By Renata Di Gregorio

May 23, 2016 - Things aren't looking good as far as the pension plans and health care benefits for coal miners. United Mine Workers of America officials just announced at least 21,000 retired coal miners could be losing their health care coverage at the end of the year.

UMWA President Cecil Roberts said in their news release that with the downturn in the coal industry, the contributions to the 1974 Pension Fund are down two-thirds from what they were last year. He also says more companies have been allowed by bankruptcy courts to stop paying into the fund. For recent retiree Russel Wright who spent 35 years in the industry, this feels like a slap in the face.

"People like me and tens of thousands of others will have no insurance after spending a lifetime working for promises under companies that guaranteed it," Wright said. "It's their turn for the politicians who've lived off the coal, for those of us that spent 20, 30, 40 years in this industry, to live up to the promises that were made."

That's where the proposed Miners Protection Act gets brought up. It would take excess funds from the Abandoned Mine Land fund to go into the pension plan. But so far with it, Congress has looked the other way. Roberts says the federal government needs to step in and he's not alone in thinking this way.

"It is no secret to any elected official in Washington, D.C. that this was going to happen and that they do need their support," said Delegate Patsy Trecost (D, Harrison).

Another legislator agrees the federal government needs to help get our state back into a position for us to help ourselves.

"We need those federal dollars to help retrain our miners, to make sure that there's a revenue stream coming in to provide benefits, if you will, necessary for our families to survive," said Senator Greg Boso (R, Nicholas).

Making sure his family would be alright was part of the reason Wright was a coal miner.

"Other industries were paying more money and greater benefits at the time, for being able to think of it that when I retired my wife would be able to live and have good insurance and our pensions and stuff would be taken care of," he said.

Roberts says the UMWA will be urging Congress to take action now.