Coal miners, who largely work in states that President Donald Trump won by large margins in the 2024 election, are criticizing his administration for failing to enforce federal rules that would limit the spread of potentially fatal black lung disease.
“The coal miners have supplied this country with electricity, and now they’re just cast aside to die,” West Virginia-based Judith Riffe, whose husband died of the ailment, told The New York Times.
A federal rule limiting miner exposure to silica dust—which causes black lung disease—was set to go into effect in April, but it has been opposed in court by the mining industry, which alleges that it’s too expensive to limit the use of the material, despite the health risk.
A group of coal miners hold signs that read, “Trump digs coal,” at a 2020 rally.
The Trump administration has decided not to enforce the rule until the court case is resolved, demonstrating its support for the mining industry. But then in September, the administration said that it would put at least $625 million into subsidizing the coal industry—ignoring all environmental impacts.
“The companies might be getting a handout, but the miners ain’t getting none,” Gary Hairston, a retired West Virginia coal miner who has suffered from black lung disease for more than 30 years and is president of the National Black Lung Association, told the Times.
In 2024, Trump won West Virginia by more than 41 percentage points, with 69.97% of the vote. That made it Trump’s second-best performance behind Wyoming, where he received 71.6% of the vote.
The rule to protect miners was proposed in 2024 under President Joe Biden and was the first time in U.S. history that silica dust was regulated.
“We’re making it clear that no job should be a death sentence, and every worker has the right to come home healthy and safe at the end of the day,” Julie Su, who was the acting director for the Department of Labor at the time, said.
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Congressional Republicans have voiced their support for holding back the rule. In a July letter to the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration at the Labor Department, House Education and Workforce Committee Republicans complained that the rule is “unwarranted and costly.”
But despite the position of the industry and the Trump administration, mine workers are developing black lung disease at an earlier age. Data shows that the current rate of the disease is back to rates last seen more than 50 years ago in the 1970s.
Black lung disease is an incurable condition and can lead to deadly outcomes like lung cancer, tuberculosis, and heart failure.
By backing the industry Trump is once again betraying the residents of states that have supported him the most. Trump promised blue-collar workers in states like West Virginia an economic boom, but instead he’s given them a slump.
While some voters in the reddest states of America still back Trump, he continues to embrace policies that make their lives miserable—even to the point of death.
