The federal agency with the legal mandate to protect coal miners from the coal mine dust that causes black lung disease won’t respond to news of the highest rates of the incurable disease since the 1970’s.
But mine safety advocates are not holding back, calling on the Mine Safety and Health Administration to end its indefinite hold on the 2024 regulation that specifically targets respirable silica dust, which is blamed for the disease that continues to afflict thousands of coal miners.
“Coal miners are not disposable, and we will not stand by while their lives are traded for coal production,” said Brian Sanson, International President of the United Mine Workers Union of America or UMWA.
Sanson responded to reporting by Public Health Watch, Kentucky Public Radio, NPR and the PBS series FRONTLINE, revealing alarming new rates of black lung disease among working coal miners in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
The miners who spent 25 or more years underground had the highest projected rate of disease — 32.5%. That’s one in three, a rate not seen since 1978, an era of rampant black lung and the beginning of federal efforts to limit exposure to the coal mine dust that causes disease. The new rate resulted from coal miner lung X-rays conducted during the last five years by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health or NIOSH, a federal research agency.
NIOSH published its findings in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
“This research adds to a mountain of undeniable evidence,” Sanson of the UMWA added. “Keeping coal miners alive and breathing requires…companies willing to follow the law [and] a government willing to enforce it…”
The 2024 “rule” or regulation that made the silica dust exposure limit twice as tough was immediately challenged by the mining industry. Federal courts put enforcement on hold and MSHA did not challenge those rulings. Instead, the agency announced its own indefinite suspension and asked a federal appeals court to continue the hold on enforcement while it worked to develop a new silica dust regulation.
Public Health Watch and its reporting partners had obtained a draft of the NIOSH findings and provided details to MSHA but were told that the agency “…is waiting for the NIOSH report to be published to provide an accurate response and aim to provide an update for you at that time.”
But once the NIOSH findings were published, an agency spokeswoman wrote ”MSHA has no comment.” The agency also ignored specific questions about its decision to not enforce the new silica dust protections for miners, and about details of its yet-to-be released proposal to change the 2024 regulation as it develops a new “rule” for silica dust.
The new regulation “is likely to be much too weak,” said Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “This is unacceptable,” Scott added. “Workers should not have to sacrifice their safety for a paycheck.”
Kentucky Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey pointed to President Trump’s promise of $700 million to help revive the coal industry. “Coal operators are getting a few more years to profit off coal country, and miners get an incurable, entirely preventable disease for the rest of their lives.”
Republican congressman Morgan Griffith, whose district includes southwest Virginia’s coalfields, did not criticize MSHA or the Trump administration’s hold on enforcing silica dust protections. He did say “...alarming rises in black lung disease merit federal attention.” And he called for more continued federal funding of black lung clinics “to help them treat and identify such cases.”
One advocacy group for coal miners took aim at the mining industry.
“For years the mining industry has failed to take responsibility for the unacceptable resurgence of black lung disease,” said Rebecca Shelton of The Appalachian Citizens Law Center or ACLC, a Kentucky group that provides legal services and advocacy for coal miners.
Shelton specifically cited the National Mining Association’s response to the new rates of black lung, which said these rates of disease are caused by “historic exposures” and “do not reflect the conditions, practices, protections or regulations that are in place today.”
ACLC conducted an analysis of MSHA silica dust sampling for the first six months of 2026 and said it identified silica dust above the “permissible exposure limit” in 17% of the surface and underground mines sampled. That’s a limit that would require mining companies to take action to reduce exposure if the regulation was being enforced.
“The industry tries to escape responsibility by putting blame on historic conditions and practices,” Shelton said.
Public Health Watch asked the National Mining Association to comment on the ACLC data and analysis, but the organization did not respond.
Mine safety advocates are now waiting to see what MSHA will propose in its new regulation for silica dust exposure. On August 10, a federal appeals court gave the agency two more months to delay enforcement of the 2024 silica dust limits and to propose a new regulation.
Howard Berkes and Justin Hicks reported for Public Health Watch, Kentucky Public Radio, NPR, and the PBS series FRONTLINE.
This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Radio in Kentucky, and NPR. Sign up for the weekly Porch Light newsletter here for news from around the region.
