Jay Rockefeller: “Coalminers in this country have risked their lives and limbs, making enormous sacrifices to fuel our nation. We owe them…”

“Coalminers in this country have risked their lives and limbs, making enormous sacrifices to fuel our nation. We owe them the respect and benefits they have earned. Sadly, these miners' families are being abandoned in their time of greatest need: when they are coping with the devastating loss of a loved one from black lung disease. Current policy arbitrarily forces some widows of black lung victims to wade through bureaucracy to prove and reprove their spouse's illness, and this simply is not right. The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund was created to assist miners who were terminated prior to 1970, or who worked in mines where no mine operator can be assigned health care liabilities. The Black Lung Benefits Act, BLBA, was amended in 1981 to strengthen the finances of the Trust Fund, but it made it extremely difficult for those suffering from black lung to qualify for benefits. Currently, there are two very different standards governing entitlement to benefits for the spouses of deceased black lung victims.”