The federal Mine Safety Health Administration is expected to issue a new proposed standard. Advocates support any moves the agency makes towards a new standard, but some worry it won’t go far enough.
A group of Ohio Valley senators says a watchdog agency’s recent report shows that federal regulators must do more to protect coal miners from silica dust.
MSHA’s current standards for silica have not substantively changed in over 50 years, the report found, despite growing consensus that silica is a major contributor to a surge in black lung disease that’s centered in the Ohio Valley.
