Delay in ‘silica rule’ leaves some miners’ advocates worried
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After the announcement by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration of a four-month delay in enforcement of the “silica rule,” some in the region are worried about what that delay signals for miners’ safety.
The rule, issued last April, gave mine operators a year to upgrade respiratory protection programs to limit the amount of silica dust inhaled by miners. Inhaling the dust is known to cause a host of potentially deadly health issues including silicosis, a lung disease similar to black lung.
But on April 8, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, an agency within the Department of Labor, announced it would not enforce the rule until August to “provide time for operators to secure necessary equipment and otherwise come into compliance.”
For Lisa DePaoli, communications director at the nonprofit Center for Coalfield Justice, this delay is just one part in the Trump administration’s efforts to revamp the coal industry at any cost.
“In my opinion, it seems to be taking away any barrier to help coal sort of be revived,” she said.
While she said reviving coal is “admirable” in its efforts to bring jobs to the region, DePaoli said those jobs have to be safe and well-paid.
“We see this sort of broad activity right now in the United States where we have a lot deregulating and just unleashing things for the companies to do whatever they want, to make as much money as they want wherever they want,” she said. “And we really think that the people sort of lower on the totem pole need to be taken care of as well.”
This is not the first time the silica rule has run into trouble. Throughout last year, House Republicans sought to block enforcement of the regulation, encountering sharp resistance from the United Mine Workers of America.
At this point, the regulation is set to be enforced Aug. 18, but come this summer, DePaoli said, she does not have much confidence that the federal government will not forestall enforcement again.
“We’re just trying to fight back against that and keep what we’ve earned. It took us years and lot of hard work to earn it, and it feels like it’s slipping out of our hands,” DePaoli said.
The move also comes as the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency announced its plans to end leases on four regional offices of the MSHA and cut 200 jobs at the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division of the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health at Bruceton Mills in South Park.
The four offices are its district office in Hempfield, which covers regions in Pennsylvania and eight other states, as well as field offices in Waynesburg, Marshall and Frackville, Schuylkill County.
As for the employees of Bruceton Mills, who are ultimately employed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, their employment will end by June 30.
Mine safety tests are done there, along with respirator testing and approvals for other personal protective equipment and related research.
If the cuts result in fewer mine safety inspectors on the job, that likely will result in less safe mines, said Chuck Knisell, vice president of United Mine Workers of America District 2 International, which is based in Uniontown.
“You take that away, then it’s like going back in the 1950s,” he said.
In all, the government efficiency agency has targeted 34 MSHA offices across the country in 19 coal-producing states, without releasing the details of whether those employees will be laid off or relocated to other offices.
The MSHA said the delay of the silica rule in coal mines does not affect the compliance date of April 8, 2026, for metal and nonmetal mines.