Trump Brings Back Coal Miner Jobs, but Deaths Soar
Coal miner Rodney Osborne was toward the end of a double shift at the Gateway Eagle Mine in West Virginia in June when the 32-year-old was crushed to death by a rotating drill. A subsequent investigation revealed that Osborne, who had been working at the Boone County mine for just five months, had not received adequate safety training on the device.
The state's junior senator, Shelley Moore Capito, said she was heartbroken by the news of Osborne's death, then reminded her constituents that "West Virginia coal miners like Rodney selflessly put so much on the line to...power our state."
Osborne was not the only miner who paid the ultimate price. In all, 15 miners died since President Donald Trump took office in 2017—up from eight in all of 2016.
This is the dirty secret of Trump’s much-touted effort to help the coal industry. The president has been quick to celebrate the 771 net workers that were hired in 2017, but the administration's push to support the dirtiest of fossil fuels has been accompanied by a surge in deaths of the workers who procure it. The 2017 death toll was the highest since 2014—when there were roughly 60,000 more miners at work in America.
Mining advocates put some of the blame on the president, whose support for mine owners has led to relaxed safety enforcement, scores of inexperienced new miners and inconsistent commitment to training programs and courses. In the meantime, Republicans in the House want to cut mine safety budgets further, and Trump,
