Outrage as Trump’s coal expansion coupled with health cuts: ‘There won’t be anyone to work in the mines’ | Trump administration

the Trump administrationExpansion efforts Coal Mining during the imposition of deep cuts at the same time on agencies charged with ensuring the health and safety of miners, some defenders have left “dyed”.

The agencies that protect coal miners from serious professional risks, including the case known as the “Black Lung”, were among those affected by the main government discounts imposed by the White House and the informal “Doug” unofficial (Doug) run by the billionaire Elon Musk.

“the [Mine Workers of America] “But if you do not protect the health and safety of miners, then no one will work in mines that tend to open up,” said Erine Bings, a spokesman for UK workers in America.

Last week, Trump A set of measures took place He said he would expand coal mining in the United States to feed energy requirements from hungry data centers that operate the artificial intelligence program.

“All of these plants that have been closed will be opened if they are modern enough, or will be torn and new plants will be built,” said Trump, a crowd of legislators, workers and executives at the White House. “We will return miners to work.”

The coal industry has shrunk significantly in recent years, and is now only about 15 % of energy I was born to the American electrical network. Natural gas, wind and solar energy have proven that it has a competitive advantage over coal, which contributes to its decline, because plants are cheaper for work, according to what they mentioned. Inside climate news.

Even with the contraction of coal mining, the potential risks of people who are still working in this field are still high. Pneumonia is among the best known professional risks faced by coal miners, but it is far from the only danger they face – others include The roof collapseand Hearing and Lung cancerFor example, but not limited to.

Trump’s payment of coal came less than a week after the Minister of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Junior, I cut 10,000 people To the Ministry of Health and Federal Humanitarian Services (HHS). Kennedy’s discounts, along with those imposed by Dog Musk, are the elimination of nearly a quarter of the workforce in HHS of 82,000 people.

Nearly 900 of these workers were rejected from the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), including in the Agency’s respiratory health department in West Virginia, which specifically supervised Black X -ray examination program. Doug also continued mining safety discounts through the judiciary 34 Regional offices MSHA safety and health management (MSHA) in 19 states.

Deep discounts in particular worry about those who are aware of the suffering caused by pneumonia – such as Greg Vagner, a great doctor and senior in Niosh.

“My thoughts were,” Why is neushi? Why now? Wagner, who led his early work in a community clinic in the city of Tadin coal in the small West Virginia, said to a profession to prevent disease in both NIOSH and Assistant Minister of Labor for the safety of mines and health.

Wagner also worked with the International Labor Organization and multiple countries in an attempt to eliminate pneumonia worldwide. He is now a professor of environmental health at the Shan School in Harvard for the public health.

Wagner said that the “dilapidated” discounts, even when the agency’s experts “were doing what they were asked to do and do so very well … excessive performance with a little confession. Seeing it seems to ascend in smoke-I just-it is clear that my feelings were deep and complex.”

Administration also wants Stop a new base On silica dust -A type of pulmonary disease or “black lung” disease, which draws the attention of younger miners in Apalashia, where workers are digging for hard -to -reach veins from coal.

“To go to the base of silica – we are almost polished.” “The number of black lung cases that appear in the United States is astronomical – it is increasing, not only the increasing numbers, but it occurs to the smaller and smaller mines. Every day this rule is delayed on another day that we contract with our black lung workers.”

Silications are a disease caused by inhalation of silica dust, a form of pulmonary poisoning that can be more severe than a century for a century, which has long been known to harm the health of miners.

The government was aware of the dangers of silica dust for decades, and recommended significant discounts in exposure levels Early in 1974. In 1993Wagner’s president in Newching, Dr. J. Donald Milar, the silicate continues to be “obscene professional because there is no scientific excuse for its continuation.”

MSHA ended the base in April 2024 to reduce the exposure of silica dust in mines, which was appointed this year. Last week, the National Association for Stone, Sands and Ghoba filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the implementation of the silica dust base pending a lawsuit. A few days later, the federal miners told the court that they wanted to stop the implementation of the silica dust base for coal mining operations for four months, delaying any enforcement procedures until August 2025.

“The sudden shift in the mode of litigation referred to by the” implementation of the implementation “of MSHA, and by its unilateral proposal to keep this issue in an equation for a period of four months, the call to Al -Walidi to miners this nation is that the agency that accused of deep responsibility in protecting their health and safety is the loss of the stomach in order to fight to allocate its own rules,” Lawyers wrote for solid unionsSeek to interfere in the case.

Wagner said his concerns about delaying the silica base extend beyond miners to workers in other industries – including people working in the bombing of sand or curved stones designed geometric stones, are all known as environments in which workers can be exposed to potential harmful levels of silica dust.

“I do not have the right words,” Wagner said about the discounts to Niosh, which was deeply involved in the research that showed How to damage silica mines workers. “I feel that it was just done without thinking, and I did without looking at and the consequences of losing the agency that I think will feel for years.

“We will need to try to rebuild what Newsh is doing.”