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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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State
Rep. Robert E. Belfanti, Jr. |
  
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House committee moves Belfanti's black lung benefit bill
HARRISBURG, Sept. 17 – The House Labor Relations Committee this week approved legislation introduced by the committee's chairman, state Rep. Robert E. Belfanti Jr., that would increase workers' compensation payments to former coal miners suffering from black lung and similar diseases.
"At one time, thousands of miners who worked the anthracite mines in eastern Pennsylvania suffered from black lung," Belfanti said. "Those numbers are dwindling because of the deaths of these miners. But for those who are still living with this disability, we need to increase this benefit, which has not been adjusted in nearly 30 years."
Belfanti said the legislation, which he has introduced in a number of legislative sessions since the 1980s, would increase the monthly benefit for coal mines who are disabled with silicosis, anthracosilicosis, coal worker’s pneumoconiosis, or asbestosis from $125 – a rate set in 1979 – to $175 a month. The monthly benefit, paid by the state, is available to miners with black lung who have already received the maximum $12,750 available through workers' compensation from their employer.
The increased benefit would take effect in the next fiscal year, on July 1, 2009. According to the state Department of Labor and Industry, there are about 480 miners in Pennsylvania receiving the monthly benefit.
"As fewer and fewer miners receive this payment, the expense of this increased benefit to the state will diminish," Belfanti said. "But this is something we certainly owe to the anthracite miners who helped power much of this nation in the 20th century, and who paid for it with their health."
The legislation (H.B. 2275) now moves to the full House for consideration.
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CONTACT: Michael J. Herzing |