Press Releases - Capito Hails Passage of Legislation to Help West Virginia Workers, Orphaned Miners and Coal Communities

Capito Hails Passage of Legislation to Help West Virginia Workers, Orphaned Miners and Coal Communities

WASHINGTON - Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) today voted for legislation to ensure the health benefits of over 11,000 retired West Virginia miners, provide additional funds to clean up abandoned mine sites across the state, continue efforts to make mines safer, and increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour.

"This legislation is a real victory for all West Virginians," Capito said. "From protecting the promised health benefits to retired miners, to working to ensure all mines have the best available safety equipment, to increasing the minimum wage to ensure that no one who works a full time job has to live in poverty; today's legislation benefits workers and communities across the Mountain State."

The legislation, the Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act of 2006 (H.R. 5970), would extend the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Fee for fifteen years and ensure health benefits under the Combined Benefit Fund and 1992 and 1993 plans for over 11,000 West Virginia retired miners and spouses. Life time health benefits were promised to orphaned miners - miners whose former employing company no longer exists - by the federal government, but the current funding structure was unsustainable. Nearly one-third of the covered orphan miners in the country are West Virginians.

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http://capito.house.gov/press_office/detail-page.aspx?id=197&whichone=pr