Sep 19, 2016 3 min read

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday to consider a bill to provide funding to support the United Mine Workers’ ailing health care and pension funds, and union leaders are confident it will pass the first major hurdle.

The committee will meet at 10 a.m. to vote to recommend to the full Senate approval of the Miners Protection Act, which would ensure continuing health care and pension benefits to about 120,000 former union miners and their families.

Thousands of union miners and supporters, many from Southwestern Pennsylvania, rallied in Washington, D.C., earlier this month to urge Congress to pass the law to protect benefits at risk because of the declining coal industry and increased coal company bankruptcies.

UMW spokesman Phil Smith said Monday the union believes it will be able to get over the first hurdle for the bill’s passage, but will have to see what happens after that.

“We have the votes in committee to pass it,” Smith said. The bill will then go to the full Senate. “We’re going to have to wait to see what happens then,” he said.

Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has assured bill sponsors the legislation would be considered for a vote provided it went through the normal committee process, which it has done, Smith said.

However, the bill will probably not be considered by the full Senate until mid-November, after the Senate’s election break, he said.

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., members of the Senate Finance Committee, both support the bill.

In regard to action in the House, Smith said U.S. Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., who is leading the push for the bill in that chamber, has indicated he has the votes to pass the legislation.

However, it is not certain now how the bill will progress in the House and the union also is taking a “wait and see” approach to its passage in that chamber, Smith said.

The union’s 1974 pension plan and health benefits program have been shaken by the downturn in the coal industry caused by competition from cheap natural gas and more stringent environmental regulations.

Bankruptcy courts, in addition, have relieved many companies from their obligations to pay into the union’s 1974 pension fund, drastically reducing the number of working miners contributing to the plan.

The union’s pension plan is expected to face insolvency within the next few years.

Bankruptcy courts also have relieved companies of the requirement to pay to support retiree health care benefits. Though the union has been able to negotiate agreements with these companies in bankruptcy to continue to fund health benefits, that funding is limited.

The fund providing health benefits for Alpha Natural Resources retirees and their families is expected to last until next August. The fund for Patriot Coal miners, however, will run out of money by the end of this year.

The proposed legislation will use the excess money in the Abandoned Mine Land fund to support the pension plan and provide health benefits to those who worked for companies that have filed for bankruptcy

The union has maintained the act will keep a promise made in 1946 after the federal government, which had seized the nation’s coal mines to avert lengthy strikes, negotiated an agreement with the union guaranteeing life-time health care and pension benefits.