December 16, 2025 - The Mine Safety and Health Administration will “engage in limited rulemaking to reconsider” portions of a final rule on miner exposure to respirable crystalline silica that’s being challenged in ongoing litigation.

A group of attorneys representing MSHA explained the agency’s decision in a Nov. 26 status update on a lawsuit that seeks a stay of the rule the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association claims is “deeply arbitrary.”

The rule went into effect in June 2024. It lowered the permissible exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air – half the previous limit – over an 8-hour time weighted average. The new PEL matches the one OSHA established in 2016.

Additionally, the rule increases silica sampling and enforcement at metal and nonmetal mines and requires mine operators to provide periodic health exams at no cost to miners.

Coal mine operators had been given a compliance date of April 14 for the rule, which first appeared on the Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda in 1998. However, on April 4, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary stay of the final rule in response to a petition from NSSGA.

Four days later, MSHA announced a temporary enforcement pause until Aug. 18, citing “unforeseen NIOSH restructuring” and “other technical reasons.”

A status update on the rule’s implementation was slated for Oct. 10. However, the deadline was further extended during the recent federal government shutdown caused by a lapse in appropriations. The update didn’t offer specifics about which portions of the rule may be reconsidered.

Although worker advocates fear a rollback of the rule, Sam Petsonk, an attorney who represents workers, told Charleston, WV-based WCHS-TV that the Department of Labor can’t do so under law.

“The [Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977] prohibits the weakening of mandatory health and safety standards of coal miners,” Petsonk said Dec. 4. “If the agency is rewriting this rule, it better be only for the purpose of strengthening and broadening the rule.”

Multiple studies show that cases of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or black lung – a deadly condition caused by exposure to respirable coal mine dust – are on the rise.

Quenton King, government affairs specialist at environmental advocacy organization Appalachian Voices, said in a press release that “every delay in reducing the amount of silica dust miners are exposed to means more miners becoming sick and dying.”

King added that the silica rule delay is “unacceptable and is a broken promise to miners.”