A bill introduced Tuesday in the U.S. House by Pittsburgh-area Rep. Summer Lee aims to boost federal benefits for coal miners disabled by black lung disease, and to protect the benefits from rising inflation.
Lee put forward the Support Our Miners Act in response to resolutions from more than 80 municipalities across Allegheny County and Appalachia — and in response to a years-long erosion in benefits.
"Coal miners sacrificed their health to power this country, and they deserve benefits that allow them to live with dignity," Lee said in a statement. "The Support Our Miners Act is about keeping our promise to workers, honoring their sacrifices, and ensuring miners suffering from black lung receive the support they have earned."
Black lung, or coal workers' pneumoconiosis, develops when miners inhale microscopic specks of dust that scar their lungs and, in the worst cases, turn them black. The scarring thickens and inflames the lung tissue, eventually making it debilitatingly hard to breathe.
For more than a half century, federal law has allowed mineworkers (and, in some cases after a miner's death, their families) to collect monthly benefits and medical insurance to help cover healthcare costs associated with the disease.
But while the benefits are paid by the miner's employer, the payment rates are tied to the federal pay scale, not the cost of living. And those benefits simply haven't kept up with rampant inflation, according to a report from Appalachian Citizens' Law Center and the nonprofit Appalachian Voices released earlier this year.
When the compensation program was created in 1969, miners disabled by black lung disease received $144.50 a month. Today, the base payment is $793.60 — only 60% of what it would be if adjusted for inflation.
"It is not a viable economic alternative for these families, and it can thrust them into poverty. It's devastating," said Rebecca Shelton, the director of policy at Appalachian Citizen's Law Center. The nonprofit, public interest law firm represents miners in their black lung disability claims. "Not only are you sick — really sick — and unable to do all of the things that you used to be able to do, and may not live as long of a life, but you also are faced with extreme financial stress."
Lee's bill would recalculate the benefits, raising the base rate to the inflation-adjusted $1,252.50. Future increases would be tied to the actual cost of living, ensuring the payments don't again lose value over time.
"For decades," Lee's statement said, "disabled miners and their families have watched the value of their benefits shrink while the cost of housing, food, healthcare, and other necessities has continued to rise."
And even as the mining industry has waned over the past 50 years, cases of black lung disease have been on the rise in the U.S. for the last two decades. Though it was once thought to be nearly eradicated, advocates warn that its most severe form, called progressive massive fibrosis, is becoming more common, as newer mining technologies expose miners to more highly toxic silica.
Now, a disease that once took decades of mining to develop is regularly being found in patients in their 30s and 40s, changing the demographics and economics of the program that determines benefits payments.
Shelton said younger miners disabled by black lung disease — many of whom have young families — can go from a six-figure salary down to less than $20,000 per year,
"It's really just inexcusable that we are allowing people to get sick from a disease that we know how to prevent because we don't have the regulatory structure in place, and then continuing to deprive them of the benefits they need to live with the disease," she said.
"Bringing this benefit level back up to the intended value of compensation that Congress put in place in the '70s, I think, is the least that we can do."
The bill's prospects are unclear. It's not the first legislative effort to tackle the problem, and it's not even the first House bill to try doing so this session. Lee herself is a cosponsor of a 2025 measure, the Black Lung Benefits Improvement Act, that also seeks a number of reforms to the system. (Lee's measure focuses more narrowly on benefits inflation, and offers a more generous formula for future adjustments.)
Shelton said the bill is especially important as the Trump administration continues efforts to revive the American coal industry while slashing regulations meant to keep miners safe. Still, she says it won't be easy.
"I do not predict that [coal companies] are going to be supportive of this," she said.
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