[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1309-S1311]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 S. 27

  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, once again, I stand here on behalf of 
our hard-working and patriotic coal miners. We have been here before, 
and we are going to stay here until we get the job done.
  Right now, retired coal miners' healthcare, pensions, and black lung 
benefits are on the chopping block again, and, once again, there are 
1,200 new coal miners and dependents who will lose their healthcare 
coverage due to coal company bankruptcies. This could happen later this 
month if the court, as expected, allows Westmoreland to shed their Coal 
Act liabilities.
  This has happened time after time because of the bankruptcy laws--the 
inadequate bankruptcy laws--to protect the hard-working men and women 
who do all the work.
  At the end of last year, Westmoreland indicated they would provide 8 
months of healthcare funding to the UMWA, but there was a condition. It 
was dependent upon the sale of certain mines for which they have 
received no qualified bids, according to documents filed in court.
  Our broken bankruptcy laws are about to let another coal company 
shirk their responsibilities and get out of paying for healthcare and 
pensions the coal miners have earned and deserved. They have worked for 
this. They have negotiated. They are not asking for a handout. They are 
asking to get what they paid for, what they negotiated for, and what 
they didn't take home to their families.
  We have to keep our promise that was signed into law in the Krug-
Lewis agreement. This goes back to 1946--1946. It is the only one of 
its kind. The agreement makes sure we protect our patriotic coal 
miners' healthcare and pensions.
  We have the chance today to pass my bill that was cosponsored with my 
colleagues, the American Miners Act, that will ensure that none of 
these coal miners or their beneficiaries would lose their healthcare, 
pensions, or black lung benefits.
  The American Miners Act uses the same funding mechanism that the 
Miners Protection Act did to protect retired miners' healthcare. It is 
the same funding mechanism Congress has used time and again to protect 
our miners' hard-earned healthcare after our bankruptcy courts have 
ripped them away. This is not going to be a drain on the Treasury. It 
does not cost the taxpayers money. We have pay-fors, and this will be 
taken care of, as we have taken care of our healthcare benefits.
  I am asking you to keep the promise just the way we did when we 
passed the Miners Protection Act and saved the healthcare for 22,600 
miners. We need to finish this job. Save the healthcare of these miners 
suffering from new bankruptcies, protect the pensions of 87,000 miners 
nationwide, and do it by passing the American Miners Act, which would 
also ensure the future of the Black Lung Trust Fund, a lifeline for the 
growing number of miners with black lung.
  I don't know if you all understand the background or if you have 
heard about what happened, but with the passage of the bills we are 
working on, it cuts the black lung fund from $1.10 down to 50 cents. 
You would think that if you were reducing it, we had found a cure, and 
there is less need for the money to save our coal miners and to heal 
them. That is contrary to what is happening. If anything, it is 
exacerbating, and it is growing quicker, faster, and younger people are 
getting this horrible disease more than ever before.
  What we are asking for--my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--is 
to join us here today to demonstrate our commitment to our promise. 
That is all it is.
  I am asking the President of the United States, President Trump, 
please join in, Mr. President. I know you know the miners. I know you 
have spoken eloquently about the miners and your support for the 
miners. This is one way to truly support the miners, to make sure they 
get what they worked for and what they have earned--what they worked 
for and what they have earned. We have it paid for. It does not add one 
penny to the Nation's debt. Everything is ready to go. Please call 
Senator McConnell and tell him to put this on the agenda. You put it on 
the agenda, Mr. President, and you have Senator McConnell put in the 
amendment--a Senator from Kentucky who has an awful lot of coal miners 
in his State also. I will assure you we will get it passed, and we will 
do the job we should have done a long time ago for the people and 
families who have given everything they have, who have patriotically 
committed themselves to the energy this country has needed, and who 
have defended this country every step of the way.
  With that, I yield to my friend from Ohio, Senator Brown.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I say thank you to Senator Manchin. We 
are joined by Senator Capito, Senator Warren, and I know, in spirit, a 
number of others. I think Senator Casey will be here in a few minutes. 
I join them to remind this body--it is a constant reminder--that more 
than 86,000 miners--86,000 miners--are on the verge of facing massive 
cuts to the pensions and healthcare they earned.
  This body doesn't always remember what collective bargaining is all 
about. Collective bargaining is when union members sit down and give up 
wages today to have something for the future, to have healthcare and to 
have retirement in the future.
  Of those 86,000 miners, 1,200 miners and their families could lose 
their healthcare this month because of the Westmoreland and Mission 
Coal bankruptcies. The bankruptcy courts could allow these corporations 
to ``shed their liabilities,'' which is a fancy way of saying walk away 
from paying miners the pensions and the healthcare benefits they 
absolutely earned.
  Senator Manchin is working to fix this. I thank him for his efforts, 
and I thank others in this body. We know the mine workers aren't alone. 
The retirement security of hundreds of thousands of teamsters, 
ironworkers, carpenters, bakery workers, and so many other retirees is 
at risk.
  We know this affects, in my State alone, 250 businesses, mostly small 
construction and transportation companies, 60,000 workers in my State 
alone, and the health of communities. Mine worker communities are 
especially hurt by this because so many of them live in the same 
community--local stores and local businesses.
  As we know, Congress pretty much tried to ignore these workers and 
these retirees. Senator Manchin and I saw that day after day and week 
after week, but they fought back. We saw workers rally. They rallied in 
very hot weather on the Capitol lawn, and they rallied in very cold 
weather on the Capitol lawn. They rallied. They called. They wrote 
letters. We have seen those camo UMWA T-shirts around the Capitol. Many 
of them are veterans. They fought for their country. We owe it to them 
to fight for them.
  We made progress on the bipartisan Pensions Committee that Senator 
Manchin and I sat on. Thanks to Senator Portman, also from my State, 
and members of both parties who put in months of good work in good 
faith on this.
  I am committed to these miners and workers. We will not give up. That 
is why I brought Rita Lewis as my guest to the State of the Union 
Address down the hall last week. Rita Lewis is the widow of Butch 
Lewis, the teamster who died from a heart attack a couple of years ago, 
in large part, we think--she thinks, his family thinks brought on by 
the pressure of fighting for his union, his Teamsters 100--1 million 
members around the country.
  It is about the dignity of work. When work has dignity, we honor the 
retirement security people have earned.
  As I said, people in this town don't always understand the collective 
bargaining process. People give up money today to earn those pensions. 
If you love your country, you fight for people who make it work, people 
like these mineworkers.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I want to mention one more thing and 
then I will turn it over to my colleague, my friend from West Virginia, 
Senator Capito.
  The reason this is so urgent, our miners' pensions are in dire need. 
It goes first. They come to insolvency by 2022. What happens is we are 
one bankruptcy away--one bankruptcy from one coal company--of this 
thing tumbling down in 2019. When it starts tumbling, then you have the 
Central States that will come right behind it, the PBGC becomes 
insolvent, and then we have serious problems. That is why we are

[[Page S1310]]

working with urgency for this to be adopted and fixed now.
  With that, I want to go ahead and turn it over to my friend and 
colleague, the Senator from West Virginia, Mrs. Capito.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I am really pleased to be here to join 
in the colloquy with my fellow Senators, Mr. Manchin, Senator Brown 
from Ohio, and Senator Warner from Virginia.
  This is important. This is really important. I could say I look 
around the room, and it is important to us, but it is important even 
more granularly to some other folks who are right here watching what we 
are doing.
  Many of us have worked together previously in order to save retiree 
health benefits for 22,000 retired miners in 2017, following the 
bankruptcies of Patriot, Alpha, and Walter Resources. Today we are back 
together to advocate for another over 1,000 retirees and beneficiaries 
whose healthcare is impacted by the Westmoreland Coal bankruptcy, as 
Senator Manchin described.
  It is also critical that we redouble our efforts to find a solution 
to the 1974 UMWA Pension Fund. If we do nothing--if we do nothing, 
which I don't believe is an option--this pension fund, which provides 
83,000 current beneficiaries with their pensions, will be insolvent by 
2022. That is getting close, and insolvency can come even sooner, 
depending on market conditions.
  So combined with the 20,000 people who have a vested right to future 
benefits, more than 100,000 people are covered by this pension plan. As 
Senator Manchin said, these are hard-working people who were promised 
and who, in the course of their working lives, gave up something so 
they could have a better peace of mind later on. They worked hard day 
in and day out. They powered our communities and industries and helped 
our country achieve greatness, even in the toughest times, and they did 
that with the promise of healthcare and a pension that would allow them 
to live with dignity in retirement.
  We are not talking about lavish pensions. I think this is an 
important point. The average benefit paid by this fund is $560 per 
month. These retirees are not getting rich on their pension plans, and 
they are not taking lavish expenditures, but without this monthly 
benefit, many of them would be living on the edge of poverty, if they 
are not already.
  One miner from Logan, WV, who worked in the mines for 36 years wrote:

       Please keep fighting for our pension. I receive $303.34 
     monthly. We need this badly to help pay for food, medicine, 
     and other bills.

  Another retired miner from Richwood, WV, who worked in the mines for 
17 years, wrote that his monthly check of $192 ``is not a lot of money, 
but it means a lot,'' and on top of that, he earned it. It helps him 
make his ends meet.
  Another miner from Kistler, WV, who mined for over 35 years, 
expressed concern that he might not be able to pay his expenses or help 
his daughter in college without that monthly pension check.
  Failing to fix the pension fund would have a terrible impact on 
communities where many of these miners live. More than 25,000 pension 
fund beneficiaries live in the State of West Virginia, and they 
received $200 million in benefits last year. If they didn't spend that 
money in their community supporting businesses and other jobs in our 
coalfield communities--if you subtract those funds out of the 
community, you would have a significant economic blow.
  We have a solution that will prevent the insolvency of the pension 
fund and protect our retired miners, their families, and their 
communities. We should pass legislation that expands the use of the 
same transfer of payments used to support retiree healthcare to make 
the pension fund solvent. I have supported various forms of that kind 
of legislation over the years, but as we come closer to the time--
2022--when the pension fund will become insolvent, we must redouble our 
efforts. That is why I appreciate Senator Manchin's advocacy. I 
appreciate his sense of urgency, and I share that.
  At the same time, our West Virginia representatives, along with 
representatives from the States--David McKinley, Alex Mooney, and Carol 
Miller--are leading a bipartisan effort in the House to fix this 
problem as well.
  I will keep fighting alongside all of you and all of them and others 
I see until we enact a solution that keeps the promise of our hard-
working coal miners.
  Thank you.
  I yield back.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, at this time, I would like for the 
former Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the senior Senator 
from Virginia to please have the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. First of all, Madam President, I want to thank my 
colleague from West Virginia, Senator Capito, for her comments. I know 
shortly we are going to hear from the Senator from Pennsylvania. We 
heard from the Senator from Ohio.
  This is sometimes hard for me to say as a former Governor of Virginia 
to a former Governor of West Virginia, but I want particularly those 
who are following this issue to know that no one in this body has 
fought for miners harder, longer, more passionately, more consistently 
than Joe Manchin.
  It was only through his repeated efforts--and this man is like a dog 
with a bone in his mouth who will not let it go. At times he is stiff 
in the spine with folks on this side of the aisle when they wanted to 
say: Well, maybe no. We ought to move to something else. He has come 
back and back and back again.
  So I am honored to stand with him one more time. Let me again say 
that it is with some challenge that someone from the Commonwealth of 
Virginia has to say these many nice things about somebody from West 
Virginia, but the folks in the Gallery ought to know there has been no 
one who has been a better advocate for miners than the Senator from 
West Virginia.
  I don't think there is a Member of the Senate--I know at least on 
this side of the aisle--who has not heard at least a half dozen times 
about the promises Harry Truman made to the miners in 1946 and how it 
is our obligation to keep that word and to keep that promise.
  The Senator from West Virginia has indicated why this is timely. 
Again, it is because we have the challenges around the pension fund. We 
have other challenges, but we have a crisis right now.
  We talked about Westmoreland--the Westmoreland bankruptcy, 1,200 
miners, 500 of those live in Virginia. If we can't get a solution on 
this deal right now on the American Miners Act, then a lot of those 
miners and their families are going to go bankrupt because their day of 
reckoning is already upon us.
  I want to echo what the Senator from West Virginia said to urge the 
majority leader and, for that matter, the minority leader that there is 
a way--if we do the rational, sensible thing and not shut down the 
government on Friday, we ought to take advantage of making sure the 
American Miners Act is part of that provision. I can think of nothing 
better, as we go into the work period, than to try to give miners some 
certainty.
  Let me just mention one other item that the American Miners Act had, 
and that is the strengthening of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund. 
This is also an issue that, if we don't get it resolved, the amount of 
contributions that go into that trust fund will drop in half.
  I don't think many folks realize--and I think this is particularly 
the case in West Virginia and Southwest Virginia--black lung is still a 
real, enormous medical challenge. As a matter of fact, we have now seen 
growth in large populations in my State, and I know in West Virginia, 
as well, of advanced black lung cases called complicated black lung, 
which has an even more devastating effect.
  If this trust fund is cut in half, based upon legislation that took 
place at the end of calendar year 2018, the ability of the trust fund 
to meet the needs of these miners and their families, who are still 
hard hit by a debilitating disease--we are not going to be able to give 
them, again, the high-quality care they deserve. It is way past time to 
fix this problem. Let's take that step.
  We have one of these large pieces of legislation, hopefully, that the 
President will not decide to veto, that we will get through. Wouldn't 
it be--I ask the Senator from West Virginia this

[[Page S1311]]

before I cede to the Senator from Pennsylvania, but sometimes, with 
these giant bills, strange things pop out at the end of the day, and 
you kind of wonder how they got in. Wouldn't it be great if, on this 
mini giant bill, one of the things that popped out might be the 
promised relief for our miners in terms of healthcare and their 
pensions? This is something I believe, we, as a country, owe to the 
miners--back, yes, to President Truman's promise in 1946.
  I stand with all of my colleagues on this issue. I particularly 
thank, again, my friend the Senator from West Virginia for his great 
leadership and his willingness to stand tall time and again. Let's see 
if we can get it done this time.
  With that, Madam President, I yield to the Senator from West 
Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I thank, first of all, the Senator from 
Virginia for fighting for his coal miners in Southwest Virginia.
  They have been out there fighting in Westmoreland, and we have 1,200 
miners about ready to lose everything that we had to fight for to gain. 
They are going to lose their pensions. They are going to lose, also, 
the healthcare. We have to get them in the bill. We have to get our 
trust fund on the black lung restored.
  Mr. WARNER. Right, all we have to try to do with the trust fund is to 
get it back to the status quo.
  Mr. MANCHIN. I am going to make one more plea to the President. I 
will do that after my good friend and senior Senator from Pennsylvania 
speaks about his miners, whom he supports.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from West 
Virginia for his time today, but, more importantly, as the Senator from 
Virginia, Mr. Warner, said, Senator Manchin has fought harder than 
anyone in this Chamber on behalf of men and women, whether they are 
coal miners or their families or their spouses.
  This is a very simple debate. It is not a debate about some far-off, 
complex issue. This is about a promise--a promise that was made to coal 
miners and their families in the 1940s.
  The only question--a real simple question--is that we are either 
going to keep the promise or not. It is as simple as that. Both 
parties, both Houses, and the administration--this is not complicated. 
We made substantial progress, but it took far too long, and there are 
some people in this Chamber who have been blocking it for far too long 
on healthcare. We got that done. That is the good news.
  The bad news is, the pension issue is still unresolved. There is 
still a lot of suffering, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of trauma because 
two branches of government haven't done enough for these families.
  I come from a State where large portions of our State were dependent 
upon the sweat and the blood of working men and women, especially coal 
miners. Stephen Crane, the great novelist, wrote an essay in the early 
1900s--actually late 1800s--about all of the dangers in a coal mine and 
all of the ways a miner could die. He described the mine as a place of 
``inscrutable darkness'' and ``a soundless place of tangible 
loneliness.'' That is how he described the work of the coal miner.
  I know we made progress in the intervening generation since then, but 
that work has always been difficult. It has always been dark and 
dangerous, but the people who did it kept their promise. They kept 
their promise to their employer to work every day and kept their 
promise to their family. Many of them kept their promise to their 
country when they served in World War II or Korea or Vietnam or any 
conflict after that, even up to the present day--but especially those 
who were serving in those years.
  The only question is whether this government and all of us here--and 
both parties are on the hook here--whether we are going to keep our 
promise along with this administration and any future administration. 
It is as simple as that.
  We have some work to do here to make sure that promise is fulfilled. 
These families, these miners have already kept their promise. They are 
done. This isn't something extra we are giving them.
  All we are doing is our part. We are obligated here, and I am 
grateful that the senior Senator from West Virginia and others have 
worked together to make sure that this issue is front and center, even 
as we are dealing with a range of other issues.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I will wrap up now, and I want to, 
first of all, thank the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senators from 
West Virginia and Ohio for speaking so eloquently for the people who 
have worked so hard for our country.
  This has been a bipartisan movement. This has been bipartisan. I 
thank all of my Republican colleagues for supporting the hard-working 
people they all had in their States. We all benefited from the energy 
they produced for our great country, to defend ourselves in two wars. 
We had the greatest economy--the only superpower in the world--because 
of what they have done every day and the sacrifices they have made for 
us.
  Mr. President, if you are watching, if you get a copy of this tape, I 
am pleading with you. I am pleading with you, Mr. President, on behalf 
of 87,000 retirees: Please help us. One phone call from you to Majority 
Leader McConnell to support and adopt the American Miners Act of 2019, 
which is S. 27--ask him to take this up immediately. We can put it on 
the bill that we are about ready to open to keep the government open or 
he can take immediate action. But, Mr. President, you can make a 
difference. These are people who supported you, and I know you support 
them, and this is the way you can show it.
  They are only asking for what they worked for. It does not cost the 
government one penny of debt--not one penny of debt for the taxpayers. 
We have pay-fors. It has been bipartisan. It came out of the Finance 
Committee in a bipartisan movement under the leadership of Senator 
Hatch. I am very grateful for that.
  You will see the miners going around; they make an effort every week, 
faithfully, to come here. There are real faces, real people, real 
families who are involved and affected by our inaction. We are asking 
for your help, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor, respectfully.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.