Coal miners, including those living on the Navajo Nation, face a host of barriers in seeking federal disability benefits for black lung disease.
That’s the conclusion of a May 11 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog that found many miners deal with lengthy waiting periods while seeking benefits, as well as insufficient medical coverage.
A former coal miner and advocate on the Navajo Nation says the issues the report raises ring true to him.
“Some of these mines have, I mean, [have been] gone like 10 years, and they've packed up and took everything with them,” says Alex Osif, a black lung benefits counselor for Canyonlands Healthcare in Page. “So that's the kind of complications I'm having: proving that the miner did work at a mine for so many years.”
Osif worked at Peabody Energy’s Black Mesa and Kayenta mines for 36 years.
The GAO’s report analyzed claims data from the years 2013 to 2024 from the Black Lung Benefits Program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Miners who file disability claims with the program often face legal challenges from their former coal company employers, also known as operators, who can dispute that a miner is actually sick from working at their mine, according to the report.
That’s because, if a miner’s claim is found valid, their former employers will be on the hook to cover their monthly payments and medical coverage. Coal companies that go bankrupt dump their obligation to pay sick miners onto the federal Black Lung Benefits Trust Fund, which is taxpayer-funded and deeply mired in debt.
Black lung disease is caused by inhaling coal or silica particles for even a brief period of time. Silica dust is behind a modern epidemic of severe black lung in the U.S., experts say.
The benefits application process requires miners to provide detailed evidence that they worked at a given mine, Osif tells KNAU. But some companies he deals with don’t want to give out employment histories, something that can slow the application process down. Osif is president of his local union, the United Mine Workers of America Local 1924 near Kayenta on the Navajo Nation.
“In Arizona, at the two mines that we previously had, we're having [this issue] — thank God for the union, and me being a union officer, I have every right to file a grievance on behalf of the miner for them documents and evidence,” he says. “So in a way, that's helping us.”
A 2015 report from the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General highlighted Osif’s concern about delays due to absent employment histories.
The report recommended the Labor Department work more closely with the Social Security Administration to share earnings reports during the benefits application process, and suggested legislation allowing easy access to social security’s earnings database.
It is unclear if those recommendations were ever implemented.
For Richard Miller, a retired policy director for the House Committee on Education and Workforce who worked on black lung issues during his time in Congress, the issue of delayed benefits timelines comes down to adequate funding of the benefits program itself.
He says the program doesn’t have enough funds to operate speedily, including funding for its collection of administrative law judges, which hear appeals in the benefits process.
“If you starve [the program], then claimants sit there and twiddle their thumbs … for needless delay, getting sicker,” says Miller.
If a claim is appealed by either a miner or a coal company at the beginning of the process, it can extend the timeline before a final decision by 2.7 years, according to the GAO report. That timeline continues to expand the more times an appeal is filed.
“I do think the one piece on the delay [to accessing benefits] that has to be remedied, and is utterly inexcusable: You do not need 2.7 years to adjudicate black lung benefits claims,” he says. “The reason that it's taking that long is they don't have enough [administrative law judges].”
The report also says some sick miners’ monthly benefits payments are too low. For a primary beneficiary of the benefits who does not have any dependents, the monthly payment comes out to $793.60.
That’s a problem, since some miners are both too young to qualify for social security benefits and also do not receive state worker’s compensation.
“When federal black lung benefits are someone’s sole or primary source of household income, they may face financial challenges,” the report states.
Miller says that’s an understatement. He points out that the benefits are tied to federal employee pay grades.
“It's a lousy benefit level,” he says. “But the minimum you should do is at least have it keep up with inflation, and not have a political decision about whether or not you're going to raise the pay for federal employees.”
The report’s recommendations for the Labor Department don’t focus on delays or employment histories, however. Instead, in two sentences at the end of the document, the GAO suggested the department keep better tabs on the health benefits provided to miners by coal companies.
“GAO is recommending that DOL collects information on and monitors responsible operators’ provision of medical benefits,” it says. “DOL agreed with this recommendation and stated it would add questions about medical benefits to its survey of miners.”
Meanwhile, a new rule that would enforce strict new limits on coal and trona miner exposure to silica dust remains paused as the Trump administration and industry groups negotiate a resolution to a lawsuit seeking to overturn it.
