Bipartisan legislation designed to protect retired miners — whose pensions and health care coverage have been threatened because of recent coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis — was introduced Wednesday by Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. and nearly a dozen other U.S. Senators from both sides of the aisle, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
“This is truly a bipartisan bill,” Manchin said Wednesday afternoon during a conference call. “I have been working on this since 2013.”
The legislation, called The Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019, will amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to transfer funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan to prevent its insolvency.
Additionally, the bill will amend the Coal Act to include the 2018 and 2019 bankruptcies in the miners’ health care fix that passed in 2017. Both actions will secure the pensions of 92,000 coal miners and protect the health care benefits of 13,000 miners, Manchin’s office said.
The October bankruptcy of coal giant Murray Energy Corp. accelerated introduction of the bill, Manchin said.
It’s expected that Murray, based in St. Clairsville, Ohio, just outside of Wheeling, will re-emerge from bankruptcy.
But the bankruptcy of Murray — the fourth-largest producer of coal in the U.S. last year — may also impact the pensions of more than 80,000 miners. Murray has operations in seven states.
“We want to get this done as soon as possible,” Manchin said. “It’s only right for us to do.”
“These people are the backbone of America.”
Senator Capito said the bipartisan “fix” will preserve pension and health care benefits for retired miners.
“This is a permanent remedy for the pension and health dilemma miners across Appalachia have unfairly had to face,” Capito said in a statement. “I’ve been working in the Senate and with Leader McConnell and Senator Manchin on this issue for years, and I’m so glad to see us come to this solution today. Our miners worked for these pensions and I’m proud to be able to deliver what they’ve earned.”
McConnell said he spoke with President Trump earlier this week about the importance of protecting the pensions and health benefits of the retired miners. Eight years of regulatory assault on the coal industry can’t be fixed overnight, he added.
“I am committed to continuing to work with him and my colleagues in Congress towards a solution,” McConnell said in a statement. “The startling number of orphaned miners in the drastically underfunded pension plan presents an urgent crisis for entire communities of miners and their families.”
Other co-sponsors of the legislation included Bob Casey, D-Pa.; Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Tim Kaine, D-Va.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Doug Jones, D-Ala., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
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