Coal news and updates

Regarding Diana Furchtgott-Roth’s “Mining Taxpayers’ Pockets for Private-Pension Relief” (op-ed, Sept. 9): This opinion is not based on reality and current facts. It minimizes the Obama administration’s destruction of the U.S. coal industry and the jobs in it, relies on false and erroneous premises and reaches the wrong conclusion.

 

The federal government created the problem of underfunding the United Mine Workers of America 1974 Pension Plan and, therefore, the federal government should provide the solution. The bipartisan Miners Protection Act of 2016 (MPA) is the solution.

 

In 1946 at the direction of President Harry Truman, the secretary of interior signed an agreement with the UMWA president, which later became the 1974 Pension Plan. This agreement constituted a federal guarantee of the health and retirement benefits of coal miners and created a multiemployer health and retirement system for coal miners and dependents. This federal obligation remains today.

 

As a result of the current coal markets, destroyed due to regulations of the Obama administration plus the increased use of natural gas and renewables to generate electricity, coal-company bankruptcies, consolidations, employee layoffs, decreased union membership and other factors, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of employers participating in and contributing to the 1974 Pension Plan. In 1984 there were over 2,800 coal company employers contributing to the 1974 Pension Plan. As of now, the vast majority of contributions came from only two non-bankrupt coal companies.

 

The 1974 Pension Plan funding shortfall is a national problem. In the event of a collapse of the funding of the 1974 Pension Plan, the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) would become responsible for this pension to its beneficiaries. This would bankrupt the PBGC in one to three years.

 

The MPA would largely redirect funds, to which coal companies have already contributed and continue to do so, from the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund (AML) to the 1974 Pension Fund. This AML fund fee is paid by coal companies, not by the general public, and is best used protecting the pensions and livelihoods of those coal miners; sufficient funds are available to perform any needed reclamation work.

 

The MPA is a unique, one-time solution to a unique problem and will prevent the need for massive government expenditures. As such, we at the Bituminous Coal Operators’ Association urge Congress to quickly pass the MPA in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of our coal miners.

SOurce: WSJ.COm