As Peabody Energy has again slashed the health benefits for retired Wyoming coal mine workers, the state’s congressional delegation has so far been silent.
Multiple requests Wednesday for reaction from the offices of U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman and U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis to Peabody’s decision to terminate its Retiree Medical Allowance program weren’t answered by publication.
Peabody retirees have told Cowboy State Daily that cutting the program has left them, in some cases, without hundreds of thousands of dollars they had counted on.
In the meantime, Peabody reported Wednesday that its second-quarter earnings fell short of expectations while projecting stronger cash generation later this year.
For retirees who say Wyoming’s largest coal-mining company broke promises of lifetime medical benefits, the report only deepened their questions about why it can afford to pay its CEO more than $9 million a year but not the benefits they spent decades earning.
Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association, said things like the retirement benefits “are company decisions” that fall “outside of my wheelhouse” to comment on.
He also said Peabody’s production was a little lower than the mining association had hoped for in the second quarter, but that Mother Nature was largely to blame for that.
“We came out of a really mild winter,” he said, which means less power used to heat homes. “We certainly expect with a nice, hot summer that those numbers will pick up in the third and fourth quarters.”
Second Quarter Earnings Report
Peabody Chief Executive Officer Jim Grech said in a statement that the second-quarter report “reflected temporarily lower volumes and higher costs.”
Grech added he expects results to improve in the second half of the year, spurred by performance at the company’s flagship Centurion Mine in Australia.
"We're targeting strong cash generation for the second half of 2026, fueled by our seaborne metallurgical and thermal segments," Grech said.
Those segments are in Australia.
Wyoming Retirees Scrambling
Keith Schaeffer, formerly of Casper and Douglas, spent 17 years working for Peabody Energy’s North Antelope Rochelle Mine in Campbell County.
When he retired from the company in 2016, he said he had $190,000 to use for medical expenses under the RMA program.
In 2020, Peabody announced it was it was discontinuing the program for retirees older than 65.
That meant that Schaeffer would no longer have access to money he said he was promised. His wife, Lisa, still qualified because she was younger than 65.
Now, Schaeffer said he is preparing to look for new health insurance for his wife next year once the RMA is completely terminated.
As an employee, Schaeffer said he remembers his medical expenses being 100% covered by the company.
“They treated us well. They cared about us,” he said.
Schaeffer said he was aware of the fine print, in which the company reserved the right to take the RMA away at any time.
“They had to keep up with times,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I guess it’s like any other big corporate business nowadays. Everybody’s a number.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Jim Allington of Douglas and Gloria Buell of Gillette, who also worked at the North Antelope Rochelle Mine.
Allington, who put in more than 30 years with Peabody and worked many 16-hour days, recently learned that the $260,000 he was promised for medical expenses will disappear at the end of the year.
“They took away my benefits that they promised,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Buell recalled a meeting for employees where Peabody representatives talked about a big pot of money meant to cover health costs for company retirees.
“It would last you the rest of your life,” Gloria said she remembers hearing. “It was promised as part of your retirement.”
“They promised us everything,” Shafer said. “They took it away.”
RMA Support Group
In Indiana, Peabody Energy retiree Don Wright last week launched the "Peabody Retirees RMA support group" on Facebook, hoping to publicize the RMA cuts and encourage Peabody retirees to share their experiences.
Wright worked at five mines in Indiana over his 25-year career with Peabody Energy.
Wright also launched a letter-writing campaign, urging lawmakers to get involved in Peabody Energy’s decision to cut retiree medical benefits.
In the letter, addressed to President Donald Trump, Wright wrote, “The reason you have a well lit up White House is directly related to our work. The reason the reflecting pool and the Washington monument are so visible at night is the coal that we have carved out of the earth.”
Wright said he hopes the letter will motivate elected officials to pressure Peabody to reverse course on its decision to terminate the RMA.
“You see at the same time that Peabody is cutting our benefits they are receiving vast sums of public money,” Wright said in an email to Cowboy State Daily. “We would like to have some answers.
“It seems to me that Peabody has a problem with keeping their word. If so, do they deserve any of this public money?”
Wright said he has not received a response to his letter.
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
