Tagged: mine safety

GOP members on the U.S. House Appropriations committee have inserted language into a bill to block a new Mine Safety and Health Department initiative to reduce occurrences of black lung disease--or coal workers' pneumoconiosis.

NPR's Howard Berkes reported on the new language this morning on NPR's news blog The Two Way:

The leading Democrat on the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce says the federal government doesn’t have enough tools to keep coal miners safe.

A Kentucky coal company has been fined nearly $600,000 by the federal government, stemming from violations that directly contributed to the death of a miner last year.

In June 2011, David Partin was killed at the Manalapan Mining Company’s P-1 Mine in Harlan County. A large section of rock fell from the coal mine’s wall, and knocked him into a dolly.

An investigation by NPR and several partners has found that black lung disease is far from being eradicated among coal miners. On the contrary: the reports outline a disease where diagnoses have doubled in the last decade in parts of Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.

Black lung disease--also called coalworkers' pneumoconiosis--is a disease caused by breathing large amounts of coal dust.