More than 20,000 coal miners are breathing a sigh of relief today, after winning a last-minute reprieve for their health care benefits, which were about to end due to coal company bankruptcies.

The 2017 fiscal spending agreement to avert a government shutdown reached by Congress on Sunday includes a provision that coal companies and the federal government will pay for healthcare benefits for retired coal miners. The action partially preserves the Krug-Lewis agreement guaranteeing health and pension benefits for coal miners that was brokered by President Harry Truman in 1946.