Sponsors (6)
Introduced December 16, 2025 by Morgan McGarvey · Last progress December 16, 2025
The bill substantially improves access, predictability, and medical support for miners and other claimants—reducing barriers to benefits and strengthening health protections—but does so at materially higher cost to taxpayers and liable operators and with added administrative and procedural risks.
Coal miners with black lung and their survivors will find it easier to obtain benefits because the bill creates presumptions of disability/death for complicated pneumoconiosis, clarifies dependent/spouse definitions, and strengthens claim adjudication pathways.
Current and future beneficiaries will get more predictable, inflation‑protected benefits because the bill sets standardized benefit rates and CPI‑W indexing to prevent benefit erosion.
Low-income claimants will face lower out‑of‑pocket costs and have better access to representation because the bill establishes programs to pay attorneys’ fees and unreimbursed medical expenses and strengthens legal access.
Taxpayers and responsible operators will likely face significantly higher costs because expanded eligibility, benefit increases, indexing, reopened claims, and retroactive payments raise program outlays.
Coal companies and insurers may incur higher liabilities and operating costs due to stricter self‑insurance collateral rules and presumptions that limit rebuttal, risking price increases, reduced profitability, or closures and job losses.
The Department of Labor and the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund will face substantial new administrative burdens and costs to maintain physician lists, run funded evaluations, expand adjudication/legal aid, and manage transitions.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Establishes an irrebuttable presumption for complicated pneumoconiosis, mandates Department of Labor pulmonary evaluations, creates a new OWCP office, and updates definitions and technical language.
Makes major changes to the federal black lung benefits system: it creates an irrebuttable presumption that miners with specified medical evidence of complicated pneumoconiosis (large opacities/progressive massive fibrosis) are totally disabled or died from pneumoconiosis, requires more comprehensive pulmonary evaluations supplied through the Department of Labor, updates definitions for spouses and survivors, and establishes a reorganized Office of Workers' Compensation Programs with a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Director. The bill also modernizes gendered language and technical citations and makes other conforming edits to claims procedures and benefit categories.