Some Wyoming mine workers are sounding the alarm, saying Pres. Trump’s federal cuts have gone too far and it’s making their jobs more dangerous.
Much of the industry has applauded Trump’s plans to “unleash” American energy, with hopes to ramp up mining. But folded into those plans are cuts to the agencies overseeing workplace safety.
“Adding more mines with less oversight is going to equal more disasters, more injuries and, most importantly, more fatalities. And that's something that I can't get behind,” said Marshal Cummings, a trona miner who represents about 700 fellow union workers in southwest Wyoming.
The translucent mineral trona is processed into soda ash, which goes into everyday things like glass, baking soda and detergent. The world’s largest known natural trona deposits are in the Sweetwater County area. In fact, the product is Wyoming’s top export and industry leaders have anticipated growth to the sector under Trump.
However, Trump’s administration is also focused on downsizing the federal government. Recent cuts will all but eliminate the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the federal agency that researches workplace safety. That research helps create safety standards and rules.
Cummings said a health hazard evaluation planned for the trona mine he works at was recently cancelled due to staffing cuts at NIOSH. The agency is expected to lose the vast majority of its staff by July.
“Stop playing the left and the right thing all the time. It's not ‘woke’ to want to have a safe working condition,” Cummings said. “We deserve those protections. It's not fraudulent. Our health and safety is not wasteful.”
Cummings spent months trying to get NIOSH to look into potential health impacts from mining trona. It’s long been known that exposure to coal dust can cause cancer when not done safely. But there’s very little health data for exposure to trona dust.
According to a report by Tata Chemicals, a southwest Wyoming trona company, federal guidelines consider trona a “nuisance dust, as no product-specific guidelines have been issued for exposure.” NIOSH defines “nuisance dust” as “particulates not otherwise regulated.”
“Safety professionals that come and deliver training to us have said it's okay to breathe it [trona] – they've already done the research,” he said. “And I'm not one to just take you for your word. I need to see the evidence, because I'm responsible for many people. So when I ask for this evidence, no one can produce it.”
Cummings said the only published study he can find is from 1983 and it cites that trona has negative respiratory and pulmonary impacts.
Cummings hoped the planned federal NIOSH study could put the question to bed: Is trona dust safe?
“Transparency is key, because it shows you that you're not scared,” he said.
But now, with the study cancelled and no plans to reschedule, that question lingers. Cummings said anecdotally, he and fellow miners think there are health impacts.
“There's a weird number of stomach cancer, blood cancers. I want to know for sure if trona makes people sick,” he said. “Because if it does make people sick, then let's get it to where we have the practices, procedures, policies, equipment in place that it's not doing that to us anymore.”
There are also other mining safety concerns in limbo.
The Trump administration recently delayed implementing a new silica dust rule. The announcement came days after a federal judge ruled in industry groups’ favor, granting a temporary stay on the rule.
Essentially, implementing the rule would’ve meant cleaner air for mine workers to breathe and consequently, less miners dying.
“I'm not saying let's get rid of Donald Trump,” Cummings said. “What I'm saying is, ‘Thank you for making it easier for us miners to extract the minerals that got put in the earth for us to extract. But please help us to stay safe and do it responsibly for the workers and for the state.’”
The silica rule was applauded by miners and advocates who have fought for decades for silica standards to be stricter. Federal research has long shown that silica dust, which comes from drilling rocks and minerals like coal and trona, is toxic. When too much is inhaled, it causes lungs to harden and eventually leads to a slow, painful death, often referred to as black lung disease.
The new rule would’ve made exposure to silica twice as restrictive and upped regulation of the dust so that companies could be fined when exposures exceeded the new threshold.
The rule was released last spring and originally set to be implemented April 14, 2025. The recently announced delay pushes that back to August.
However, when that August date comes, it’s unclear how it would be implemented with the gutting of the agencies that enforce the rules, such as NIOSH and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
