black lung disease

From federal rulemakers all the way down to Kentucky lawmakers, 2025 was full of regulatory wins for mining companies. Meanwhile, health researchers confirm that deaths from black lung disease are rampant in the mine industry.

Last year, the federal government issued a new rule requiring self-insured coal mines to prove they can cover 100% of future black lung disease costs. Two Democrats say they’ve heard the Trump administration isn’t following the rule.

In the final days of the Biden administration, labor officials are taking aim at self-insured coal companies who aren’t prepared to support workers who contract the deadly and incurable black lung disease.

Lawyers and experts say the sole doctor has become the decisive voice for whether miners can receive worker’s compensation from the coal companies employing them.

Black lung has surged in Appalachia in recent years. Research has tied the epidemic to silica dust, which can burrow deep into miners’ lungs.

New laws have cemented a tax that pays miners with black lung disease. Miner advocates are celebrating; the coal industry says it's unfair.

It’s been almost forty years, but many former miners with the disease are still fighting to maintain funding for the benefits that keep them alive.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration is not doing enough to protect coal miners from deadly silica dust, according to a new report from the…

Robert E. Murray, the former CEO and president of thenow-bankrupt Murray Energy, has filed an application with the U.S. Department of Labor for black lung…

Charles Wayne Stanley ran underground mining machines for some 20 years, cutting coal from beneath the hills where Virginia meets Kentucky along the…