Climate Bill Boosted Black Lung Health $$ For Miners, But No, Joe Manchin Is Worried About Inflation

[hatrack]

When Sen. Joe Manchin sank climate legislation earlier this month, he also dashed a major priority for some of his closest allies: coal miners. Coal miners wanted a fix to be added in the Democrats-only budget reconciliation bill that would have helped increase payouts for miners suffering from black lung disease. But Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who has made millions from the coal business, decided earlier this month he couldn’t support climate-focused portions of the bill ahead of the August recess. That decision has led to a scaled-back version of the bill that doesn’t include coal-mining language.
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At the heart of the matter is the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which helps cover health benefits to former and current coal miners suffering from black lung, a respiratory illness that has been described as a “resurgent epidemic” (Greenwire, June 9). Retired miners and their families rely on benefit payouts to supplement their retirement funds to pay for the oxygen and medication. The debilitating respiratory illness is caused by breathing in coal dust and silica.

But Congress failed to renew the rate for the excise tax that coal companies pay to fill up the trust fund last year, drastically reducing how much money goes into it. Manchin, the Energy and Natural Resources chair, has backed a decadelong extension to the black lung excise tax in a standalone bill, S. 2810 (E&E Daily, Sept. 24, 2021). It’s unclear whether the black lung language was part of now-abandoned reconciliation discussions.

Advocates almost got what they wanted, according to Phil Smith, executive assistant to the president of the United Mine Workers of America, who said the union “anticipated” the black lung fix was going to be in whatever final reconciliation package Congress passed before the midterms. The House included a four-year extension in the $1.7 trillion reconciliation package that passed late last year, the “Build Back Better Act.” Manchin killed that bill over fears it could accelerate inflation. Manchin’s concerns about the reconciliation bill were unrelated to black lung benefits for miners, a cause he has championed for years. Nonetheless, his opposition to passing any reconciliation package dealing with climate change in the coming weeks has forced the coal miners’ union back to the drawing board.

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https://www.eenews.net/articles/manchin-veto-of-climate-bill-deals-setback-to-coal-miners/

[Bayard]

1. Manchin is just a disappointment to everyone