Senators Propose Competing Bills To Save Miners’ Health Care

Jan. 19--In July 2015, a group of coal country senators, including Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, proposed a bill that would shore up failing union coal miner pensions and health care for the next 10 years.

Eighteen months later, those senators are trying again, with funding for thousands of Pennsylvania miners' benefits set to expire at the end of April.

This time, the outlook for the bill, called the Miners Protection Act, is even more complicated.

For one, Congress will work under a new presidential administration with radically different views on the coal industry and the role of federal environmental regulations.

Additionally, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who blocked the earlier bill from passing in December, introduced a competing bill this week that appears to tie saving pensions and health care to rolling back federal regulations on the coal industry. It provides an extension only for health care funding, leaving out pensions that are included in the Miners Protection Act.

"Recognizing the damage that has been done over the past eight years, my legislation also calls on Congress to work with the incoming Trump administration to repeal regulations that are harming the coal industry and to support economic development efforts in coal country," Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor on Tuesday.

The Miners Protection Act aims to direct $3 billion over the next 10 years into health care and pension funds for miners. The money would prop up United Mine Workers of America pension funds, relied on by more than 89,000 miners nationwide, including 13,000 miners in Pennsylvania.

Last month, Mr. McConnell had agreed to an extension of funding for benefits but stuffed it into the short-term budget bill passed in December. The move came over threats from West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin to vote against the budget bill and temporarily shut down the government.

In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Casey said he has not had a chance to review Mr. McConnell's proposal. But he said he is optimistic that the reception in Congress would be more accommodating this year to the Miners Protection Act, which, he pointed out, has Republican support from Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

"It's not just a new Congress, new year, new administration, and all that," Mr. Casey said. After the high-profile debate late last year, "We enter 2017 with folks knowing a lot more about the issue, and that should help."

Mr. Trump has not made a public statement on the bill, though Mr. Casey sent a letter to the president-elect in November asking him to support the legislation. "I hope he would be faithful to his statements on the campaign trail," Mr. Casey said. "He said he was going to help coal miners."

In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Miners Protection Act was also reintroduced this month, with eight co-sponsors -- four Republicans, four Democrats, including Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills.

It remains to be seen how Republicans will respond to Mr. McConnell's dueling proposal that assigns blame for lost coal jobs to the Obama administration.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who won re-election in November, offered tepid support for the Miners Protection Act.

But he cast blame on a "war on coal" propagated by Democrats, suggesting solidarity with Mr. McConnell.

"While the Miners Protection Act was not perfect, I voted to support it in the Finance Committee last September," read a statement emailed by a spokesperson for Mr. Toomey on Wednesday. "Due to President Obama's relentless war on coal, many Pennsylvania energy jobs have been lost. Now, thousands of coal miner retirees in our state are in danger of losing their health care benefits, too."

For his part, Mr. Casey flatly denied that the loss of coal jobs are a result of a "war on coal" and said Republicans have an opportunity to pass a bipartisan bill that helps the working class.

"I think it's pretty clear," Mr. Casey said. "There's not a lot of theory or mystery to this. This is pretty up-or-down. You either support these miners or you don't."

Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2743.

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