Bill aims to stop coal companies from denying benefits to miners with black lung
Update, Sept. 18, 2014, 3:00 p.m.: This story has been updated to include additional details about the proposed legislation and comments from Sen. Casey; the bill was not introduced today as planned.
Two coal-state senators plan to introduce sweeping legislation to reform the federal program meant to provide benefits to miners suffering from black lung disease.
For almost four decades, federal law has required coal companies to compensate miners who contract the debilitating and often deadly disease caused by breathing in coal dust. But companies have deployed strategies to avoid paying miners: Doctors working for coal companies have systematically misdiagnosed miners with black lung as having other diseases, and lawyers fighting miners’ claims have withheld evidence that the miners did, in fact, have black lung. These schemes were exposed last year in a major investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, partnering in part with ABC News.
The legislation, sponsored by Sens. Robert Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia, aims to put a stop to those strategies. "To say this is shameful is an understatement," Casey said during a conference call Thursday, referencing the current state of the black lung benefits system.
The bill’s prospects for passage this year look dim because toxic partisan battles have made it hard to pass almost any legislation. Still, the bill marks a major milestone in the fight of mine workers to secure much-needed benefits. New legislation is particularly urgent, its sponsors say, because new evidence indicates that rates of the severe form of black lung have surged back to the highest levels since the 1970s, and more miners are seeking benefits. If changes are not made, the bill says, miners “with meritorious claims would not receive benefits.”
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Breathless and Burdened. Dying from black lung, buried by law and medicine. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
