WASHINGTON — Coal miners will be better protected from toxic silica dust that has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of miners from a respiratory disease known as “black lung disease,” the Labor Department said Tuesday as it issued a new federal miner safety rule.
The final rule, announced by Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Suh, cuts the allowable exposure limit for crystalline silica in half for an 8-hour shift.
Miners, community advocates and elected officials from Appalachian states pushed for the tougher rule, noting that health problems have risen in recent years as miners dig into more layers of rock to access coal seams when deposits closer to the surface have long been tapped. Increased drilling has generated deadly silica dust and has caused severe forms of pneumoconiosis, better known as black lung disease, even among younger miners, some in their 30s and 40s.
“It is unconscionable that our nation’s miners have worked without adequate protection from silica dust, even though it has been a known health risk for decades,” Su said on Tuesday. “Today we make it clear that no job should be a death sentence and every worker has the right to go home safe and sound at the end of the day.”
In the Central Appalachians, one in five coal miners has black lung disease. The condition cuts their life expectancy by an average of 12 years and makes it “a struggle to make a phone call or play with your grandchildren without losing their breath,” Suh said in a speech in Uniontown, Pa., where she appeared with Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, and other union leaders.
“For too long we’ve taken this for the people who work in the mines,” Su said. “They had to work without the same protections from silica dust that people in other industries have, even though we’ve known about the harm from silica dust since Frances Perkins, who was secretary of labor in the 1930s and 1940s.
The election-year rule shows “what it looks like to have the most working-class, pro-union president in history,” Suh said, a political comment referring to Democratic President Joe Biden.
Rebecca Shelton, policy director at the Appalachian Citizens Legal Center, which has pushed for stronger rules to protect miners, said the group is reviewing the rule carefully to ensure that Mine Safety and Health Administration regulators take the comments into account of health professionals, lawyers and miners who have worked under the rule for years.
“There are too many lives at stake to get this wrong, and we will do everything we can to ensure that this rule provides the protection that miners deserve,” Shelton said.
Democratic senators from Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia welcomed the new rule, saying it would play an essential role in protecting miners.
A spokesman for the National Mining Association said the group is reviewing the rule but supports lower limits. The mining lobby is pushing to allow the use of administrative controls and personal protective equipment to meet safety standards. “Unfortunately, these recommendations were not included in the final rule,” spokesman Connor Bernstein said.
Vonda Robinson, whose husband, John, was diagnosed with liver cancer a decade ago at age 47, said she feels hopeful as officials consider the rule changes. But she was skeptical about how the rule would be enforced.
Robinson, who lives in rural Nickelsville, Va., near the Tennessee border, said the mine safety office doesn’t have enough staff or resources to adequately protect workers and their families.
“You can have rules, but until you back them up with enforcement, they won’t mean anything,” she said in an interview. “If they’re going to issue these decisions, you need to hire more people.”
The White House has requested a $50 million increase in the current year’s mine safety budget, most of which would go toward more inspectors and enforcement. Congress rejected it, keeping the budget at the 2023 level of $388 million.
Vonda Robinson said her husband struggles every day. John Robinson worked in the mines for almost three decades. Two years ago, the couple met with a doctor about a lung transplant.
“Until you see it and live with it, you don’t understand,” Vonda Robinson said. “And knowing what we’re looking at now — miners are diagnosed at age 32 — they’ll probably never see their children graduate or have grandchildren.” It really upsets me.”
The Department of Labor rule lowers the allowable exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air for full-shift exposure, averaged over 8 hours. If a miner’s exposure exceeds the limit, mine operators must take immediate corrective action.
The rule is consistent with exposure levels mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in construction and other non-mining industries. And that’s the standard the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended back in 1974.
The Department of Labor began studying silica and its effects on worker health nearly a century ago, but the focus on stopping workplace exposure has largely bypassed the miners. Instead, the regulations focus on coal dust, a separate hazard created by crushing or pulverizing coal that also contributes to the liver.
In the decades since, silica dust has become a major problem as Appalachian miners drill through layers of sandstone to reach less accessible coal seams in mountaintop mines where coal has long been mined closer to the surface. Silica dust is 20 times more toxic than coal dust and causes severe forms of black lung disease even after several years of exposure.
