Trump administration pauses new miner safety measures amid pledge to reinvigorate coal

On Tuesday, as coal miners were crowded in the oval office to monitor President Donald Trump to sign an executive order designed to strengthen the coal industry, the Federal Agency responsible for the protection of the same workers, quietly announced that it would delay the application of the new standards.

The Mina or MSha Safety and Health Administration said on Tuesday that it paused the implementation of a rule of dangerous dust safety for decades, which had to come into force next week, scared of the industry and health experts, who said the delay could refuse miners from key long -term health protection.

“We just pulled the carpet from under us,” said Chris Williamson, a former assistant to Mina Labor Safety and Health Safety and Head Department during the Biden Administration, “ABC News told. “And that’s very disappointing.”

MSha leaders said the new rule, which reduces the amount of dangerous dust in a mini to a level that health experts have been calling for decades, will delay for four more months, which has caused concern among some experts that the administration is reviewing the new safety standards.

The mining companies have abandoned the new safety standards.

The drawing up of the set rules for the health safety of miners is the gutting of the National Institute for Safety and Health of Labor or NIOSH, a federal agency responsible for the coal health monitoring program, which screen and monitors the breed health of the miners.

MSha said in court documents filed as part of the current lawsuits regarding the mineral safety standards, that it should delay the application of the new rules, which are partly due to the unexpected reduction of the workforce in NIOSH – part of the broader cutting of the Trump Federal Bureaucracy.

Last week, in an email to facilities offering black lung screenings for miners, an NIOSH employee instructed the participation of facilities to suspend submission of black lung proposals due to agency abbreviations. The email, a copy of which was received from ABC News, ended with: “We have no additional information about the future of [the screening program] At that time. “

Dr. Brandon Krum, Paquet, Kentucky, a doctor who was among the first doctors who recognized a rapid increase in liver complications in Central Apalachia, especially among young miners, said he was concerned about the cumulative effects of these developments.

“The chopping of the new rule of silica, along with the main exclusion of NIOSH and cut into MSha, will return the health of the miners back to the Stone Ages,” Krum warned.

The surprising relocation of delaying miner safety measures comes against the background of Trump’s updated impetus to return coal as a major energy source in the United States. In the executive order, signed on Tuesday, Trump called on coal production to become a national priority, striving to achieve this in part through “removing federal regulatory barriers that undermine coal production”.

“We are returning the industry that was abandoned,” Trump said in the White House, surrounded by miners in hard hats. “China opens two plants every week.”

But without the new safety measures, experts are afraid that a reinforced coal industry puts an unnecessary risk to miners who have suffered from disabling respiratory conditions, such as a liver, also known as the pneumoconiosis of the coal worker.

“There is concern about significant delays in implementation and possibly never follow the new rule at all,” said Dr. Krum.

The liver, a disabling and often fatal condition caused by inhalation of coal and silica powder and silica during yield, affects approximately 1 in 5 miners who have worked in the central apalahi mines for twenty -five years or more, according to NIOSH.

Inhaled silica dust particles travel along the respiratory tract and in the smallest spaces of the lungs, causing scars, and ultimately difficulty breathing, it often becomes so heavy that the pulmonary transplant can be the only solution to avoid death.

The complex liver is on the rise because the miners are exposed to more silica dust than ever, as the miners are forced to cut more scale to have access to deep, hard-to-reach coal seams, to work longer than previous generations, and to get less time between shifts to restore their lungs.

Krum, whose clinic has diagnosed more than 600 cases of liver, said: “The amount and severity of the liver are worse than ever.”

“We need to have a safety,” John Robinson, a 28-year-old mining veteran suffering from the most modern form of Black Lung, told ABC News.

“We need to have laws. We have to have regulations,” Robinson said. “And I have the feeling that … we will die a lot of people.”