Trump loves miners… so you’d think he’d want to help protect his rugged subterranean voters from getting killed by the quartz they have to use to reach the remaining, less accessible coal reserves that Trump insists on tapping:
Coal mining has always been a hazardous occupation. But today’s miners face a new danger because they’re inhaling something worse than the coal dust that settles in lungs, triggering immune cells to form nodules, masses, and scarified black tissue. Most of the large coal seams in the mountains of Appalachia are gone now. To reach smaller seams, miners must cut through much more rock with high levels of quartz, which gets pulverized into crystalline silica.
When tiny particles of silica are inhaled, they act like minute shards of glass, leading to severe tissue scarring and inflammation and eventually to progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of black lung disease. Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, estimate the disease now afflicts one in 10 working miners who have worked in mines for at least 25 years. Rising rates of the disease have led to stark increases in lung transplants and mortality. Between 2013 and 2017, hundreds of cases of progressive massive fibrosis were identified at three Virginia clinics alone, leading NIOSH to declare a renewed black lung epidemic. Black-lung-associated deaths, which declined between 1999 and 2018, rose between 2020 and 2023.
The disease is on the uptick at a time when the President Donald Trump’s administration is calling for the expansion of coal production. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it was investing $625 million in coal projects, and last month, President Trump signed an executive order reaffirming coal as essential to national security, a move that will direct billions of dollars in federal funding to the industry [Kate Morgan, “In Coal Country, Black Lung Surges as Federal Protections Stall,” Yale Environment 360, 2026.04.30].
Miners’ lung disease is exactly the kind of problem we can solve with smart federal regulation. We did it before for our coal miners:
In the United States, black lung was officially acknowledged as a workplace-related illness only in the late 1960s, after a highly publicized disaster at a West Virginia mine killed 78 coal miners. Subsequent strikes and protests led to the passage of the 1969 Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which mandated federal safety inspections of mines, set fines for violations, and established a benefits program to compensate miners with black lung.
Rates of the disease dropped almost immediately, and by the end of the 20th century, thanks to the implementation of those standards and a strong union presence in mines in Pennsylvania and across Appalachia, black lung was nearly eradicated [Morgan, 2026.04.30].
We have new regs in the chute, ready to protect coal miners from the new dangers posed by mining with quartz. But as he’s done with everyone else in his life, Trump intends to use coal miners up and abandon them to their fates. His actions in his seond term are directly imperiling the lives of the miners he says he loves:
When the Trump administration came into office, it cut MSHA’s budget and staff. The agency had already been operating at a disadvantage: According to data from the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, MSHA’s coal mine enforcement staff has been cut in half over the last decade. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) reported that another 7 percent of the agency’s full-time workforce accepted the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” buyout last year, and 90 newly hired mine inspectors had their job offers rescinded. There were concerns among black lung experts and advocates about the diminished agency’s ability to implement the new silica exposure rule. The loss included people “we desperately needed,” Carey Clarkson, who represents Labor Department workers for the AFGE, told NPR at the time. “I can’t image how many years of experience we lost.”
A few days before the April 2025 enforcement date, the rule hit two different roadblocks: the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the rule in response to a petition led by another industry group, the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association, and MSHA itself announced it would delay implementation to give operators more time to “come into compliance.”
The litigation has remained in limbo. Last November, MSHA moved to have the legal proceedings paused as it “reconsiders” parts of the rule, and earlier this month it announced the delay would continue “indefinitely” pending judicial review [Morgan, 2026.04.30].
Maybe we don’t have to worry about rallying new voters to help oust Trump and his minions. Trump will kill off his own base, and we survivors will be able to elect sensible people without opposition.