Last week, President Trump signed executive orders to revive the demand for coal in the United States. He campaigned heavily on the promise of bringing back the coal industry.
This executive order comes about a month after the Department for Government Efficiency ordered the cancellation of seven Mine Safety and Health Administration office leases in Kentucky.
Wes Addington is the executive director of the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center. In an interview with Eastern Standard, he said this could be dangerous during an already troubling time for miners in Kentucky.
“We were already in a position in the United States, where miners, particularly in Appalachia, are getting more severe disease than their fathers and their grandfathers.”
He said many of the more prominent coal veins are gone, and smaller ones are more tangled with rocks. Mining these smaller veins can cause some serious health conditions.
“Mining rock along with the coal is much more deadly to your health than just the coal itself. You can get silicosis. It leads to more progressive disease, more extensive disease.”
The U.S. Office of the Inspector General reports that the agency had already missed mine inspections last year due to staffing issues.
It is unclear if the staff will be consolidated into the nearby remaining offices. Those include field offices in Lexington and Pikeville, and a district office in Norton, Virginia.
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