Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito is demanding the Trump administration reinstate terminated federal workers tasked with keeping miners safe, from screening for black lung disease to preventing underground explosions.
The West Virginia Republican called on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Monday letter to reverse cuts that have directly affected a research center in Morgantown, West Virginia, that’s been operational since the 1970s and focuses on coal mining safety and respiratory diseases like black lung. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy has moved to lay off thousands of employees across the Department of Health and Human Services through a reduction in force that’s hit workers across the agency’s footprint, from the Food and Drug Administration to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
Capito said those cuts have reached the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the critical work it does to prevent illness and injury in miners, even as President Donald Trump moves to accelerate mining and the use of coal and critical minerals across the country.
