NIOSH/MSHA Workplace Solutions Guide to Prevent Opoid Use Disorder in the Mining Industry
Substantial increases in opioid-involved deaths since 1999 led to the United States declaring the opioid crisis a public health emergency in 2017. Although drug overdose deaths have begun to decline since 2023, overdose remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-44.[i] In 2022, over three-quarters of overdose deaths involved an opioid, and almost 90% of those involved synthetic opioids, primarily illegally-made fentanyl. [ii], [iii]
Workers in the mining industry have higher rates of substance use disorders (SUD), illegal opioid use, and fatal overdoses compared with workers in most other industries.[iv], [v], [vi] Mine workers also have among the highest rates of suicide. To address these issues, NIOSH and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) developed a new resource guide, Implementing Effective Workplace Solutions to Prevent Opioid Use Disorder: A Resource Guide for the Mining Industry.
These negative worker health outcomes are related in part to two potential work-related causal pathways: injury and stress.[vii] Pain increases workers’ chances of being prescribed an opioid and subsequent risks of prescription opioid misuse, long-term opioid use, and opioid use disorder (OUD).[viii], [ix] Further, difficult working conditions – such as nonstandard shift schedules, work insecurity, physically demanding tasks, and numerous hazardous exposures – can increase work-related stress, contributing to harmful opioid use, OUD, and other SUDs.[x] Untreated SUDs and mental health disorders reduce workplace health and productivity, pose safety concerns, and increase healthcare and turnover costs.
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How AI is Breathing New Life Into Aging Coal-Fired Power Assets
For years, some folks have considered coal-fired power plants relics of a bygone era, overshadowed by the rise of natural gas and renewables. Yet, in an unexpected twist, coal is finding its way back into the energy conversation—not as a nostalgic nod to the past, but as a pragmatic response to a very modern challenge: the insatiable energy demands of artificial intelligence (AI). As AI data centers proliferate, their need for reliable, around-the-clock electricity is forcing utilities and policymakers to rethink the importance of consistent baseload power in an era of digital technology.
This resurgence isn’t without controversy. Coal remains the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, and its revival runs counter to global decarbonization goals. However, the reality is stark. AI workloads require massive, uninterrupted power, and intermittent renewables alone can’t shoulder that burden. Natural gas has helped bridge the gap, but in regions where capacity is lacking, coal’s ability to deliver steady output, at scale, quickly with existing assets is proving hard to ignore. The question isn’t whether coal is clean, it’s whether alternatives are available in the short term.
The Trump administration has promoted fossil fuel production—including coal—as a central element of its energy policy, aiming to bolster energy reliability and national security amid surging electricity demand from AI data centers and high-tech manufacturing. Through executive orders, the administration has moved to reopen some federal lands for coal leasing and has rolled back several environmental regulations affecting coal mining and power plant operation. While officials have emphasized coal’s grid reliability role, policy changes have yielded only modest increases in permitting activity and provided targeted incentives for maintaining or upgrading existing coal-fired plants. These policies have helped sustain some coal plant operations, even though they won’t restore coal as a dominant energy source.
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Save the Dates - MCPA's 2026 Legislative Activities During the 2026 Virginia Legislative Session
We are planning our events for the 2026 Virginia Legislature Session-mark your calendar!
January 28-29, 2026 Richmond, VA.
If you have any questions, contact:
Barbara F. Altizer
Metallurgical Coal Producers Association
P. O. Box 2778
1073 Riverview Street
Grundy, VA 24614
OFFICE: 423-549-6048
CELL: 276-970-5580
Email: barb@metcoalproducers.com
More information will follow.
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Coal Industry Still Powers Nation, Worth Defending
By Chris Hamilton
For more than a century, America’s coal industry has powered our homes, forged our steel and fueled our prosperity. It has been the backbone of industrial growth and a symbol of American strength, self-reliance and hard work. Even today — after nearly two decades of relentless political and regulatory assault — coal remains one of this nation’s most valuable resources, sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs and keeping electricity affordable and reliable for millions of families.
Coal mining and the industries that depend directly on it employ more than 400,000 Americans. That figure includes approximately 130,000 miners, technicians, engineers and plant operators working in extraction, preparation and transport — and more than 270,000 additional workers in sectors that rely on coal as their lifeblood: Railroads, barge lines, equipment manufacturers, utilities, steelmakers and the communities that serve them. Together, they form one of the most productive, disciplined and technically advanced workforces in the nation.
Chris Hamilton, President, West Virginia Coal Association
The economic reach of this workforce is immense. When you combine wages, benefits and tax contributions, America’s coal industry generates more than $300 billion in annual economic impact. Coal miners themselves earn average wages exceeding $90,000 per year — nearly double the national average.
Those paychecks sustain rural counties, small towns and entire regions from Appalachia to the Powder River Basin. The taxes paid by coal companies and their employees — federal, state and local — contribute an estimated $12 billion each year, funding schools, highways and essential public services across multiple states.
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FutureCoal Welcomes Global Shift Toward Technology-Neutral, Energy-Secure Pathways at COP30 and G20
FutureCoal has welcomed the outcomes of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg and the COP30 climate negotiations in Belém, noting that both major global forums reinforced the needs of many emerging economies requiring balanced, methodical, technology-neutral energy pathways.
Significantly, both leadership meetings rejected calls for a prescriptive and inflexible fossil-fuel phaseout.
FutureCoal Chief Executive Michelle Manook said the alignment across the two summits “marks a decisive moment for global energy realism” and reflects the principles of technological neutrality and sovereign choice embedded in the Paris Agreement.
Michelle Manook
Both COP30 and the G20 concluded without agreement on a fossil-fuel phase-out roadmap.
COP30’s final text omitted any reference to fossil fuels, while the G20 Leaders’ Declaration reaffirmed that nations will determine their own energy pathways according to their sovereign development priorities, security needs and affordability considerations.
“These outcomes confirm what the Paris Agreement intended from the outset: there is no single pathway and no mandated fossil-fuel phaseout,” MsManook said. “A credible transition must recognise technological diversity, national circumstances and the need to uphold reliability and affordability. A transition that overlooks baseload supply and industrial stability is not a transition — it is a risk.”
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