Congressional leaders say legislation to support health care benefits for retired miners could be attached to a must-pass spending bill this week.
The United Mine Workers of America has accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of blocking action on the Miners Protection Act, a bill to fund pensions and health benefits. But at a weekend event in Louisville McConnell denied preventing a vote.
“I haven’t been preventing one at any point,” McConnell told Ryland Barton of Kentucky Public Radio. “The issue is miners’ health care and I’ve advocated that the House add miners’ health care to the C.R. — the continuing resolution — that we’ll be voting on.”
McConnell indicated the health care will be attached to the spending bill Congress must pass in order to avoid a government shutdown. However, it’s unclear if that will include money for miners’ pension benefits.
A group of Democratic senators including West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin have pledged to block Senate proceedings until action is taken on the miners’ bill.
“We promised them they would have their health care benefits and their pensions,” Manchin said from the Senate floor. “And if we don’t stand for the people that made this country as great as it is then we stand for nothing.”
If Congress doesn’t act during this lame duck session more than 16,000 retired miners could lose their health benefits by the end of the year. Many of those are in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.
An Old Pledge
The retired union miners want the cradle-to-grave health and retirement benefits promised to them when Congress intervened in 1947 to settle a national coal strike. The agreement used royalties on coal production to create a retirement fund for miners and their dependents in cases of sickness, disability, death and retirement.
That legislation has been renewed at various times over the years. Now with companies going under and coal production in sharp decline it’s feared that there will not be enough money to fulfill pledges to retirees.
The Miner’s Protection Act seeks to address the potential shortages by tapping the Abandoned Mine Lands fund. The AML reclamation fund was created to address abandoned mine land from before 1977 and is funded by a fee placed on each ton of coal mined.
The interest from the AML fund is currently being absorbed into the U.S. Treasury and the new legislation would redirect some of that interest to safeguard pensions and benefits.
