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524US2

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EASTERN ENTERPRISES v. APFEL

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

fare and Retirement Funds 3, App. (CA1) 1253. A 1993 Re-
port of the House Committee on Ways and Means explained:

“The 1974 agreement was the ﬁrst NBCWA to men-
tion retiree health beneﬁts. As part of a substantial
liberalization of beneﬁts and eligibility under both the
pension and health plans, the 1974 contract provided
lifetime health beneﬁts for retirees, disabled mine work-
ers, and spouses, and extended the beneﬁts to surviving
spouses . . . .” House Committee on Ways and Means,
Financing UMWA Coal Miner “Orphan Retiree” Health
Beneﬁts, 103d Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (Comm. Print 1993)
(House Report).

The increase in beneﬁts, combined with various other
circumstances—such as a decline in the amount of coal
produced, the retirement of a generation of miners, and rapid
escalation of health care costs—quickly resulted in ﬁnancial
problems for the 1950 and 1974 Beneﬁt Plans.
In response,
the next NBCWA, executed in 1978, assigned responsibility
to signatory employers for the health care of their own active
and retired employees. See 1978 NBCWA, Art. XX, § (c)(3),
App. (CA1) 778. The 1974 Beneﬁt Plan remained in effect,
but only to cover retirees whose former employers were no
longer in business.

To ensure the Beneﬁt Plans’ solvency, the 1978 NBCWA
included a “guarantee” clause obligating signatories to make
sufﬁcient contributions to maintain beneﬁts during that
agreement, and “evergreen” clauses were incorporated into
the Beneﬁt Plans so that signatories would be required to
contribute as long as they remained in the coal business, re-
gardless of whether they signed a subsequent agreement.
See id., § (h), App. (CA1) 787–788; House Report 5. As a
result, the coal operators’
liability to the Beneﬁt Plans
shifted from a deﬁned contribution obligation, under which
employers were responsible only for a predetermined