[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 187 (Thursday, November 21, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6731-S6733]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Bipartisan American Miners Act

  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I want to first say thank you to my 
colleagues, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senators Capito, 
Portman, Jones, Kaine, Duckworth, Brown, Casey, Durbin, Warner, Sinema, 
Van Hollen, and Reed, who have cosponsored this legislation with me, 
for standing with me to protect coal miners' pensions and healthcare, 
and specifically Senator Capito, who will be joining me here on the 
floor today.
  Yesterday marked the 51st anniversary of the Farmington No. 9 
disaster, where 78 coal miners lost their lives in the Consolidation 
Coal Company's No. 9 mine in Farmington, WV, which is my hometown. I 
lost my uncle John Gouzd in that mine explosion, I lost my neighbor 
John Sopuch, and I lost several of my classmates in that tragedy that 
rocked my hometown. It seems like only yesterday.
  I have always said that one life lost while on the job is one too 
many. It

[[Page S6732]]

shouldn't happen. This tragedy shows the risk our coal miners take 
every day to provide our country with the energy we need, which is why 
I am here today.
  When coal companies go bankrupt, coal miners' benefits are at the 
bottom of the priority list, which is how we have ended up in this 
situation today, and that is unacceptable. It should be unacceptable to 
all of us.
  The person who earns the wage should be on the front end of the line 
when a bankruptcy happens, and whatever happens, they are taken care of 
first. Time is running out for our coal miners. We need it fixed now--
not in a few weeks, not in 2020, but now. Year after year, our coal 
miners risk their lives to bring America the energy needed to become 
the world leader that we are today. Our coal miners made a commitment 
to our country, and now, it is our turn to uphold the commitment we 
made to them in 1946 by securing their hard-earned pensions in 
healthcare.
  Let me tell you about the coal that we have in our country and has 
been mined by our hard-working coal miners since the beginning of the 
20th century. That coal basically has fueled every war that we have 
been in, helped us win every war, helped propel us to the industrial 
might that we are today, built our factories. It has done everything 
for us, and all we are doing now is trying to make sure that the people 
that sacrificed all these years are taken care of.
  We have 1,000 coal miners who will lose their healthcare coverage on 
December 31 of this year, a little over a month from now. We also have 
12,000 more coal miners who will lose their healthcare in March of next 
year, and that is only 4 months away. This is an issue that must be 
dealt with immediately, and time is running out. If you are one of 
those 1,000 coal miners and one of your family members is depending on 
their healthcare--probably life-supporting healthcare--and they are 
thinking they are going to lose it at the end of this month, it is 
unconscionable for us to walk out of here and not get this piece of 
legislation down. With it being so bipartisan--having the majority 
leader from Kentucky representing the coal miners of Kentucky--this is 
something that needs to be done immediately, and I know that we can.
  But if we don't pass this legislation to protect our miners, the UMWA 
pension fund will be insolvent by this time next year. With the largest 
privately owned coal company, Murray Energy, filing for bankruptcy 2 
weeks ago, the timeline for the UMWA pension fund moved up 2 years. It 
accelerated a basically exacerbating position that we were in to begin 
with. Murray Energy, to date, has contributed over 97 percent of the 
money going into the UMWA pension fund annually because of the size of 
their company, which is why its bankruptcy has accelerated the 
situation we are in today with the pension fund insolvency.
  Once the UMWA pension fund would become insolvent if we don't do 
something, this crisis will snowball and impact every other multi-
employer pension fund in America. They will all start tumbling, along 
with the PBGC, which is a federally funded pension guarantee. That is 
why it is essential that we protect our coal miners' pensions now--not 
next year or the year after that--which is why my colleagues and I 
introduced the Bipartisan American Miners Act.
  The Bipartisan American Miners Act would amend the current Surface 
Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to transfer funds in excess 
of the amounts needed to be meet existing obligations under the 
Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan to prevent its 
looming insolvency. It also raises the cap on these funds from $490 
million to $750 million to ensure that there is sufficient funding for 
those pension funds.
  It also guarantees lifetime healthcare for the 13,000 individuals, 
including the 1,000 scheduled to lose their healthcare on December 31 
of this year, by amending the Coal Act to include 2018 and 2019 
bankruptcies in the miners' healthcare fix that passed in 2017. The 
funding for coal miners' pensions is already there. It just needs to be 
reallocated. These actions will secure the pensions of 92,000 coal 
miners and their families and protect healthcare benefits for 13,000 
miners. That is our goal, and I am proud to be here fighting for these 
miners today because they surely have fought for me and given me the 
great country that I live in today.
  These miners took home less pay every day from their paycheck with 
the expectations that they will be able to retire and provide for their 
families after working for decades for our country. They have paid what 
they are trying to receive. It is not something they are asking for, a 
handout. They are not asking for a Government handout or taxpayer 
handout. They are just wanting the money that they invested and paid 
into all of these years. It is money they did not take out.
  Workers expect the wages they have contributed to be there when they 
retire, as they were promised. If we pass the Bipartisan American 
Miners Act as an amendment to the continuing resolution, we will 
protect coal miners' pensions and healthcare now before it is too late. 
The Bipartisan American Miners Act is ready to be voted on and has the 
support from both sides of the aisles. I just read off a list of our 
sponsors.
  The Bipartisan American Miners Act is basically a piece of 
legislation that needs to be done immediately. If we don't pass it now, 
1,000 miners, as I said before, will lose their healthcare on December 
31. Healthcare benefits will be terminated, as we talked about, and 
then by early September 2020, the pension benefits of 82,000 current 
pensioners and 10,000 future pensioners could be drastically reduced 
because of the plan's insolvency.
  I want to remind you also that the average pension of a coal miner is 
less than $600 a month. Most of these are widows. Their husbands have 
passed on, and they are living on this as a subsistence basically for 
their income. It would be tremendously harmful for them not to be able 
to receive this.
  I believe that we can and will pass this legislation before it is too 
late for these miners as an amendment to the CR. That is all we are 
asking for. It must be done before and no later than December 20. I am 
trying to get this on now so that we can move forward.
  Can you imagine being one of the 1,000 coal miners, maybe having one 
of your loved ones--your wife or one of your children--who has a 
serious illness and needs attention and knowing they are not going to 
be able to get attention basically to any healthcare after December 31, 
so put yourself in their shoes.
  These are the families that deserve the peace of mind knowing that 
their pensions are going to be paid and their paycheck--that they did 
not take the money home--is going to be secure. We can give them peace 
of mind today. I look forward to passing this legislation with all of 
my colleagues. It is bipartisan. This is the first time we have had 
something of this magnitude being done in a bipartisan way. The good 
Lord knows we need more bipartisan efforts to work for the people.
  If we are going to stand for the working men and women that made 
America, what is our purpose of being here, and who do we stand for? So 
I am asking all of you, please, with the urgency that is needed, please 
take up this piece of legislation. Please take up this amendment to the 
CR, and let's take care of the people that helped make America as great 
as we are today, the coal miners of the United Mine Workers of America.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). The Senator from West 
Virginia.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I am really pleased to be here with my 
fellow West Virginia Senator, Mr. Manchin. We have joined each other on 
this topic before, but he has been a real champion for our miners, and 
I am really grateful to him and others who have participated, but I 
think we have got to talk about this every day and make sure that we 
underscore the urgent need to pass the Bipartisan American Miners Act. 
I appreciate Senator Manchin and certainly appreciate Leader McConnell 
who has been a

[[Page S6733]]

champion for our miners as well--Senator Portland as well--who have 
made this retirement security a top priority.
  Back in 2017, time was running out on the healthcare benefits for 
12,000 retired miners. I remember it well, particularly following the 
Patriot Coal bankruptcy. We came together as a bipartisan group to pass 
legislation with the House that protected healthcare for those men and 
women. While we are in a similar situation today, which we knew we were 
going to be here, the Senate needs to act soon to save the healthcare 
of 13,000 retired miners and protect the pension benefits of 92,000 
people.
  Time is of the essence here because roughly 1,000 retirees from 
Westmoreland and Mission Coal will lose their healthcare at the end of 
the year if we do not act; 12,000 more could lose their healthcare by 
next spring, and the pension benefits are at risk in 2020. This is a 
critical, critical issue for my State and many others.
  I am going to take a brief moment to explain how this legislation 
works, and it is a bit complicated. In 2006, when we passed the last 
reauthorization of the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program, we had 
a capped permanent direct appropriation that was created for transfer 
of payments. That permanent direct appropriation, along with the 
interest on the AML--the Abandoned Mine Land--trust fund has been used 
to fund AML payments to certified States and to provide healthcare for 
our miners. What do we do to certify States? The whole point of the AML 
is to do reclamation and repair of previously mined lands all 
throughout our country.
  That permanent direct appropriation has been used for the payments 
for the certified States and also to provide healthcare to our orphaned 
miners. Well, for those who are not from a coal company, what is an 
orphaned miner? An orphaned miner is someone who earned a vested right 
to retiree healthcare benefits through years of hard work but worked 
for a company that either no longer exists or is no longer financially 
solvent.
  The Bipartisan American Miners Act makes use of the same 
appropriation that was created in 2006 to cover the healthcare for 
retirees whose healthcare would be lost due to the bankruptcies in 
2018, 2019. The bill would provide resources to guarantee the long-term 
solvency of the mine workers' pension fund. This is critical. Previous 
versions of this bill that many of us supported were able to accomplish 
this goal of protecting those retirement beneficiaries without lifting 
the cap on the direct appropriation that was set in 2006.
  Because Congress has delayed action for so long, our current 
legislation must lift the cap in order to provide healthcare and 
pension benefits for our miners. Protecting these benefits is a top 
priority for me because it impacts so many mining families and 
communities in West Virginia. Just last weekend, I talked to three 
miners directly impacted, just kind of randomly ran into them in 
different areas of our State.
  But I think it is important to understand that this bill does not 
place other policy items in jeopardy. That is a misconception. Passing 
this bill does not disturb the principal balance of the AML trust fund. 
That means we are not jeopardizing funds that are used to clean up 
abandoned mine sites, and passing this bill will not cut funding for 
other transfer payments that are authorized by the law.
  What the bill will do is protect retirement benefits for tens of 
thousands of retired miners and their families--benefits that have been 
worked for, benefits that have been earned through the hard work in our 
mines; 25,451 West Virginians received benefits from the pension fund 
during 2018. They were joined by more than 11,000 Pennsylvanians, 8,500 
Kentuckians, and thousands more from Illinois, Virginia, Alabama, and 
Ohio. The pension benefits of all the men and women are at risk if 
Congress fails to act.
  The average benefit--listen to this--the average benefit for our 
miners is $590 a month, so these are not lavish benefits, but they are 
critical to our retirees. One retired miner from Logan, WV, who worked 
for 36 years in the mines, wrote me and said, ``Please keep fighting to 
save our pension. I receive $303.34 monthly. We need this badly to help 
us pay for our food, our medicine and other bills.''
  A miner from Richwood, WV, who mined coal for 17 years, wrote, ``My 
monthly check is $192. It is not a lot of money, but it means a lot to 
my ability to make ends meet.''
  I would add to both of these, these men, these gentlemen, they worked 
for these pensions. They paid into the pensions. They should receive 
them. Pension benefits from the mine workers plan went to individuals 
in all 55 West Virginian counties, so this is truly an issue that 
impacts my entire State. But in the areas that have the largest number 
of pensioners, which is Raleigh, Logan, Wyoming, Marion, and Boone 
Counties, cuts to the pension and healthcare benefits of our retired 
families would have significant impacts on our entire community.
  If these retirees face severe reductions in their pensions, it means 
less money spent at the local businesses, less money at a local 
restaurant, and it would cause further economic harm to the areas that 
cannot afford another blow.
  So I ask my colleagues to join me, Senator Manchin, Leader McConnell, 
Senator Portman, and many others, by supporting the Bipartisan American 
Miners Act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.