Dear Representative:

As you may be aware, without action from Congress in the coming days, health care
benefits for tens of thousands of retired coal miners, including nearly two thousand in
Pennsylvania, will expire at the end of April. Without action from Congress in the near
term, the pension plan relied on by 13,000 Pennsylvania retirees will approach insolvency
in the next few years. Retired miners worked for these benefits, paid for them with years
of service doing dangerous work so that the rest of us could have reliable and affordable
power. We have a responsibility to see that these benefits are preserved.

To ensure that we uphold our commitments, I urge you to join the bi-partisan coalition
supporting the Miners Protection Act (HR 179), which provides a comprehensive and
permanent remedy to continue health care benefits, and ensure the long-term solvency of
the United Mine Workers of Americas 1974 Pension Plan and Trust.

The Miners Protection Act, which Senator Casey has championed in the Senate, and which
your colleagues Representatives Boyle, Brady, Cartwright, Doyle, Fitzpatrick, Shuster, and
Thompson have joined as co-sponsors in the House, is bipartisan, completely offset, and
will not divert dollars from abandoned mine reclamation work.

On March 1, 2017, Pennsylvanias retired miners and their families began receiving letters
informing them that their health benefits will be terminated at the end of April. This was
the second such letter many have received in the past five months. As you can imagine,
the ongoing uncertainty about benefits many of these retirees depend on for critical
services and lifesaving medications has been a significant source of anxiety and stress, and
only compounds as the deadline approaches. We owe these workers better. I urge you to
support the Miners Protection Act in order to provide a permanent remedy that averts the
loss of hard-earned health and retirement benefits and gives our miners and their families
peace of mind.

For the sake of Pennsylvanias retired miners and their families, please support the Miners
Protection Act. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

TOM WOLF

Governor