skin problems related to their airline's new uniform. Hydroelectric dam employees in Idaho reported concerns about breathing in dust from the turbine brakes. Hair and makeup artists working on low-budget films wanted an investigation into constant exposure to theatrical fog in film warehouses. In the last decade, NIOSH has investigated lead exposures at bullet-recycling companies in New Jersey, dug into tuberculosis outbreaks among elephants in zoos in Portland and Tacoma, and found welders breathing in chromium and nickel at an Oregon airplane part manufacturer. Sometimes, Foreman said, she's able to offer reassurances — an investigation reveals that the workplace wasn't actually dangerous or that an employee had been misdiagnosed. Other times the results reveal more serious deficiencies. But now, Echt said, over 70 different health hazard investigations have been shut down. Investigations into allergens at cannabis facilities, diesel exhaust risks at fire departments, and cancer-causing chemicals at a North Carolina State University building have all been halted. Other workplaces are waiting to receive the results of investigations that have been largely completed. Among them: Multnomah County Library, where employees have increasingly struggled to deal with patrons smoking fentanyl in library bathrooms. The library's risk management team reached out to NIOSH, hoping to understand if secondhand drug exposure posed a danger to library staffers. Last June, a team of three Health Hazard Evaluation team members interviewed 95 library employees and tested ventilation systems in three different libraries. In one of the library restrooms, the initial findings revealed that the ventilation fans weren't working at all. The final report, said Multnomah County Director of Libraries Annie Lewis, is awaiting approval from NIOSH. Lewis said she's optimistic it will still be published, but has heard most of the investigative team has been fired. 'If it's not released, we will be very disappointed,' Lewis said. 'We've invested a lot of our staff time, a lot of our resources into this effort, and we are very hopeful that the research will not only benefit Multnomah County Library as an organization, but also public libraries across the nation.' Even the fate of the NIOSH website — a repository of 55 years of documented research — is uncertain, Foreman said. These cuts to the agency that conducts worker safety research come at the same moment that the Trump administration wants to dramatically expand mining. In early April, Trump stood with an array of coal miners while signing an executive order purporting to officially end the 'war on coal.' 'Unfortunately, they're also at the same time declaring a war on coal miners and the health and safety of coal miners,' Barab said. While new technology can improve safety, it's also allowed faster mining, seeking out thinner veins through more rock. And that can make it more dangerous. NIOSH data reveals that rates of black lung in coal mines have been steadily climbing after falling for decades. 'You get more rock, you get more ore, you're obviously going to be exposed more,' Cummings said. 'More mines means more miners sick, more miners dead.' In February, Genesis Alkali, the company that owned the mine where Cummings worked, was bought by international trona mining giant WE Soda. Cummings said the new owners appear to genuinely care about protecting workers. JoAnna DeWald, who oversees health and safety for WE Soda US, wrote in a statement that We Soda has 'some of the highest health and safety standards in the industry.' She stressed that, despite the NIOSH cuts, the standards from another federal agency, the Mine and Safety Health Administration, 'remain fully in effect.' But that agency has been targeted for cuts as well. The Wyoming office of the Mine Safety and Health Administration office, which had cited the Green River mine for safety violations this year, is on the chopping block. Cummings said he looked up the amount of money the closure of the office was supposedly saving on the DOGE website. 'It's going to save them like $48,000 a year,' Cummings said. 'That's what my health means to DOGE.' Meanwhile, the Trump administration lifted a new regulation that Cummings had fought for — a rule further limiting the amount of dangerous silica dust miners were allowed to breathe. The new rule required some miners to carry new respirator devices to measure the silica levels, but it had been up to NIOSH to certify those new devices — a task the hobbled agency put on hold. 'They basically suspended all enforcement of the standard because of a problem that they themselves created,' said Barab, the former Obama administration official. 'A lot of unscrupulous mine operators are going to be delighted about this because, that's fewer regulations that they have to comply with,' Barab said. 'They can make more money, but they're making more money off the blood and the health of coal miners.' But the reaction from many supporters of the mining industry has been less than enthusiastic. U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, stood beside Trump for his 'war on coal' executive order. Just a few weeks later Capito was waging a public battle to try to save NIOSH, sending a letter to Kennedy lamenting the loss of specialized labs 'where dedicated scientists with years of training had been researching coal and silica dust along with black mold.' Decommissioning the labs alone would cost millions of taxpayer dollars, she said. 'I urge you to bring back the NIOSH employees immediately so they can continue to support our nation's coal industry,' Capito said. Freshman Republican Rep. Michael Baumgartner, representing Eastern Washington state, also sent a letter to Kennedy, arguing that shuttering NIOSH's Spokane Research Lab would be a 'setback for the natural resource industries in the western part of the country.' He quoted a Spokane-based mining association statement arguing that NIOSH plays an 'important role in research and development for the mining industry' and that if the Trump administration wants to ramp up mineral production, 'we need NIOSH… now more than ever.' Baumgartner also included a quote from an unnamed operations and safety director of a mine in Alaska, noting that 'people will not seek employment in the industry if they believe they are risking their health and lives… NIOSH does a good job in mitigating the fact that not every mining company prioritizes safety the way they should.' The lobbying appears to have had some impact: Some NIOSH employees have temporarily been brought back to the Spokane and West Virginia offices, including those certifying respirators. Most of the staff dedicated to health hazard evaluations aren't among them, and the program remains frozen. Employees like Echt and Foreman remained on administrative leave, with their termination officially scheduled for late June or early July. But last week, a federal judge granted a temporary freeze on firings in a lawsuit brought by federal employee unions, concluding that the Trump administration needed congressional cooperation for such a sweeping reorganization. Similarly, this month, 20 attorneys general — including those from Oregon and Washington — have filed a lawsuit over the cuts to Health and Human Services, including NIOSH. But even if every job is restored, Echt said, plenty of employees have taken early retirements and left for the private sector, taking with them their years of experience. 'When you eliminate these agencies and then decide to build them back up again, you have to go and rehire people again — and you've got to find the expertise,' Barab said. From his position in Wyoming, Cummings sees the fight of employees like Foreman as inseparable from his own union battles. Cummings said he was in the middle of writing an email to his Wyoming congressional representatives about the NIOSH cuts when he got a phone call telling him that yet another local trona miner — a longtime family friend whom Cummings had called 'uncle' — had died from cancer. 'The funeral was on Good Friday,' Cummings said. 'It's almost like — we can't let this up. We have to see it to the end.'
