Sponsors (6)
The bill substantially strengthens and expedites financial and administrative support for miners and survivors—raising benefits, improving medical access, and tightening oversight—while raising costs for taxpayers and some operators and creating transitional administrative burdens and legal/rebuttal risks.
Totally disabled coal miners and their survivors will receive higher monthly benefits (including a set 2026 amount) and CPI indexing, increasing their income and protecting benefit value over time.
Claimants with complicated pneumoconiosis who show >=1 cm lesions on specified tests gain an irrebuttable presumption of total disability or death, making benefits awards faster and more certain.
Claimants will face lower out-of-pocket costs because the fund will cover medical-evidence expenses and a new program will pay eligible claimants' attorneys' fees and unreimbursed medical costs, improving access to representation and evidence.
Taxpayers and federal budgets will face increased long‑term costs because higher benefit rates and CPI indexing raise Trust Fund outlays and federal spending.
Coal operators—especially smaller companies—could face higher compliance and financial burdens from tougher self‑insurance rules and obligations to reimburse medical-evidence costs, potentially harming operator viability and employment.
The irrebuttable presumption tied to specific radiographic/CT thresholds may award benefits in cases where lesions are due to non‑pneumoconiosis causes, limiting employers' and insurers' ability to rebut causation and increasing exposure and litigation risk.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Establishes an irrebuttable presumption for complicated pneumoconiosis based on specified diagnostics, mandates standardized pulmonary evaluations, creates a new DOL Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, and modernizes statutory language.
Introduced December 16, 2025 by Morgan McGarvey · Last progress December 16, 2025
Updates the federal black lung benefits program to make it easier for coal miners (and survivors) to secure benefits, tighten medical diagnostic standards, modernize program language, and reorganize administration. It establishes an irrebuttable presumption of total disability or death from complicated pneumoconiosis when specific medical tests meet defined thresholds, requires the Department to provide comprehensive pulmonary evaluations using physicians on a Secretary‑maintained list, narrows certain HHS grant/contract language to focus assistance on coal miners, creates a new Office of Workers' Compensation Programs within the Labor Department, and modernizes and clarifies statutory language and cross‑references. The bill also records findings about access-to-representation shortfalls, problems with benefit indexing and employer self-insurance, and rising severe disease rates — highlighting fiscal and public-health reasons for the reforms. It mainly changes eligibility standards, medical evidence rules, administrative structure, and statutory wording rather than making direct appropriations or tax changes.