News Flash: Some Republican politicians think it might be a bad idea to kill their constituents.
We just wrote a piece on how the Trump administration wants to “revisit” MSHA’s new silica standard that was issued in April 2024, but put on hold by Trump.
The standard was intended to slow the skyrocketing rise of silica-related severe black lung cases plaguing this country’s miners. The protections included in the standard were projected to prevent 1,000 annual deaths and nearly 4,000 cases of black lung disease.
Well, it seems that there may be a few Republicans who don’t want their constituents to succumb to preventable diseases just to stoke the bottom line of a few coal companies.
It seems that there may be a few Republicans who don’t want their constituents to succumb to preventable diseases just to stoke the bottom line of a few coal companies.
West Virginia Republican Senator Shelly Moore Capito told Politico’s Weekly Shift that “I want our miners as safe as possible,” and that she plans to discuss the regulation with the White House. “I want them — particularly in the respiratory area with the history of black lung — to be safe.”
Good to know. Lungs are important.
Capito also expressed “strong reservations” about RFK Jr’s destruction of NIOSH last April, which included the agency’s black lung surveillance program.
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice (R) also seems to want his voters to stay alive, according to Politico:
“I really believe that President Trump knows how valuable our miners are, especially today, with the need for energy like nobody’s business,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.). “I really don’t believe we’re going to do anything that’s going to endanger or put our miners in a situation where their health or safety would be in peril.”
One might have reason to doubt Justice’s sincerity. According to West Virginia Watch, the family of the Governor owns nearly two dozen coal companies that owed more than $409,000 in delinquent mine safety fines to the federal government. He finally paid off the fines in May.
Anyway, Capito and Justice might want to tell her counterparts across the way in the House of Representatives to join them in stopping the killing of mineworkers.
Last July, House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Tim Walberg (R-MI) and six other Committee Republicans sent a letter to MSHA’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, James McHugh, expressing their support for “efforts to give businesses and workers relief from the overly burdensome regulations promulgated by the Biden-Harris administration,” and reminding McHugh that MSHA’s silica standard “falls squarely within the purview of President Trump’s deregulatory EOs [Executive Orders]” that “require agencies to rescind or revise regulations that impose significant costs.”
They would prefer to just slap respirators on everyone and call it a day.
Anyway, what’s the rush? The delay is only condemning about 19 mineworkers every week to a preventable deaths.
Virginia Senator Time Kaine (D) has vowed to challenge any rollback of MSHA’s silica standard, using the Congressional Review Act, which enables Congress to rescind new standards and regulations. But even in the unlikely event that such a resolution passed in the Senate and House, the President would still have to sign it.
Not holding my breath on that happening.
Ultimately, it may just be the numbers that sway this. Senator Capito is up for re-election next November. She won by a lot in 2020, but that Trump guy was on the ballot that year. If every West Virginia mineworker threatens to vote against Capito next November, and brings along every member of their extended family and friends who don’t want them to die, Capito — and Republicans across the country — might start getting worried about maintaining their Senate majority.
Not holding my breath on that either. But it’s something to think about….
Anyway, what’s the rush? The delay is only condemning about 19 mineworkers every week to a preventable deaths.
WV had a horrible history when it comes to black lung and silicosis. Politicians on the right say they support mine workers- but they don’t.