Several endangered incumbents support the bill, but GOP leaders – including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – are wary of bailing out unionized workers.
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She called on Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and give the Miners Protection Act a vote before the benefits of these hardworking men and women start expiring later this year.
Speaking with reporters ahead of the rally, West Virginia Sen. “Sen. Shelby recognizes that there are significant challenges facing Alabama’s coal miners when it comes to their pensions and health care, and he believes that the Senate should have a debate on this critical issue”.
“I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity, using clean renewable energy as the key, into coal country”, Clinton said at a CNN appearance in March. “As a UMWA member, I’m proud to stand with Sheila Simon”.
Roughly 94 percent of coal worker pensions were funded before the 2008 recession, however many companies have since gone bankrupt due to market conditions and the increasingly harsh regulations from the EPA and Congress on the industry.
Percy “Buddy” Blake, of Madisonville, Kentucky, who retired in 1991 from the Sinclair Underground mine, is 72 now, and anxious about losing the health insurance that covers bills not paid by Medicare.
The Miner’s Protection Act seeks to address the potential shortages by tapping the Abandoned Mine Lands fund.
“They’re trying to get out of their part of it, they’re wiggling out of their part, so we need to get that going again, and keep their promise what they said they were going to do”, said retired coal miner Dan Guillerman. Without action by next year, the pension benefits of 27,694 retired miners and their widows in West Virginia are in jeopardy.
It’s just wrong to turn our backs on them now when times are toughest. Rob Portman both support the bill.
Republicans in Kentucky have a checkered history with the UMWA, which endorsed McConnell’s opponent in the 2014 Senate campaign.
Still, McConnell blocked the pension measure past year and says he’s not going to fast-track a plan that some Republicans warn amounts to a bailout.
The Senate Finance Committee will consider the issue next week, and supporters are hopeful Congress can approve the funds by the end of the year. “He will continue to work with his colleagues on the path forward”.
Two of the bill’s sponsors, U.S. Sen. “I applaud U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito for their efforts to get this legislation passed”.
If the UMWA plan becomes insolvent, the beneficiaries face benefit cuts, while the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will assume billions of dollars in new liabilities.
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“In return, they were promised retirement benefits by the government and their employers”, Roberts said. “If we keep it within the scope of the original agreement and what we’ve ratified and what other Congresses have ratified over the years”.
