U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito says the Trump administration’s defense of staff cuts affecting coal miner health is insufficient.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defended its staff cuts to a coal miner health monitoring program in federal court on Wednesday.
The government’s lawyer said agency functions would be reorganized and programs continued. Attorneys for a Kanawha County coal miner said there was no evidence to support that.
In a call with in-state media organizations Thursday, Capito said that wasn’t good enough.
“The response is always ‘we’re gonna do that, but it’s just going to be in a different form, we’re going to put it under Make America Healthy Again,’” she said. “That’s an insufficient answer, in this case.”
The Coal Workers Health Survey Program processes applications for black lung benefits, including job transfers to areas of mine operations with lower levels of dust.
That program is currently not operating, witnesses testified in court Wednesday, and its workers have received termination notices.
Two epidemiologists at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown told U.S. District Judge Irene Berger that they’d been brought back to work last week only to be placed on administrative leave again this week.
Harry Wiley, the Kanawha County miner who sued HHS and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the U.S. District Court in Charleston last month because NIOSH has to approve his job transfer under the Part 90 program.
It allows miners diagnosed with early stage black lung to transfer to a part of the operation with less dust. Black lung is incurable, but it can be mitigated, and the Part 90 program is one way to slow the disease’s progression, the epidemiologists testified.
Capito has been pushing to get the program restored and hasn’t been satisfied with the answers from the White House.
Wiley’s attorneys have sought a preliminary injunction to force HHS to continue the Part 90 program and complete his application. Berger said to expect a ruling “fairly soon.”
