National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020--Motion to

Floor Speech

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Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I rise today to call for immediate action on the American Miners Act. We have an obligation to the coal miners across America who served our Nation by providing us with energy through our greatest advancements. They deserve to know that the pensions they rightfully worked for will be funded fully. They deserve to have acceptable healthcare, which was guaranteed to them, and they paid for it.

As the Senate fails to act, we continue to put our retired miners' healthcare and pension benefits in jeopardy yet again. I have been working with everyone from every angle in order to prevent our miners from losing their healthcare and retirement benefits, but, once again, they are facing a deadline that puts their whole livelihood at risk.

This has been a long fight, and it is far from over. Everyone--and I mean everyone--who has joined me in this journey understands that they are fighting for the working people, and that is what we were sent here to do. These retired miners are walking the halls and fighting for what is rightfully theirs. I am doing this for them. I promised them that this body will not abandon them. I refuse to let them down.

The 1974 pension plan will be insolvent by 2022 if we do not act now. Miners who receive their healthcare through companies that went bankrupt in 2018 are at risk of losing their coverage in the coming months if we fail to act soon. Unlike many other public-private pension plans, the 1974 pension plan was well managed and 94 percent funded prior to the crash of 2008. However, the 2008 crash hit at a time when the plan had its highest payment obligations to the retirees. If the plan becomes insolvent, these beneficiaries will face benefit cuts and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation will assume billions of dollars in liabilities.

To address these issues, the American Miners Act would shore up the 1974 pension plan, which is headed for insolvency due to coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It would ensure that the miners who are at risk due to the 2018 coal company bankruptcies will not lose their healthcare. It would extend the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax at $1.10 per ton of underground-mined coal and 55 cents per ton of surface-mined coal for 10 years.

West Virginia has more retired miners than any other State. More than 27,000 retirees live in West Virginia alone. Most of those who are receiving these pensions are widows. The pensions for these widows-- basically, it is a family affair when someone in the family mines--on average is less than $600 per month--less than $600. They have worked for it. Their husbands worked for it. They have been counting on it. Basically, it is a lifeline for them. Because of the bankruptcies that have allowed companies to walk away from the legacy costs and leave them with nothing after they negotiated to not take home the pay to take care of this themselves, they are left in a very vulnerable position, which we should never have let happen.

I have a letter from a retired coal miner to read to you today. I think it puts everything in perspective. This is Delbert from West Virginia, who was a miner for 35 years. He said:

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He is a proud veteran of the Vietnam War, a proud coal miner, and a proud American. Please don't say no to these deserving miners and spouses.

Let me give to you in a nutshell what they are asking for. In 1946, when Harry Truman was President, the Krug-Lewis Agreement was signed. That was John L. Lewis. The miners had to work for our industry and our economy to keep moving forward. Until that time they had no pension and no retirement. From that day forward it was promised to every miner that for every ton of coal that would be mined, there would be a certain set-aside on the price of coal that would go into their pension and retirement because it was an important industry and important commodity for the economy of our great country.

After World War II, when the economy fell, miners were on strike, and they couldn't take care of themselves. This is how we got this bill, a guarantee from the Federal Government that they would be taken care of. It was not that the Federal taxpayer and government were going to pay for it. It was basically funded through the product they were mining and the products being sold, which gave them the resources to take care of their retirement and pensions.

Somebody got this money when there was a bankruptcy, and it wasn't the people who worked for it. The bankruptcy laws in this country are so messed up that they don't give money to the human beings--they don't give it to the workers who basically worked for this and didn't take money home to their families because it was based in their retirement and pension plan, and then, all of a sudden, it is gone. All of the financial institutions line up first. It is not the working person at the front of the line. They are in the back of the line getting nothing. That is what we are trying to change here.

We are trying to make sure that the people who have given everything they have for this great country--they are patriotic, they fought in the war, and they mined the coal that basically built America. Now we are about ready to let it go down.

We had this bill fixed 3 years ago. I talked with Majority Leader McConnell about both the pension and the healthcare, but they separated it. We got the healthcare benefits for a certain portion of those people but not the pension plan. If there is one bankruptcy between now and 2022, this whole thing collapses immediately.

On the other hand, the guaranteed funding that the Federal Government does pay for will be hit hard, and it could break down. So we have a crisis looming. We can avoid it or we can allow this to happen, as we do so many things around here.

Why has this become a political fight? It shouldn't be. We have bipartisan support. We had almost every member on the Finance Committee from both parties--Democrats and Republicans--support it, but it never made it past the person who is responsible for putting it on the floor.

I hope that all my colleagues will consider the widows and their $600 pensions, which means the difference between having a life and basically worrying from day to day whether they are going to have food or medical care for whatever they need. These pensions are not extravagant. These pensions are a necessity and something that is needed. So I implore all of my colleagues to look at this very hard and try to get this on the NDAA. This is something we all should be fighting for and helping the people who fought for us, who gave us the quality of life we have and the great country we have.

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