Outside of the Department of Labor on Tuesday morning, America’s coal miners had a message for President Donald Trump: Start enforcing black lung protections.

Commentary - 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.

Miners express frustration with Congress on black lung as courts and regulators delay implementation of dust regulations.

The rule — which would cut allowable exposure to silica dust in half — was supposed to go into effect in April, then August and now, depending on the courts, is likely delayed until October

Another miner has been added as a plaintiff in a class action suit pending against the federal Department of Health and Human Services over its prior shutdown of an agency crucial to helping coal miners protect themselves against dangerous black lung disease.

In early April, President Donald Trump gathered dozens of hard-hat-clad coal miners around him in the White House East Room. He joked about arm-wrestling them and announced he was signing executive orders to boost coal production, “bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” and to “put the miners back to work.”

The budget for NIOSH was about $363 million in 2023, the same year that job injuries and illnesses cost Americans around $176 billion, according to the National Safety Council. Without NIOSH, officials say that number could be higher.

Reuters interviews with more than a dozen people involved in medical programs serving the coal industry, and a review of internal documents from NIOSH, show that at least three such federal programs have stopped their work in recent weeks.

A federal program that screens coal miners for black lung disease has been shuttered because of layoffs and budget cuts.

Sam Petsonk grew up around southern West Virginia's mining communities, visiting patients with his father, one of the country's first doctors to specialize in Black Lung Disease.

Black lung is completely preventable. And it’s on the rise again.