More coal miner lives in jeopardy as silica safeguard delayed yet again

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18, 2025

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

Coal industry’s attempts to avoid accountability continue as black lung epidemic endures

COAL COUNTRY — Measures to prevent deadly silica dust exposure among coal miners are indefinitely delayed, as coal industry lawyers and the Trump administration’s Mine Safety and Health Administration reportedly continue to negotiate a settlement to the industry’s case to block safeguards that were initially scheduled to come into effect on April 14. Since 2009, miners and their allies have pushed the federal government to implement a standard to limit miners’ exposure to silica dust, the principal cause of the resurgence of deadly black lung disease. In April 2024, a rule was finally issued, with the coal industry given a year to comply —but, instead, the Trump Administration and the industry took steps to halt the enforcement of the rule. The Trump administration’s MSHA announced it would halt enforcement in April of 2025, blaming uncertainty due to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., gutting the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. The industry took the rule to court, where the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals put an indefinite stay on the rule after the administration failed to oppose the industry’s request.

Now, that litigation continues to block the life-saving protections and rather than counter industry proposals to modify the rule, the Trump Administration is negotiating with them. 

Advocates released the following statements in response:

Rebecca Shelton, Director of Policy for Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center:
“Coal miners and their allies have fought for these life-saving protections from black lung disease for a generation, but now the Trump administration and the coal companies are seemingly working hand-in-hand to slow down the process and weaken future protections. Right now, miners are being put in danger and being exposed to deadly levels of dust. It doesn’t take long for silica dust exposure to take a toll; a few months of high exposure can make a person sick. These delays and efforts to weaken the rule are a disgrace, and undermine the claims of anyone in the Trump administration who claims to be on the side of coal miners.” 

Quenton King, Government Affairs Specialist for Appalachian Voices:
“Every day that the silica safeguards are not in place is another day coal miners are exposed to unsafe amounts of deadly silica dust. Lives will be lost because of these delays as coal operators seek to avoid accountability and as their partners in the Trump Administration ignore the demands for action from miners and their loved ones.” 

Background:

The silica dust standard had not been updated in nearly 40years before the Biden administration took action in 2024. In that period of inaction, mining methods changed as larger, more accessible coal seams have been exhausted. Miners now must cut through more rock, leading to more exposure to silica dust that is 20 times more toxic than coal dust and causes the most severe forms of black lung even after fewer years of exposure. Based on scientific evidence, health experts and government agencies have repeatedly concluded that this silica dust exposure is a major cause of the black lung epidemic and that the outdated MSHA silica standard was woefully ineffective at protecting miners from this threat. Now, in Central Appalachia, 1 in 5 tenured miners has black lung disease and 1 in 20 has the most severe and totally disabling form of black lung. This led to an urgent push for an updated silica dust standard.

Over 15 years ago, in 2009, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center petitioned MSHA to establish a dust standard for respirable crystalline silica. While MSHA responded and stated an intention to publish a proposed standard by April 2011, the rule was never promulgated and a decade of inaction followed. In 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration established a reduced silica standard for other occupations, but because MSHA oversees mining regulations, the change meant miners had less protection from silica than any other group of workers. In 2021, ACLC again petitioned for a silica dust rule and the rule was reportedly drafted and submitted to the Office of Management and Budget in January of 2023 before being finalized in April 2024.