Unfortunately, the committee, whose membership skews Republican (34 to 27), has proven that it is not actually interested in making a positive impact on every American life. Workers — particularly the most vulnerable among them — get the short end of the stick, and coal miners get a sharp knife in the back.

The language is bloodless, but the intent is utterly vicious: These highly paid, pampered modern aristocrats sat back in their padded chairs and casually handed down a potential death sentence to 44,000 people. 

That’s how many coal miners currently work in the U.S. as of June 2024. One in 5 of those miners — those who have spent more than 20 years underground — is suffering from coal miner’s pneumoconiosis, the dreadful degenerative lung disease known more colloquially as black lung.