Coal magnate Robert Murray is dead at 80: Tycoon who battled against clean air laws dies weeks after revealing he had black lung and a year after filing for bankruptcy so firm could avoid paying up on respiratory illness claims
Coal magnate Robert Murray has died less than a week after announcing his retirement as board chairman of Murray Energy and several weeks after writing in a Department of Labor filing for black lung disease benefits that he was near death and heavily dependent on an oxygen tank.
The 80-year-old died on Sunday morning at home in St. Clairsville, Ohio, his attorney Michael Shaheen told The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register.
No official cause of death was given.
Murray - who had previously denied he had black lung himself - filed bankruptcy for Murray Energy last year, allowing the company to avoid obligations to employees diagnosed with the respiratory condition.
The filing shifted the company's $74.4 million liability to the federal government's Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, according to Labor Department estimates provided to Congress.
Black lung disease is officially known as pneumoconiosis, and is caused by prolonged exposure to coal dust.
Coal baron Robert Murray died on Sunday at age 80. Murray retired on October 19 after 63 years in the coal business, shortly after applying for federal benefits to treat his black lung disease. Murray wrote that he was near death and heavily dependent on an oxygen tank
The leading industry voice blamed environmental regulation for the decline of the coal business and called global warming a hoax. In this handout photo provided by UtahAmerican Energy Inc., Crandall Canyon coal mine co-owner Murray is pictured on August 14, 2007 near Huntington, Utah
WHAT IS BLACK LUNG DISEASE?
Black lung disease is officially known as pneumoconiosis.
It is caused by inhaling dust or prolonged exposure to coal dust.
The disease has no cure and only some symptoms can be treated.
It gets its name because the disease makes a person's lungs look black instead of pink.
Many who have the disease struggle to breathe as their lungs are slowly stifled by tiny dust and particles trapped there.
Shaheen said a private memorial service for Murray was scheduled for Tuesday.
Until last month, Murray had denied that his lung issues were related to his time working in coal mines.
In a 2017 interview with The Associated Press, Murray, using an oxygen machine, insisted his lung issues weren't coal related but were due to 'idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.'
'It's not from the mining. It's a different disease,' he said.
But he filed for federal benefits to treat his black lung disease at the end of September.
He said is heavily dependent on oxygen and is 'near death' and is entitled to benefits after working in underground mines for more than six decades.
'During my 63 years working in underground coal mines, I worked 16 years every day at the mining face underground and went underground every week until I was age 75,' Murray wrote in the recent filing for benefits.
Murray was a controversial figure in the coal industry.
His company filed an unsuccessful lawsuit in 2014 over regulations to cut the amount of coal dust in coal mines to reduce the incidence of black lung disease.
The company's lawsuit had argued that the regulations were overly burdensome and costly to the industry.
Murray told NPR last year that his lung disease was not caused by working in underground mines. Murray previously insisted his lung issues weren't coal related but were due to 'idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis'
He later disputed that he fought regulations to stop black lung and threatened to file a lawsuit if a story was published indicating he fought federal regulations and benefits.
Murray Energy filed for bankruptcy protection in October last year.
The filing shifted responsibility for black lung payouts to The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund which is funded through a $1.10 per ton excise-tax on production of underground coal.
But the fund runs a massive debt and is at risk of insolvency, according to the US General Accountability Office. The National Mining Association continues to fight to slash the tax in half.
Murray Energy re-emerged from bankruptcy in September this year as American Consolidated Natural Resources, which bills itself as the largest underground coal mining company in the United States.
The company has active mines in Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Utah.
Murray previously owned and operated the Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington, Utah, which collapsed in August 2007 killing six miners inside. Three rescuers died ten days later in a second collapse.
Victim's families protested plans to continue mining there, and the mine was eventually closed.
Crandall Canyon coal mine co-owner Murray speaks to reporters about the status of rescue operations for the six trapped miners August 16, 2007 near Huntington, Utah
Robert Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy greets coal miners at the EPA hearing in Charleston, West Virginia November 28, 2017 before speaking to the panel supporting the repeal of the Clean Power Plan
As the outspoken leader of the Ohio Valley company he founded, Murray blamed environmental regulation for the decline of the coal business.
While regulations did seek to lessen coal's impact on the environment, such as contributing to climate change and causing acid rain, coal production also declined due to the rise in relatively cheap natural gas.
He had also called on the government to withdraw from climate change agreements, and said 'so-called global warming is a total hoax'.
Black lung was not the only health impact of Murray's work - he broke his neck twice in mining accidents.
'I've got a birdcage of titanium and vanadium between C2 and C8,' Murray told Reuters in a 2013 interview, pulling back his collar to show a scar running down the back of his neck, the trace of a past surgery.
The Republican was a long time ally of Donald Trump.
President Trump signed H.J. Res. 38 in 2017, disapproving the rule submitted by the US Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule.
The Department of Interior's Stream Protection Rule, which was signed during the final month of the Obama administration, 'addresses the impacts of surface coal mining operations on surface water, groundwater, and the productivity of mining operation sites,' according to the Congress.gov summary of the resolution.
President Trump signed H.J. Res. 38 in 2017, disapproving the rule submitted by the US Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule. Murray is pictured left
Republican politicians were among those to pay tribute to Murray on Monday.
'Saddened to learn of the passing of Bob Murray,' Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia tweeted. 'He was a staunch ally for coal miners, a good friend, and a one of a kind person.'
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, said in a statement: 'Bob fought through his medical challenges with the same energy, drive, guts, and faith in God as he approached everything in life.' Murray was a friend for three decades, DeWine said.