US miners’ union head calls House Republican effort to block silica dust rule an ‘attack’ on workers

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The leader of the national miners’ union on Friday condemned what he described as an attempt by House Republicans to block enforcement of a long awaited federal rule aimed at reducing worker 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 — approved Thursday by a U.S. House subcommittee — that bars the Labor Department from using funds to enforce a silica dust rule that operators must comply with next year is “morally reprehensible” and that the action “undermines the principles of fairness and justice for which our country stands.”

“It is difficult for me to understand how certain members of Congress could possibly support allowing more miners to die asphyxiated as a result of being forced to breathe this dust,” Roberts said in a statement.

Silicosis, commonly referred to as black lungis an occupational pneumoconiosis caused by inhaling crystalline silica dust found in minerals such as sandstone. The rule from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, finalized in April by Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su halves the allowable exposure limit for crystalline silica for an eight-hour shift.

The regulation is consistent with exposure levels set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for construction and other non-mining industries. And it is the standard that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had already recommended in 1974. The U.S. Department of Labor began studying silica and its impact on workers’ health in the 1930s, but the focus on stopping workplace exposure largely ignored miners.

Su said in April that it was “unacceptable” that American miners have had to work without protection for so long: “We are making it clear that no job should be a death sentence.”

The black lung problem has only gotten worse in recent years as miners cut through more and more rock layers to get to less accessible coal, releasing deadly silica dust. Silica dust is 20 times more toxic than coal dust and can cause severe black lung disease even after a few years of exposure.

With increased drilling, severe forms of the disease are being found even among younger Appalachian miners, some in their 30s and 40s. An estimated one in five permanent miners in central Appalachia suffers from black lung disease; one in 20 has the most debilitating form of black lung disease.

On Thursday, the House subcommittee did not debate the bill with the silica dust rule enforcement bloc before it was introduced. A spokesman for the chairman of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Subcommittee, U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, a Republican who represents Alabama, did not respond to an emailed request for comment Friday. National Mining Association spokesman Conor Bernstein said in an email Friday that officials with the organization, which represents operators, “have not been involved in this legislation and are therefore unable to comment.”

Mine safety advocates are rushing to meet with lawmakers before the bill goes before the full House Appropriations Committee on July 10. It must be approved by that committee before going to the full chamber.

Quenton King, federal legislative specialist for Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit that advocated for the silica dust rule, said the protections are essential to protect not only coal miners in central Appalachia, but also metal and non-metal miners across the country. He said if it is allowed to be enforced, it will save thousands of lives.

“To knowingly prevent MSHA from doing that would literally be tantamount to killing miners,” he said.

West Virginia attorney Sam Petsonk, who has represented miners diagnosed with black lung after companies committed safety violations, said he sees workers every day with less than a decade of mining experience diagnosed with end-stage, fatal silicosis.

“This is a policy decision by the entire leadership of the Republican Party to throw the American miners to the dogs,” he said. “It is insulting and truly unfair to our communities when they do this to us. And it is certainly inconsistent with the idea that Republicans are trying to help miners and mining communities.”