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Cite as: 524 U. S. 498 (1998)

513

Opinion of O(cid:146)Connor, J.

Carl J. Schramm, Arlene Holen, Richard M. Holsten); see also
id., at 81–82, App. (CA1) 1410–1411 (statement of Commis-
sioner Richard M. Holsten).

After the Coal Commission issued its report, Congress
considered several proposals to fund health beneﬁts for
UMWA retirees. At a 1991 hearing, a Senate subcommittee
was advised that more than 120,000 retirees might not re-
ceive “the beneﬁts they were promised.” Coal Commission
Report on Health Beneﬁts of Retired Coal Miners: Hearing
before the Subcommittee on Medicare and Long-Term Care
of the Senate Committee on Finance, 102d Cong., 1st Sess.,
45 (1991) (statement of BCOA Chairman Michael K. Reilly).
The Coal Commission’s Chairman submitted a statement
urging that Congress’ assistance was needed “to fulﬁll the
promises that began in the collective bargaining process
nearly 50 years ago . . . .”
Id., at 306 (prepared statement
of W. J. Usery, Jr.). Some Senators expressed similar con-
cerns that retired miners might not receive the beneﬁts
promised to them. See id., at 16 (statement of Sen. Dave
Durenberger) (describing issue as involving “a whole bunch
of promises made to a whole lot of people back in the 1940s
and 1950s when the cost consequences of those problems
were totally unknown”); id., at 59 (prepared statement of
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch) (stating that “miners and their families
. . . were led to believe by their own union leaders and the
companies for which they worked that they were guaranteed
lifetime [health] beneﬁts”).

In 1992, as part of a larger bill, both Houses passed legisla-
tion based on the Coal Commission’s ﬁrst proposal, which
required signatories to the 1978 or any subsequent NBCWA
to fund their own retirees’ health care costs and provided for
orphan retirees’ beneﬁts through a tax on future coal produc-
tion. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 102–461, pp. 268–295 (1992).
President Bush, however, vetoed the entire bill. See H. R.
Doc. No. 102–206, p. 1 (1992).