The excellent Confined Space 2024 year-end summary missed one important accomplishment of the Biden administration: In December 2024, the DOL’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) finalized a little publicized rule to plug gaping loopholes in the Black Lung Benefits Program which had allowed self-insured coal operators to substantially underinsure for current and future black lung benefit liabilities.
“This final rule will give greater transparency and clarity for mine operators about the procedures and standards for obtaining self-insurance authorization,” said Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs Director Christopher Godfrey. “This will ensure that mine operators, not taxpayers, bear responsibility for benefit payments under the Black Lung Benefits Act, as Congress intended.”
Why It’s Needed
To summarize, coal operators are responsible for paying black lung benefits to workers suffering from Black Lung disease. This program is especially important because after years of falling, the rate of a severe form of black lung diseases has been rising recently.
Coal operators are required to either purchase commercial compensation insurance to cover the costs of black lung compensation, or they can also self-insure by posting adequate collateral.
But that system didn’t work well.
As I explained in great detail in 2023, over the past decades, self-insured coal mine operators have subjected generations of miners to disabling and fatal black lung disease, and then managed to transfer their responsibility to pay benefits to suffering coal miners from their own coffers to the taxpayer’s pockets. Operators had been able to post collateral on as little as 3% of their back lung liabilities, and when these operators filed for bankruptcy they shifted over a billion dollars in unfunded liabilities into the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund (BLDTF)–which is already buried under more than $6 billion in red ink.
This cost shift allowed Wall Street bankers to secure larger recoveries in bankruptcy, while saddling taxpayers with costs that should have been borne by the coal operators that were responsible for causing this lethal disease. Self-insured coal operators have reserved a mere 19% of their $630 million in self-insured black lung liabilities.
However, the final OWCP rule, which goes into effect on January 13, requires operators to post 100% of their current and future estimated back lung liabilities, using DOL actuarial methods. Coal operators are allowed to phase in the increased collateral requirements over the next year.
The outgoing Biden administration is trying to ensure that coal companies – not American taxpayers – pay for their workers’ black lung disease treatments and monthly benefits. Predictably, the National Mining Association is squawking that this mandate on self-insured operators is unreasonable
The outgoing Biden administration is trying to ensure that coal companies – not American taxpayers – pay for their workers’ black lung disease treatments and monthly benefits. Predictably, the National Mining Association is squawking that this mandate on self-insured operators is unreasonable, according to reporting by Wyoming Public Radio. And
By contrast, the United Mine Workers of America noted “The burden of dealing with this always-fatal disease has for too long fallen on its victims. It’s time to put the burden where it belongs – on the coal companies that ignored laws and regulations that are in place to keep mine workers safe and healthy.”
House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) applauded this rule, “This will ensure that miners and their survivors can access the care they are legally entitled to receive without bankrupting the BLDTF and forcing taxpayers to foot the bill.”
Will Republicans Overturn the Rule?
Whether the incoming Administration and Republican leadership will sustain this overdue effort to solvency of the Black Lung Trust Fund remains to be seen. Because the new regulation was only recently issued, it is vulnerable to repeal by a Republican Congress using the Congressional Review Act. During the first Trump administration, Congress and the President repealed OSHA’s “Volks Rule” that ensured effective recordkeeping enforcement. Between Musk’s DOGE, and opposition by the NMA, it’s unclear what the future holds for this legislation and miners who need Black Lung compensation for many decades into the future.