When the Trump administration took the first steps toward shutting down two major programs aimed at protecting the nation’s miners, the grassroots response was immediate, and vehement.
And, it turns out, successful.
In March, the administration moved to shutter over 30 field offices of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, throughout coal country. Weeks later, it proposed cutting 90 percent of the staff at the National Institute for Occupational Health. That would have killed its efforts to screen miners for black lung and treat that progressive fatal disease, which is caused by chronic exposure to silica dust.
Miners and their advocates swiftly demanded that Trump, who has never shied away from celebrating coal miners as “real people,” change course. The United Mine Workers of America, the Black Lung Association, and environmental groups like Appalachian Voices came together to protest the cuts and tell lawmakers to back their calls to undo them. Two miners sued the administration, arguing the government is not meeting its obligations to protect those who produce a resource Trump deemed a “critical mineral” in an April 8 executive order vowing to restore the coal industry.
The administration seems to have heard them, at least in part. Late last month, MSHA offices were quietly removed from the list of government buildings slated for closure and sale. The administration also has reinstated hundreds of occupational health workers, including some of those in the Coal Worker Health Surveillance Program.
Bipartisan support for miner safety came from Virginia Democratic senators Tim Warner and Tim Kaine and West Virginia Republican Shelly Moore Capito. Capito did not respond to a request for comment, but in a letter she sent to Trump in April the lawmaker expressed concern that eliminating NIOSH would hurt her state. She also said it would cost taxpayer dollars, by forcing the expensive decommissioning of specialized research labs where NIOSH scientists studied the effects of silica, coal dust and mold on the human respiratory system.
“As the President recognizes the importance of coal, we must also recognize the health of our miners,” Capito wrote in the letter, dated April 22. “I encourage you to bring back the NIOSH coal programs and researchers that will help ensure the President’s vision to unleash American energy can be done safely.”
Erin Bates, director of communications for United Mine Workers of America, credited Capito for her role in reversing the field office closures. She said the union’s president, Cecil Roberts met with Robert Kennedy, the secretary of health and human services, to lobby for saving NIOSH. The union has longstanding relationships with Democrats over worker safety issues, Bates said, but also has maintained good relationships with Republicans, given that much of coal country leans that way.
Democrats have pushed the administration on some of the remaining cuts to MSHA. During a House hearing on Thursday, Representative Bobby Scott urged Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer to hire more people. Scott drew attention to the revocation of job offers for dozens of mine inspectors. They will be urgently needed as the nation’s demand for critical minerals increases in the years ahead, Scott said.
“We must invest in MSHA’s pipeline of talent so that qualified inspectors will be there to ensure safety in these dangerous jobs,” Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, said. “We know that the process takes years.”
Miners and their advocates applauded the victories, but said there is still much work to do.
“I feel like we’ve won some,” said Vonda Robinson, vice president of the Black Lung Association. “But I don’t think that we’ve got enough yet.”
Robinson remains concerned about the fate of the so-called silica rule, which tightens the acceptable level of exposure to that toxin. The rule, for the first time, brings the standard in line with what workers in other sectors have worked with for decades. But the rule has been placed in limbo since the cuts to NIOSH were announced, effectively eliminating the possibility of enforcement. Even with some job restorations, staffing shortages at the agency also make it difficult for various government departments to work together to safeguard worker health, Bates said.
“We’re in a major push to prevent an operations lag while most of the workers are out,” she said.
The president’s proposed federal budget also cuts funding from the Mine Safety Health Administration by 10 percent, down to $348.2 million from $387.8 million. “That is going to affect the offices that are still open and the inspectors that are working there,” Bates said. About $14 million of these cuts come from Mine Safety and Health Enforcement, and the agency would lose 47 salaried positions.
In a statement, the Department of Health and Human Services told Grist it remains committed to protecting the health and safety of coal miners. The Labor Department did not respond to requests for comment.
For now, miners and their advocates remain focused on determining just how many federal workers have been reinstated, whether any field offices remain closed, and securing further guarantees that the government will not step back from its critical safety work.
“Our push is trying to get answers now and no more waiting and worrying,” Bates said.
