As director of the New River Health Association Black Lung Clinic, Emery’s seen guys as young as 45 getting double lung transplants as disease rates soar among miners forced to dig through more rock filled with deadly silica to reach the remaining coal — far worse than the dust their grandfathers inhaled.
A rule approved last year by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration would cut the federal limit for allowable respirable crystalline silica dust exposure by half to help protect miners of all types nationwide from the current driving force of black lung and other illnesses.
But, now, it’s in jeopardy amid other Trump administration cutbacks and proposals targeting workers’ health and safety guardrails: Stuck in a politically charged environment that promotes industry, with lawmakers arguing to change it and the federal agency that wrote the rule not pushing to enforce it. Some angry retired miners with black lung are fighting back, demanding that Donald Trump honor promises he made to the people who voted him in.
I understand that in many coal mining towns, there really isn’t much other work than the mines due to a litany of historical and economic factors. If working in a toxic environment that is going to kill me in order to dig up a bunch of rocks that are killing the world is the only option, do it temporarily and save up enough money to leave?
I get that doing that is easier said than done, but it really seems like miners are completely dependent on electing republicans into office to keep their dying industry hobbling along. Then, the Republicans they elect act like Republicans and all of the miners go full surprised Pikachu that the mines get less safe due to removal of regulations. This cycle has been repeating for years. At some point, you have to stop doing the same thing and expecting different results.
There’s a lot of remediation, construction and maintenance work that the same skill sets apply to. It’s a matter of funding restoration instead of destruction.
But they’ve been told that for decades and don’t want it.