Advocates call on Congress to make sure coal companies don’t skip out on black lung responsibilities

For Immediate Release

March 20, 2025

Contact:

Trey Pollard, trey@pollardcommunications.com, 202-904-9187

U.S. House’s Education and Workforce Committee Leadership wants to re-open loophole that allows industry to ignore black lung liabilities

COAL COUNTRY — Yesterday, the Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Education, Tim Walberg, sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer urging the Trump administration to throw out a recently finalized safeguard that addresses a long-abused loophole that allows coal companies to walk away from their legal duty to pay benefits to miners who worked for them and contracted black lung. 

Among other requests, Walberg’s letter asks Chavez-DeRemer to reopen the so-called self-insurance loophole. Prior to action from the Biden administration that was finalized in late 2024, coal companies exploited this loophole to dump nearly a billion dollars in black lung liabilities onto the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund — a safety net already riddled with debt and backed up by taxpayer dollars. Now, Walberg and his colleagues want to scrap that solution, effectively throwing liabilities back onto the taxpayer and allowing coal operators to ignore the legal requirement to support miners with black lung. 

“Rescinding the black lung self insurance rule will let coal CEOs go back to dodging their legal and moral duties to provide a safety net for the people who get sick working in their mines,” said Quenton King, Government Affairs Specialist at Appalachian Voices. “When coal companies are not held accountable to their black lung liabilities, they have less incentive to prevent black lung in the first place.”

“The committee members leading this proposed repeal have often cited the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund’s debt as a reason for inaction on improving miner benefits. This repeal makes that debt worse, ” said Rebecca Shelton, Director of Policy at Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center. “Congress needs to get serious about preventing black lung disease, improving benefits for miners with the disease, and ensuring the solvency of the trust fund instead of bending over backwards for the companies that have caused the black lung epidemic.”

Coal companies are legally required to cover the costs of small disability benefits and health insurance to miners who worked for them and contracted deadly black lung disease. However, coal companies are permitted to self-insure through instruments such as surety bonds or collateral — and the Department of Labor’s inadequate oversight has allowed companies to put down only a fraction of what they owed. As a result, self-insuring coal companies are liable for over $600 million in black lung benefits but have backed this up with only $120 million in surety or collateral — meaning just 19% of their obligations are covered.

Many coal operators have then shovelled their liabilities — already inadequately self-insured — into subsidiary companies that subsequently declare bankruptcy while the operators continue business as usual. The liabilities of companies that file for bankruptcy then fall onto the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund — a resource that supports sick miners who worked for bankrupt companies, funded through the black lung excise tax on coal companies. Deeply in debt, the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund is able to meet its obligations to miners through borrowing. Through declaring bankruptcy, coal operators have been able to shift nearly $1 billion in black lung liability to the trust fund since 2014.

Already, concerns are arising about how black lung liabilities will be secured and covered amid the massive merger of coal giants Arch and Consol. Both heavily rely on self-insurance, and Arch has a long history of spinning off liabilities through the bankruptcy process. 

The 2024 Department of Labor rule dramatically raises the standard for companies, requiring them to put down 100% of their liabilities as collateral, addressing the dramatic shortfalls of the past head-on and tackling the abuse of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund through bankruptcy. In addition, the new rule requires an annual review process of self-insurers to help guarantee adequate resources are put in place.