By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A federal judge on Tuesday granted a request from a Kanawha County man who works at a Raleigh County mine for an order to restore the respiratory health division of a federal research agency that studies worker safety after sweeping cuts from the Trump administration.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger granted the preliminary injunction request from Harry Wiley in the District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, ordering that reductions in force in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health be rescinded, including within the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, a program heavily relied upon among West Virginia mine veterans.
Berger ordered that there be “no pause, stoppage or gap” in congressionally mandated protections and services for miners, and that Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. — as head of the agency that houses the NIOSH — certify compliance with her ruling within 20 days.
