As Trump eyes coal revival, his job cuts hobble black lung protections for miners

OAK HILL, West Virginia, April 21 (Reuters) - Josh Cochran worked deep in the coal mines of West Virginia since he was 22 years old, pulling a six-figure salary that allowed him to buy a home with his wife Stephanie and hunt and fish in his spare time.

That ended two years ago when, at the age of 43, he was diagnosed with advanced black lung disease. He’s now waiting for a lung transplant, breathes with the help of an oxygen tank, and needs help from his wife to do basic tasks around the house.

His saving grace, he says, is that he can still earn a living. A federal program run by the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health called Part 90 meant he was relocated from underground when he got his diagnosis to a desk job dispatching coal trucks to the same company, retaining his pay.

"Part 90 - that's only the thing you got," he told Reuters while signing a stack of documents needed for the transplant, a simple task that left him winded. "You can come out from underground, make what you made, and then they can't just get rid of you."

That program, which relocates coal miners diagnosed with black lung to safer jobs at the same pay - along with a handful of others intended to protect the nation’s coal miners from the resurgence of black lung - is grinding to a halt due to mass layoffs and office closures imposed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, according to Reuters reporting.

Reuters interviews with more than a dozen people involved in medical programs serving the coal industry, and a review of internal documents from NIOSH, show that at least three such federal programs have stopped their work in recent weeks.

A decades-old program operated by NIOSH to detect lung disease in coal miners, for example, has been suspended. Related programs to provide x-rays and lung tests at mine sites have also shut down and it is now unclear who will enforce safety regulations like new limits on silica dust exposure after nearly half of the offices of MSHA were slated to have their leases terminated.

The details about the black lung programs halted by the government's mass layoffs and funding cuts have not previously been reported.

"It’s going to be devastating to miners," said Anita Wolfe, a 40-year NIOSH veteran who remains in touc...
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