CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The head of the national miners union on Friday condemned an attempt by House Republicans to block enforcement of a long-awaited federal regulation to reduce miners’ exposure to toxic, deadly rock dust, calling it a “direct attack on the health and safety of miners.”
Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America International, said a budget provision passed Thursday by a U.S. House subcommittee that prohibits the Labor Department from using funds to enforce a silica dust rule that operators must comply with next year was “morally reprehensible” and would “undermine the principles of fairness and justice that our country stands for.”
“It is difficult for me to understand how certain members of Congress can support more miners dying of suffocation from being forced to breathe this dust,” Roberts said in a statement.
Silicosis, commonly called black lung, is an occupational pneumoconiosis caused by inhaling crystalline silicon dust found in minerals such as sandstone. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration regulation, passed in April by Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, cuts the permissible exposure limit for crystalline silicon for an eight-hour shift by half.
The rule is consistent with exposure limits set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for construction and other non-mining industries, and it is the standard recommended by the Centers for Disease Control back in 1974. The U.S. Department of Labor began studying silica and its effects on workers’ health in the 1930s, but the focus on preventing exposure in the workplace largely bypassed miners.
Su said in April that it was “irresponsible” for America’s miners to have to work for so long without protection: “We are making it clear that no job should be a death sentence.”
The problem of pneumoconiosis has become even more sedate in recent years as miners dig through more and more layers of rock to reach the hard-to-reach coal, releasing deadly silica dust in the process. Silica dust is 20 times more toxic than coal dust and causes severe forms of pneumoconiosis even after several years of exposure.
Increased mining has led to severe forms of the disease being identified even among younger miners in Appalachia, some as adolescent as 30 or 40 years elderly. It is estimated that one in five miners in central Appalachia has silicosis; one in twenty has the most severe form.
On Thursday, the House subcommittee did not discuss the bill blocking enforcement of the silica dust rule before advancing it. A spokesman for the chairman of the subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, Republican U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, who represents Alabama, did not respond to an email request for comment on Friday. The National Mining Association, which represents the operators, also did not respond.
Mine safety advocates are trying to meet with lawmakers before the bill is scheduled to go before the House Budget Committee on July 10. The bill must get the green lightweight from that committee before it goes to the full House.
Quenton King, a federal regulatory expert at Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit that advocates for the silica dust rule, said the protection is indispensable not only for coal miners in central Appalachia but also for metal and nonmetal miners across the country. If passed, it could save thousands of lives, he said.
“To intentionally prevent MSHA from doing so would literally mean the death of the miners,” he said.
West Virginia attorney Sam Petsonk has represented miners diagnosed with pneumoconiosis after companies ignored safety regulations. Every day he sees workers with less than 10 years of mining experience diagnosed with end-stage silicosis, a fatal disease.
“This is a political decision by the entire Republican leadership to throw America’s miners to the dogs,” he said. “For them to do this to us is insulting and really unfair to our communities. And it’s certainly not consistent with the idea that Republicans are trying to help miners and mining communities.”
