Coal miners getting new protections from silica dust linked to black lung disease

FILE - Julie Su speaks during a Senate Health , Education, Labor and Pensions confirmation hearing for her to be the Labor Secretary, on Capitol Hill, April 20, 2023, in Washington. The Labor Department moved Tuesday to better protect miners from poisonous silica dust that has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of mine workers from a respiratory disease commonly known as “black lung.

“For too long, we accepted this as just the way things are for people who work in mines,’' Su said. “They’ve had to work without the same protections from silica dust that people in other industries have, even though we’ve known about the harms of silica dust since Frances Perkins” who was labor secretary in the 1930s and 1940s.

“There are too many lives at stake to get this wrong, and we’ll do whatever we can to ensure that this rule provides the protection that miners deserve,’' Shelton said. Vonda Robinson, whose husband, John, who was diagnosed with black lung a decade ago at age 47, said she’s felt hopeful as officials considered the rule changes. But she was skeptical how the rule will be enforced.

The White House requested a $50 million increase to the mine safety office’s budget for the current year, most of which would have been earmarked for more inspectors and enforcement. Congress rejected it, keeping the budget at the 2023 level of $388 million.

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