Trump’s War Against “War on Coal” is a War on Coal Miners

Remember the days when Donald Trump pledged to end the war on coal? True to form, during Trump I he blamed crazy environmentalists for the downward trend in the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel on the market, gutted climate regulations, and pulled the United States out of the Paris Accords.

Trump is still declaring war on the war on coal. But the real war is on coal miners — their safety, their health, their lungs and their lives.

At the time of Trump’s first term, coal was fading for economic reasons, not regulatory ones. Increased production of cheaper, cleaner natural gas drove coal down. Despite the president’s cheerleading and regulatory cutbacks, 75 coal-fired power plants closed and the coal industry shed 13,000 jobs. “Coal’s not back. Nobody saved the coal industry,” United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts told The Guardian in 2019.

These days coal provides just 8.2% of American energy needs, down from 17.4% in 2022. About 45,500 miners work in 560 mines. Regardless, coal miners remained a loyal constituency in the MAGA universe in 2020 and 2024.

“Trump’s got the coal vote so there’s really not an imperative to go for it,” said Neil Chatterjee, a former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, shortly before the 2024 election. “He’s still going to rail against EPA regulations and regulatory overreach and the Biden administration energy policies, but he can do all that without specifically focusing on coal because the working class, United Mine Worker voters, they’ve all come to the Republican Party.”

But the president has not forgotten coal. On April 8, he signed executive orders intended to “reinvigorate” the coal industry after having once again cancelled federal efforts to deal with climate change: “We must encourage and support our Nation’s coal industry to increase our energy supply, lower electricity costs, stabilize our grid, create high-paying jobs, support burgeoning industries, and assist our allies.” In addition to deregulation and funding cuts at the EPA, the president instructed the government to pave the way for more coal mining on federal land.

Miners may or may not believe that Trump II will be more effective than Trump 1 in rescuing their industry. Market forces are strong. One thing they can count on: mines will far more dangerous and more coal miners will die of preventable disease, explosions and other incidents.

Let Miners Breathe

Earlier this month, hundreds of federal occupational health employees doing mining-related work have been laid off as part of drastic cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), approved by Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.

The shocking cuts at HHS will shrink the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and, within it, NIOSH and its mine safety programs.

The agency includes some of the finest medical experts and epidemiologists in the country whose work was indispensable in justifying enforcement and rulemaking at OSHA and MSHA.

Not only did NIOSH develop the underlying science documenting the hazards of respiratory disease in coal mines, the agency emphasized the field work that made it an effective guardian of industrial workers’ health. For example, NIOSH operated a Mobile Occupational Safety and Health Unit that traveled to mining towns offering chest radiographs and blood pressure screenings. The closings included NIOSH’s Spokane, WA and Pittsburgh, PA, offices as well as the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division, which focuses on coal miner safety, and the Spokane Mining Research Division, which specializes in hard rock mining.

The Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program is a bedrock institution for the medical profession that has been obliterated. —  Sam Petsonk

Even though the coal industry is suffering, black lung has not gone away. In fact, cases of a  particularly severe form of silica-related black lung disease, Pulmonary Massive Fibrosis (PMF), have been rising, particularly among young miners. The CDC estimates that about 20% of coal miners in Central Appalachia are suffering from black lung — the highest rate detected in more than 25 years. One in 20 of the region’s coal miners are living with PMF.

In April 2024, MSHA issued a long awaited silica standard to protect mine mineworkers against black lung disease and PMF.

Sam Petsonk, an attorney for miners and the son of a mine doctor described to NPR the impact of the elimination of the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program (CWHSP). The program,  mandated by the  Federal Coal Mine and Safety Act gives every miner in the country – roughly 50,000 – access to health care for free.

The lab sent mobile x-ray units to mines to screen miners regularly. It authorized job transfers for miners showing signs of disease. And the unit also trained and certified doctors to read specialized lung scans. Petsonk says that health service has become an essential part of mining life. But President Trump’s sweeping cutbacks at the nation’s health agencies last week included this small team running a program coal miners are entitled to by law.

“It’s a bedrock institution for the medical profession that has been obliterated,” Petsonk says. “It’s just unacceptable.”

The elimination of the CWHSP means that coal miners will no longer be able to access their X-rays or results from spirometry tests. And there will be no one to evaluate those results and alert coal miners of their right to transfer — Noemi Hall

The elimination of the CWHSP means that coal miners will no longer be able to access their X-rays or results from spirometry tests. And there will be no one to evaluate those results and alert coal miners of their right to transfer, according to Noemi Hall, who worked as an epidemiologist in the CWHS. “Coal miners have lost an essential right that they fought for,” Hall said. “To exercise that right, they need to have the X-ray reviewed by NIOSH and that function is no longer able to occur.”

Without the program, more miners — especially young miners —  will die of black lung, and no one will know. Scott Laney who runs (ran) the research program at the coal workers’ surveillance program in Morgantown W.V. (until he was placed on administrative leave April 1), noted that the

program singlehandedly reduced Black Lung Disease from affecting nearly 40% of longtime coal workers to as low as 2%, around 2000. But in recent years, lung disease for miners has become a major concern again, Laney says, because coal increasingly comes from mines embedded in sandstone, and which generates dust that’s 20 times more damaging to lungs than coal. That means miners are getting sicker, younger — and without the monitoring of coal miners, he says, people will die — and no one will be keeping score.

“It’s going to have impacts on my neighbors; it’s going to be killing young men,” Laney says. “And that story will go untold.”

Silica Enforcement Suspended

NIOSH also certifies (or certified) respirators that workers – and especially coal miners – use to protect against deadly coal dust and silica.

Yesterday, the Mine Safety and Health Administration announced “a temporary enforcement pause” of its final silica rule because the “restructuring” of the NIOSH’s Pittsburgh Mining Research Division and the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory may impact the supply of approved and certified respirators and personal dust monitors. According to MSHA, “given the unforeseen NIOSH restructuring, and other technical reasons, MSHA offers this four-month temporary pause to provide time for operators to secure necessary equipment and otherwise come into compliance.”

The new MSHA silica standard, issued by the Biden administration, came only 50 years after a report from NIOSH recommended reducing worker exposure to silica, and over 90 years after at least 764 workers died digging the Hawks Nest tunnel through a mountain of solid silica near Gauley Bridge, West Virginia.

Coal mine operators had been given a compliance date of April 14 for the rule.

(The coal industry has sued to roll back the standard and last week, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a short temporary stay on the rule so that parties to the industry lawsuit can submit briefs. The court decision followed a National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association petition seeking an expedited emergency stay.)

The elimination of NIOSH — and specifically the office that certifies respirators —  has evidently given the Trump administration a convenient excuse to do the bidding of their coal industry supporters.

The elimination of NIOSH — and specifically the office that certifies respirators —  has evidently given the Trump administration a convenient excuse to do the bidding of their coal industry supporters.

President Obama’s former MSHA head, Joe Main, called the silica suspension “just one more Trump Administration action to cut miners’ health and safety.”

Earlier this week, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), John Fetterman (D-PA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wrote to HHS Secretary Kennedy pushing back on his decision to gut NIOSH.

The senators also highlighted the immediate impact of this move, explaining that mining communities are already being left without key health services.

 We also have heard from those who work directly with our miner constituents in these communities that the Enhanced Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program is also being decimated. This program provides direct screening services via a mobile medical unit to miners at no cost. NIOSH also supports clinic sites where screening is done, so miners can understand if they are developing black lung or another condition and be as healthy as possible for themselves and their families.

Republicans have generally been supportive of Trump’s efforts to “save” the coal industry. The one partial exception was West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito who stated that she is “extremely concerned” about the decimation of NIOSH, but has taken no action to oppose it except pledging “to speak with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy on the matter.”

It’s unlikely that Senator Capito’s discussion with Kennedy went well considering that Kennedy claims he has no idea what’s happening in his department. And anyway, Kennedy says, “people ‘have a choice’ in how sick they are going to be.” 

It’s unlikely that the discussion went well considering that Kennedy claims he has no idea what’s happening in his department. And anyway, Kennedy says, “people ‘have a choice’ in how sick they are going to be.”

Hear that miners? Don’t chose black lung disease.

Capito now says she will raise the issue with Trump: “He needs to make sure he’s doing everything he can, and I think he wants to, to make sure they’re in a safe work environment, and that includes the research that’s been done at NIOSH,” she said.

Closing Offices

Elon Musk’s young DOGE mavens have recommended cancelling the leases of almost all the three dozen regional offices operated by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in 19 states. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said no federal representatives have informed him about closures of the seven MSHA offices in his state. “My concern is that what Elon Musk is trying to do is to break government, not fix it,” he added. (Beshear is a Democrat.)

Closing regional offices means that MSHA inspectors will be compelled to travel much further to conduct routine inspections of coal mines. These visits are mandated by law and cover every aspect of mine operation. Inspectors check ventilation systems that protect miners from deadly black lung disease and silicosis; ensure that operators are routinely suppressing flammable coal dust; and evaluate maintenance of the physical plant that prevents underground mines from collapsing.

Mine Explosions

The American coal country has suffered a series of fatal explosions that killed hundreds of miners. The last tragedy confirming the importance of mandatory inspections was the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine on April 5, 2010 that killed 29 workers when a fireball spread over two and a half miles in mine shafts 1,000 feet underground. Autopsies of seven miners who died in the explosion showed scarring that indicated they were suffering from black lung disease. One miner had worked for less than five years underground. And others had worked only ten years in coal mines. They ranged in age from 30 to 60.

Five independent panels pronounced the Upper Big Branch tragedy preventable and concluded that chronic violations of vital safety rules caused the explosion. Among the most serious omissions was the failure to spread rock dust on top of the coal dust generated by huge machinery used to sheer coal off the walls of a mine located about 1,000 feet underground. Rock dust is not flammable, but coal dust can explode when the machinery produces a few sparks. Gross negligence of this sort saves time and money, both tempting goals in a decaying industry.

Even before Trump 2, MSHA has suffered from chronic understaffing and struggled to combat scofflaw by big coal operators. As Don Blankenship, the chief executive of Massey Energy, the now defunct corporate owner and operator of Upper Big Branch, commented before the accident:

It’s like a jungle, where a jungle is the survival of the fittest; unions, communities, people—everyone is going to have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society, and that capitalism, from a business standpoint, is survival of the most productive.

Blankenship was prosecuted criminally and convicted, although he only served a year in prison due to the weakness of the law. Yet he was a portent of the bad times we are living through now.

No matter what he does, Elon Musk will likely never be indicted or serve time in prison for the illness and death he is causing. And Blankenship could not have described Musk’s world view better.