September 8, 2025 - Below is an Op-Ed by Vonda Robinson featured in Southwest and Southside Virginia's Cardinal News. 

As an advocate for miners with black lung disease and their families, I was so disappointed to see a tax break for metallurgical coal in the Big Beautiful Bill Act in July. Why? Because that tax break will encourage the mining of coal that isn’t subject to the excise tax that supplements the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.

Black lung disease is killing our communities. Miners are falling sick with the disease younger and younger. My husband has been battling black lung for 11 years, since he was 47 years old. I see what it does to him and to our family every day. Because of that, I deeply understand some of what the thousands of people in Appalachia who are impacted by black lung disease go through every day.

For nearly a decade I’ve poured my heart and soul into fighting for these men and their families and acting as a resource — whether they need help applying for benefits or a shoulder to cry on. As the vice president of the National Black Lung Association, I, along with other coal miner advocates, speak with congressional offices abbout the need to support mining families with a better black lung benefit system and the importance of preventing the disease among current and future coal miners once and for all. 

Something I have heard time and again when I push politicians to do better is, “but what about the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund? Isn’t it running out of money?” This often becomes a stopping point. We agree we’d like to work on ways to put more money into the fund in order to pay for stronger cost of living adjustments for mining families, but the conversations often end there.

The black lung trust fund, which kicks in to pay black lung benefits when a coal company can’t, is funded by an excise tax only on coal sold within the United States. The majority of met coal is exported overseas. Revenue from exported coal doesn’t go in to support the trust fund, but those miners are just as likely to get black lung as any other coal miner is. 

The least Congress could do is increase the monthly disability benefit that coal miners with black lung receive. It hasn’t kept up with inflation in decades. You can do the math yourself, or you can just ask any family that depends on the stipend as times get hard. 

So it felt like a slap in the face to give tax breaks to mining companies and not tie that tax break  to solving the problems faced by the miners that keep those companies afloat. But we can change that, and we know that Congress will listen to coal mining communities when we work together.

We recently had a victory when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cut coal program staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The black lung associations, clinics and others worked together and told lawmakers that wasn’t right and it would hurt us. Many of those cuts were reversed. That shows me what’s possible when we’re united. Now coal communities need to band together again to ask our lawmakers to honor their commitment to coal miners who have and continue to help power this country with energy for homes and for our industries. We need to increase the black lung benefit levels while also making sure we protect miners from the silica dust that is making the black lung epidemic worse. 

If they want to give a tax break to met coal, that’s fine, but they better also find a way to stabilize the trust fund while also improving benefits for the mining families that depend on the stipend. Our miners deserve care and commitment to their health and future.