Nearly one-half of claims from miners with 'the worst form of black lung disease' have been made since 2000
Coal companies are currently required to pay a tax of $1.10 per ton on underground production to finance the federal Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which pays medical and living expenses for some 25,000 eligible miners and their families.
That excise tax is scheduled to revert to the 1977 level of 50 cents per ton at the start of 2019. A bipartisan effort earlier this year to extend the higher rate failed, though lawmakers may raise the issue again in the coming months.
“Changing the schedule now would effectively impose a tax increase on an industry struggling to recover from the regulatory excesses of the past administration,” National Mining Association President Hal Quinn wrote in a June 14 letter to U.S. Representatives Kevin Brady of Texas and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, both Republicans.
Brady is the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee and Foxx heads the Education and the Workforce Committee.
An accompanying “one-pager” on the issue, which was also seen by Reuters, included the assertion that black lung was in decline and that the trust fund would be in good stead without an extension of the excise tax.
“Despite a decline in medical black lung disease, claim approvals have skyrocketed,” the NMA said in the pamphlet.
It also stated: “The tax, even at the reduced rate that will go into effect on January 1, 2019, is more than sufficient to provide monthly disability benefits” for the trust fund.
At the time the NMA sent the documents, government research showed incidents of black lung disease, which was nearly eradicated in the 1990s, rising rather than falling.
In February, for example, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health confirmed 416 cases of advanced black lung disease in three clinics in rural Virginia from 2013 to 2017 — the highest concentration ever seen. It also confirmed many hundreds of other cases in southwestern Virginia, southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.
The Labor Department also found that nearly half the 4,679 benefits claims from miners with the worst form of black lung disease had been made since 2000, according to Kirsten Almberg, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Illinois at Chicago who analyzed the data in a study earlier this year.
Last month, the NIOSH issued a more comprehensive report showing more than 10 percent of America’s coal miners with 25 or more years of experience have black lung disease, the highest rate recorded in roughly two decades.
NMA spokeswoman Ashley Burke said the letter and one-page pamphlet accompanying it were sent to lawmakers before the latest NIOSH report, and that previous studies had been unconvincing.
“Prior data showed the heightened incidence of disease was localized to a small geographic region, not national,” she wrote to Reuters in an email.
She said the NMA was “concerned” by the latest NIOSH report but did not say whether the group had updated its lobbying materials.
It also stated: “The tax, even at the reduced rate that will go into effect on January 1, 2019, is more than sufficient to provide monthly disability benefits” for the trust fund.
At the time the NMA sent the documents, government research showed incidents of black lung disease, which was nearly eradicated in the 1990s, rising rather than falling.
In February, for example, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health confirmed 416 cases of advanced black lung disease in three clinics in rural Virginia from 2013 to 2017 - the highest concentration ever seen. It also confirmed many hundreds of other cases in southwestern Virginia, southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.
The Labor Department also found that nearly half the 4,679 benefits claims from miners with the worst form of black lung disease had been made since 2000, according to Kirsten Almberg, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Illinois at Chicago who analyzed the data in a study earlier this year.
Last month, the NIOSH issued a more comprehensive report showing more than 10 percent of America’s coal miners with 25 or more years of experience have black lung disease, the highest rate recorded in roughly two decades.
NMA spokeswoman Ashley Burke said the letter and one-page pamphlet accompanying it were sent to lawmakers before the latest NIOSH report, and that previous studies had been unconvincing.
“Prior data showed the heightened incidence of disease was localized to a small geographic region, not national,” she wrote to Reuters in an email.
She said the NMA was “concerned” by the latest NIOSH report but did not say whether the group had updated its lobbying materials.
