New Coal Dust Limits Sent To White House

September 19, 2013- Federal regulators are asking the White House to give final approval to new rules aimed at ending deadly black lung disease among America’s coal miners by tightening the amount of exposure to coal dust.

Black lung, or coal workers' pneumoconiosis, is an irreversible and potentially deadly disease caused by excessive exposure to coal dust.

In 1969, a federal coal-mine safety law tried to eliminate black lung with exposure restrictions. Deaths declined afterward, but experts have been warning since the 1990s that dust limits need to be tightened further. Since 2003, researchers documented an alarming increase in the disease in younger miners. Between 1996 and 2005, nearly 10,000 coal miners nationwide died of black lung, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

In August, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) submitted a final draft of its rules for review by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

MSHA said that it hoped to issue its final rule in September. But OMB reviews of other major mine safety rules have taken months, and MSHA can't act without the White House's approval.

Still, advocates of tougher rules said they were pleased to finally see the MSHA rule starting to move, nearly three years after MSHA proposed the rule.

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