there was a farming -- sorry -- coal mine disaster in farmington, west virginia, several miners werein this accident and it generated a response in washington to regulate the coal mines. i think it was a sensible law to regulate the coal mines. but in the process, mr. byrd and other members of congress decided it would be a good idea o compensate coal miners for black lung disease that they might incur from their years of working in the coal mines. the opponents argued that this should be a workers compensation benefit to be handled by the states. mr. byrd and others argued, but there is none. we need a temporary program. so they enacted a temporary black lung benefit program that entitled coal miners to a monthly disability payment. it was only a temporary program. but of course, several years later when the authorization of that program was about to expire, congress looked around and no state had adopted a workers' comp program for their coal miners, so they said, we need to continue this, and they then re-authorized the program. the program is still around today. it has achieved v