[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5577]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            MINERS' PENSIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from West 
Virginia (Mr. Jenkins) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JENKINS of West Virginia. Mr. Speaker, time is running out to do 
right by our miners, their families, and their widows.
  At the end of the month, the benefits they worked their lives for 
will expire. For families across West Virginia, that would be nothing 
short of devastating--families like Teresa Anderson of McDowell County. 
Her father, Donald Richardson, worked his whole life in the mines of 
West Virginia.
  Teresa shared with me what these benefits meant to her father and to 
her mother, Mary.
  Here is what she wrote:
  ``I remember from a young age listening to him tell me and my 
brothers stories about the mines and teaching us about his United Mine 
Workers benefits and to let no one take advantage of this most precious 
insurance that he fought and worked so hard for.
  ``He would say, when I'm gone, you need to still protect these 
benefits that we worked for. This is how your mother will make it when 
I'm no longer here to provide for her.''
  Mr. Speaker, Donald is no longer with us. He passed away back in 
2012. Now his wife, Mary, and his daughter, Teresa, are asking us to 
keep his promise, to keep our promise, the promise the Federal 
Government made to our miners more than 70 years ago.
  I urge my colleagues to act and to protect these vital benefits.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot let the clock run out on our miners and their 
families. They kept up their end of the bargain. Now it is time for us 
to do the same.

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