Trump Administration Uses Ridiculous Excuse to Indefinitely Delay Black Lung Safeguards

Originally published by Appalachian Citizens Law Center

COAL COUNTRY – As the Trump Administration continues to tout that it is bringing back the coal industry, the safeguards that could prevent deadly silica dust exposure among coal miners have been sidelined by the Administration’s own actions with no resolution in sight. Just this week, E&E Greenwire reported that the Trump Administration’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) would “indefinitely delay” a standard to limit miners’ exposure to silica dust, the principal cause of the resurgence of deadly black lung disease, “pending judicial review.” Left unstated is the fact that any such judicial review is on pause because of MSHA’s own complex bureaucratic and legal maneuvers that only they can unravel.

Since 2009, miners and their allies have pushed the federal government to implement a silica dust standard  In April 2024, a rule was finally issued, with the coal industry given a year to comply. Instead, the Trump Administration and the industry took steps to halt the enforcement of the rule. In April of 2025, Trump’s MSHA announced it would halt enforcement of the rule, blaming uncertainty due to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., gutting the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Nearly simultaneously,  the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals put an indefinite stay on the rule after the mining industry took the rule to court and the administration failed to oppose the industry’s petition. Since then, parties in the case, including Trump’s MSHA, requested an abeyance on court action as MSHA agreed to weaken the rule to appease industry’s complaints. Now that MSHA and the industry are in agreement, MSHA claims they can’t advance even the watered down rule while the court’s stay is in place. However, that stay won’t  be removed while the case is held in abeyance, as MSHA requested. In other words, Trump’s MSHA won’t enforce the law until the stay is lifted, but the stay won’t be lifted until Trump’s MSHA acts – MSHA’s current lack of action is premised on constraints that are essentially self-imposed.

Advocates released the following statements in response:

Rebecca Shelton, Director of Policy for Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center:
“If the Trump Administration actually cared about protecting coal miners from black lung, we’d have a strong silica rule in place right now. Instead, they are hiding behind a ridiculous legal process to delay action while miners get sick and die. Our message to Trump’s MSHA is simple: It is on you to stop the delays. Put a strong rule in place and fight to enforce it before any other miners get black lung. Every day of delay is another death sentence for our communities.”

Background:

The silica dust standard had not been updated in nearly 40years before the Biden Administration took action in 2024. In that period of inaction, mining methods changed as larger, more accessible coal seams have been exhausted. Miners now must cut through more rock, leading to more exposure to silica dust that is 20 times more toxic than coal dust and causes the most severe forms of black lung even after fewer years of exposure. Based on scientific evidence, health experts and government agencies have repeatedly concluded that this silica dust exposure is a major cause of the black lung epidemic and that the outdated MSHA silica standard was woefully ineffective at protecting miners from this threat. Now, in Central Appalachia, 1 in 5 tenured miners has black lung disease and 1 in 20 has the most severe and totally disabling form of black lung. This led to an urgent push for an updated silica dust standard.

Over 15 years ago, in 2009, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center petitioned MSHA to establish a dust standard for respirable crystalline silica. While MSHA responded and stated an intention to publish a proposed standard by April 2011, the rule was never promulgated and a decade of inaction followed. In 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration established a reduced silica standard for other occupations, but because MSHA oversees mining regulations, the change meant miners had less protection from silica than any other group of workers. In 2021, ACLC again petitioned for a silica dust rule and the rule was reportedly drafted and submitted to the Office of Management and Budget in January of 2023 before being finalized in April 2024.