Congress shores up pension, health care benefits for coal miners

Retired Pennsylvania coal miners will see their retirement and health care benefits preserved thanks to a bipartisan, end-of-year federal government spending deal announced this week.

Congress approved a funding package for tens of thousands of miners across the country, including legislation to shore up retired coal miners’ pensions and health care coverage. The Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019 will ensure miners, whose health care is at risk due to recent coal company bankruptcies, will not lose their benefits, according to co-sponsor Senator Bob Casey, D-PA.

“Coal miners powered this country for decades and I am proud to say that after years of fighting, we have reached an agreement to keep our promises to the men and women who helped build our nation,” Casey said in a statement this week.

The spending deal secures lifetime health care benefits for 13,000 miners around the country who lost their benefits. Congress approved provisions to shore up the 1974 Pension Plan, headed for insolvency due to recent coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis, threatening the pensions of 92,000 miners, according to Senator Joe Manchin, D-WV, who sponsored the bill.

Casey pledged to continue pushing for the Butch Lewis Act, aimed at establishing retirement trust funds for workers with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, to pass through the Senate. The Butch Lewis Act passed through the House of Representatives in July and would “ensure that pensions for our Teamsters, Bakery and Confectionery workers and all other Pennsylvanians remain secure,” Casey said.

In a statement released by Manchin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, laid the blame at the Obama Administration‘s “eight years of regulatory assault” of the coal mining sector for the poor state in which many retired coal miners find themselves, promising less regulation under the Trump Administration.

“Earlier this week, I personally raised with President Trump the importance of protecting these coal miners’ pensions and health retirement benefits, and I am committed to continuing to work with him and my colleagues in congress towards a solution,” McConnell said in the statement released in early November. “The startling number of orphaned miners in drastically underfunded pension plans presents an urgent crisis for entire communities of miners, retirees and their families.”