[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4891-S4894]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          American Miners Act

  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, once again I am here to announce a 
looming deadline hanging over the heads of our hard-working and 
patriotic coal miners. It is a shame that we have to do this again, and 
the reason is that we didn't fix it the first time.
  If we don't pass the American Miners Act, there will be 1,200 retired 
coal miners who will lose their healthcare by the end of this year. 
Those 1,200 coal miners spent a lifetime underground, in part, digging 
the coal that we needed to become the strongest and greatest Nation the 
world has ever seen. They have always done the heavy lifting. They gave 
up raises and bonuses year after year in exchange for the promise of 
economic security when they retired. So they paid for this. They held 
up their end of the bargain, and it is time that we held up ours.
  Why is the healthcare of retired coal miners once again on the 
chopping block? We have gone through this before. It is because of the 
courts. Our court system has again allowed coal companies to break 
their promises to their workers. Through bankruptcy, they were able to 
shed their obligations to pay for these hard-earned healthcare and 
pension benefits, and then they were able to reemerge from bankruptcy 
as a profitable company once all the money was basically taken

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from them. This time around, it was Westmoreland Coal Company and 
Mission Coal Company that both declared bankruptcy approximately at the 
same time in 2018.
  For those of you who think this is another big government program, 
let me share a little history with you.
  In 1946, due to the horrendous working conditions our miners faced 
every day, there was a nationwide strike. It brought our Nation's 
economy to its knees. President Truman dispatched the Secretary of the 
Interior, Julius Krug, to meet with the president of the United Mine 
Workers of America, John L. Lewis. They ended that strike by signing 
the Krug-Lewis Agreement, which created a retirement fund and 
healthcare benefits for our Nation's miners and their families that had 
the full backing of the U.S. Government.
  It was not coming from government tax dollars. It did not come from 
the people of the United States paying for this retirement and pension 
plan and healthcare. It came from every ton of coal that was sold. From 
that time forward, there would be a certain amount of that set aside. 
So they worked for it, and they paid for it. It was part of their 
compensation. Unfortunately, over 70 years later, we are still fighting 
to make good on that promise.
  Then, in the 1980s, with the bankruptcy laws changing the way they 
did, people were basically walking away. This money was there. Somebody 
got it. Usually, through the bankruptcy, it was dispersed to the 
creditors and not to the miners who had earned it. That is what we are 
really talking about.
  We have the chance today to pass my bill, the American Miners Act, 
along with all of my colleagues who worked so hard with us on that, to 
ensure that once and for all these coal miners and their wives and 
children will not lose their healthcare and pension benefits and will 
get them back. It is fully offset and will not cost the taxpayers a 
dime. We are using money that we are not only borrowing, but basically 
it is from abandoned mine land money, of which we have excesses, which 
can still take care of the obligations we have to use it for those who 
mine the coal.
  The entire Democratic caucus cosponsored this bill when it was filed 
on the National Defense Authorization Act last month. Everybody signed 
off. If our colleague here, the Senator from Kentucky, would just put 
it on the agenda, it would pass. It came out of the Finance Committee 
last year in a bipartisan vote--a very strong bipartisan vote. We all 
know we have made a commitment to the people who work so hard.
  I am asking all of us to keep our promise the way we did when we 
passed the Miners Protection Act, which saved the healthcare of 22,600 
miners. We need to finish the job, but guess what. We still have 87,000 
miners who are going to lose their pensions by no later than 2022 if we 
don't do something. This adds another 1,200 who are going to lose their 
healthcare by the end of the year. So the crunch time is here. These 
people have worked hard.
  Let me tell you about the pensions. The people who would receive the 
pensions are mostly widows. Do you know what the average pension is? 
Less than $600 a month--less than $600 a month for the people who have 
worked for 20, 30, 40 years underground and have provided the energy to 
keep the lights on in the country and have kept our country strong 
enough to help us win every war.
  I am happy that my colleagues have joined me here today. I am happy 
that my neighboring Senator from the great State of Virginia is right 
here beside me.
  Senator Kaine has been a champion working very hard for the coal 
miners in Southwest Virginia who have contributed so much to our 
country and basically worked very closely with the miners in West 
Virginia. We are proud to have him here.
  So without further conversation from me, I am going to now turn it 
over to my good friend and colleague Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia 
because this is a matter of the heart for him. He has worked so hard on 
this as a Governor of West Virginia and as a U.S. Senator. It has been 
my honor to work together with him on this and so many other issues.
  I will begin with a little bit of history. We are right in the midst 
of Virginia's 30th anniversary of the Pittston Coal strike. It began on 
April 5, 1989, in Southwest Virginia. The Pittston Coal Company, which 
was headquartered in Pennsylvania, terminated all healthcare benefits 
for approximately 1,500 retirees, widows, and disabled miners. That 
anniversary is being celebrated right now. When these healthcare 
benefits were terminated, it led to a strike. It lasted from April of 
1989 until February 20 of 1990--nearly 10 months.
  Then-president of the United Mine Workers Union, Rich Trumka, who is 
now the president of AFL-CIO, was asked during this time period as the 
miners and their families and the retirees made great sacrifices for 
striking: How long can you hold out? They were seeing the benefits they 
were getting as strikers--instead of a $600-a-week strike benefit, 
which was the original plan, the funds had dwindled down, and they were 
getting $200 a week. That was all they were getting during the strike, 
and when Rich Trumka was asked ``How long can the miners hold out?'' he 
said: We can hold out one day longer than the Pittston Coal Company.
  That is, in fact, what happened. In February, they reached an 
agreement. It was a historic labor strike that was because of 
healthcare benefits and because of the need of the people who do one of 
the toughest jobs in this country--a job that will rack its pain on 
your body in a physical way, unlike any other kind of work. Losing 
healthcare is tough for anybody, but for somebody working underground 
in a mine, it is absolutely catastrophic.
  As my colleague mentioned, we are here to talk about the American 
Miners Act, which he is leading and I am proud to cosponsor. The UMWA 
Pension Plan is projected, right now, to become insolvent by 2022, and 
this could be advanced and come even sooner if there is another major 
bankruptcy.
  My colleague talked about the history of this pension plan. During 
the Presidency of President Truman and in the aftermath of that strike, 
there was an agreement that there would be employer contributions into 
the pension plan based on every ton of coal that was sold.
  The employer contributions have declined significantly in recent 
years as coal companies have gone out of business and other companies 
have creatively used the bankruptcy laws, as my colleague indicated, to 
skate out of their obligations to these hard-working miners and their 
families and retirees.
  If we do not intervene, if we do not pass the American Miners Act or 
something essentially identical, 87,000--87,000--current beneficiaries 
and an additional 20,000 vested retirees could lose all or part of 
their pension benefits.
  The insolvency of the mine workers' pension would put further 
pressure on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which is already 
facing other shortfalls. And it is not just pensions; it is also 
healthcare. Because of a recent bankruptcy of the Westmoreland Coal 
Company, as my colleague mentioned, 1,200 miners and their families, 
largely widows and others, are slated to potentially lose healthcare 
coverage very soon. That would include 800 Virginians who could lose 
health coverage by the end of the year.
  I remember when my colleague was leading the successful effort in 
2017. To fix one of the issues with healthcare benefits for these 
families, I attended a roundtable session with many of them in 
Castlewood, VA, at the UMWA field office there. I went in at a midweek, 
midafternoon time when you wouldn't normally expect a lot of people to 
attend a meeting, and the room was absolutely packed with people who 
were so very, very frightened. They were slated, at that point, to lose 
health coverage.
  Remember, this was at the end of April. It was about April 20 when I 
was there with them. They were looking at me with fear in their eyes, 
asking what they should do: Should I go out and buy insurance on my 
own? But who is going to cover me? Look at my age. Look at my physical 
condition. Look at the conditions my wife is dealing with.
  It wasn't uncommon to be dealing with a working or recently retired

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miner with a spouse who had cancer, and the threat of losing health 
insurance in that circumstance was existential. I could look him in the 
eye, and I couldn't really promise him anything except that we would 
try.
  We were able to get a fix at that point that saved healthcare for 
thousands and thousands of miners, and we did that with our colleagues 
in this body--Democratic and Republican--and in the House as well. 
Well, it is time for us to step up again.
  Here is what the American Miners Act would do. It would shore up the 
pension plan to ensure that workers receive the benefits they have 
earned. The bill would also safeguard healthcare coverage for workers 
who are projected to lose their coverage because of the Westmoreland 
Coal Bankruptcy. It builds on the bill that we passed in a bipartisan 
way in 2017.
  Lastly--and this is really important. I am so happy that in working 
on the bill, Senator Manchin and I decided to do this. The bill is 
going to ensure financing for medical treatment and basic expenses for 
workers suffering from black lung because we are extending the Black 
Lung Disability Trust Fund. Right now, that is also--because of a 
revenue source that was sort of sunset--scheduled to be stopped, and 
then the trust fund will dwindle down, and those suffering from black 
lung will also lose the protections that they have. This American 
Miners Act not only protects pensions and not only protects folks who 
are having their healthcare bankrupted by Westmoreland but would extend 
the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund that is so very, very important.
  The best news is that the bill is fully paid for. We are not asking 
to increase the deficit. We are not asking to increase tax rates. The 
bill is fully paid for. We would simply extend an existing tax to 
protect the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, and then we would utilize 
an existing source of revenue that we used before--mine reclamation 
funds that are currently oversubscribed and are not being used to help 
backstop healthcare needs.
  So this is a bill that would do an awful lot of good for an awful lot 
of people, and we are not coming here just asking without paying for 
it. We have a solution on the table so that we can pay for it.
  My hope is that the body will come together the same way we did in 
2017 to protect these hard-working people and their families and their 
widows who have done the hardest work that just about anybody does in 
this country and whose bodies have suffered as a result, and they need 
to have us having their back.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, if I could, first of all, thank my 
colleague from Virginia, my dear friend Senator Kaine. I just want to 
touch on one thing before we have Senator Casey speak on behalf of all 
the coal miners he represents in the State of Pennsylvania.
  On the Black Lung Fund, a lot of people don't know, the House of 
Representatives basically, 2 years ago, passed a bill reducing the fund 
from $1.10 to 55 cents. I called over to my friends and colleagues in 
the House, and I said: You would think we don't need the money anymore 
because we have cured black lung--but it is just the contrary. We have 
more diseases and more younger people getting black lung, and I will 
tell you the reason why.
  When mining coal, you are cutting through a lot of rock, and you get 
silica coming out from that. We are cutting into more rock than ever 
before. We have even more younger miners contracting black lung. We 
need to fund more now than ever before, and this is not the time to cut 
it. That 55 cents a ton makes a difference between solvency or not, 
curing people or the Federal Government having to step in.
  The coal miners have been proud to pay their own way. They paid for 
their pension. They paid for their healthcare. They didn't take money 
home because when they negotiated, this is how much stayed in the fund. 
Basically, somebody received that money, the benefit, but not the 
people who worked for it. Now they are willing to try to fix that with 
the coal they mined from the abandoned mine land money. That is all we 
are asking for. We will take care of our own problems.
  We are begging the majority leader of this respected body to please 
put this bill on the floor and let the body vote on it because we have 
had good bipartisan support. Everybody respects the person providing 
the energy who protected this country, and that is all we are asking 
for.
  There is no one who has fought harder and worked harder on this than 
Senator Casey from Pennsylvania, and that is another State that borders 
West Virginia that we are proud of and are very close with, and they 
have given so much.
  With that, I yield the floor to Senator Casey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to discuss this urgent issue of 
pensions and our legislative proposal to address this looming crisis.
  I commend and salute the work of Senator Manchin, my colleague from 
West Virginia, for his indefatigable work on this. There are probably a 
few other words I could use for his determination over time, and not 
just over months but literally now over years, as well as Senator 
Kaine's, from Virginia, and Senator Brown's, who will follow me. We are 
grateful for this combination of States coming together to stand up for 
workers.
  We know this discussion on the floor of the Senate takes place at a 
significant time. The House Ways and Means Committee just passed the 
bipartisan Butch Lewis Act, H.R. 397, on the 10th of July. The House is 
taking much needed action, and it is long past time that the U.S. 
Senate does the same.
  In my home State, there is a whole group of workers. Obviously, 
miners are a big part of this, the Teamsters, Bakery and Confectionery 
Workers, all of whom, through no fault of their own, are seeing their 
hard-earned pensions threatened. Failure to act could result in 
devastating economic consequences to communities across both the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as throughout the Nation. Tens of 
thousands of pensions of Pennsylvanians could be at risk, including--
and these are just some of the numbers--11,831 coal miners and 21,460 
Teamsters.
  Despite the challenges ahead, the good news is, we have bipartisan 
legislation to deal with this pension crisis through the legislation 
known as the Butch Lewis Act. The bill creates a loan program for 
troubled pensions. It is a commonsense solution that brings the public 
and private sectors together to address this crisis.
  We must also pass legislation so we can address coal miner health and 
pension benefits. Senator Manchin, as I referred to earlier, has shown 
great leadership throughout this process. We want to thank all the 
Senators who are with us today and others who are not with us on the 
floor, necessarily, but are with us by way of supporting this 
legislation.
  We have a long way to go and a mountain to climb for several reasons. 
There are a number of Senators around this Chamber who, on a regular 
basis, when a multinational corporation needs help, will pull out all 
the stops. They will overturn any stone. They will surmount any 
barrier. They will fight through any wall of opposition or resistance. 
That is the same kind of persistence and determination and resolve we 
need for workers--in my case, whether it is a coal miner or a teamster 
or a bakery and confectionery worker.
  It is long past due that we bring the same sense of urgency to the 
issues that involve workers as some here brought to corporate taxes. 
Just by way of one example, we were debating the 2017--November 2017 
and December 2017 tax bill. My God, there were lobbyists all over town 
and people scurrying back and forth to make sure the corporate tax rate 
came down, to make sure the rate a corporation was paying was lowered 
substantially. In the end, they got more than they asked for, in my 
judgment. What was supposed to flow from that was an abundance of jobs, 
a rushing current of jobs, and wage growth was supposed to come from 
that legislation. Of course, it didn't. Some of us are right about our 
prediction--a prediction that we would not want to be right about, but 
we were.
  So if that kind of determination and concerted action and then the 
legislative result that flowed from that can

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be undertaken to help huge, multinational corporations, I think the 
same effort should be undertaken on behalf of workers who earned these 
pension benefits.
  This isn't something extra. This isn't something new. This isn't 
something other than an earned benefit, and for some of them, they 
earned it in the most difficult way possible, by going underneath the 
ground to mine coal year after year and, in some cases, decade after 
decade.
  Stephen Crane, the great novelist, wrote an essay in the early 1900s 
or just around the turn of the century, I should say, about a coal mine 
in my hometown of Scranton. He described all of the horrors, all of the 
darkness. He described the ways a miner could die. He referred to it as 
the ``hundred perils''--life-threatening. He described the mine in a 
very moving way. He talked about the mine being a place of inscrutable 
darkness, a soundless place of tangible loneliness--loneliness because 
you can't see your hand in front of your face and loneliness, of 
course, if you were injured on the job, or if you had an injury that 
debilitated you, or if you, in fact, lost your life. Tens of thousands 
of people lost their lives in mines.

  I know that is a long time ago. I know we have made advancements, but 
it is still hard work just as it is to do the other jobs I mentioned, 
whether you are a teamster or a bakery and confectionery worker. Just 
pick your particular work area or union.
  So we have some work to do here, and we are going to have to fight 
through a lot, but we are grateful we have some momentum and some sense 
of urgency that may not have been there only weeks ago.
  With that, I will yield the floor to my colleague from the State of 
Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. I thank Senator Casey for his work on behalf of workers 
during his whole 13 years in the Senate and his work especially for 
mine workers and teamsters with the Butch Lewis Act and with pension 
and healthcare. That is so important.
  Senator Kaine has been stalwart for these retirees and particularly 
in southwest Virginia, where he has worked as Governor, and also 
Senator Manchin who was speaking earlier.
  We need to remind this body that 86,000 miners are facing a looming 
threat of massive cuts to the pension they have earned. What people in 
this body don't often understand is these miners and their widows 
aren't getting rich from these pensions. These pensions are $500 or 
$600 a month. Also 1,200 miners and their families can lose their 
healthcare by the end of the year because of the Westmoreland and 
Mission Coal bankruptcies.
  The bankruptcy court can allow these corporations to shed their 
liabilities. That sounds familiar. So often big companies go to court, 
and these lawyers and judges don't really understand what collective 
bargaining is and don't understand the sacrifices these workers made to 
earn these pensions. Shedding their liabilities is a fancy way of 
saying walk away from paying miners the healthcare benefits they 
earned.
  Two years ago, we worked to save the miners' healthcare. We have to 
do it again. We can't leave these workers behind just because of the 
date their company filed for bankruptcy. We have to make sure they 
don't lose retirement security on top of that.
  All 86,000 UMW union mine workers are facing crippling pension cuts. 
They aren't alone. The retirement security of hundreds of thousands of 
teamsters in Virginia and Ohio and Pennsylvania and ironworkers in 
Cleveland and carpenters in Dayton and Cincinnati--so many retirees and 
so many workers' pensions are at risk.
  Congress tried to ignore these retirees, but they fought back. 
Workers rallied. They called, they wrote letters, and they rallied 
outside the Capitol on 90-degree days in July. They rallied outside the 
Capitol in 15-degree days in February.
  We have seen those Camo UMW T-shirts around the Capitol. They are 
persistent. They don't give up. Many of them are veterans. They left 
the mines to serve their country. They went back into the mines. Now, 
as they fought for us, we need to fight for them.
  It comes back to the dignity of work. When work has dignity, we honor 
the retirement and security people earn. We honor work. We respect 
work. The dignity of work is about their wages, about their retirement, 
about their healthcare. It is about safety in the workplace. This is 
why I wear this pin. It is a depiction of a canary in a birdcage. The 
mineworker took the canary into the mines. The mineworker did not 
always have a government that stood with them to protect their safety. 
That is what the union did so many times.
  People in this town too often don't understand the collective 
bargaining process. This town is overrun with lobbyists up and down the 
hall and in Senator McConnell's office. Lobbyists line up and get 
favors from the Republican leader. Never ever does organized labor, 
never do workers get these same kinds of favors when it comes to 
support like this.
  With regard to collective bargaining, what people don't understand is 
that the people give up their wages today to put money aside for their 
future pensions. We made progress with the bipartisan pensions 
committee. I thank Senators Portman and Manchin and all the Members--
Senator Kaine and Casey--all the Members of both parties who put in 
months of work in good faith on this.
  I am committed to these miners. I know my friend Tim Kaine is 
committed to these miners, to these workers, to these small businesses. 
For their success and their livelihood, they depend on getting these 
pensions they have earned.
  We will continue to work for a bipartisan solution. If you love this 
country, you will fight for the people who make it work--people like 
these mineworkers.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.