(1) The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund (in this Act referred to as the `Trust Fund'') was created in 1978 as part of the Black Lung Benefits Revenue Act of 1977, with the goal of shifting, from the Federal Government to the coal mining industry, the cost of compensating victims of occupational black lung disease. (2) The Trust Fund draws its principal revenue from excise taxes on coal. The Black Lung Benefits Revenue Act of 1977 authorized repayable advances from the Treasury to the Trust Fund, in such sums as may be necessary to make benefit payments and other authorized expenditures. Any such advances are required to be repaid, with interest at the rate prescribed in section 9501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to the general fund of the Treasury when the Secretary of the Treasury determines that monies are available in the Trust Fund for such purposes. (3) In each year prior to 1990, the Trust Fund revenues were insufficient to satisfy all benefit payments and other authorized expenditures, resulting in the need for repayable advances from the Treasury to the Trust Fund. (4) Since 1990, the Trust Fund revenues from excise taxes on coal have generally been sufficient to cover current benefit payments and administrative costs, but have not been sufficient to repay any portion of the outstanding principal that the Trust Fund owes to the Treasury. Instead, that indebtedness has grown each year as additional advances were taken to pay the portion of the interest charges not covered by the Trust Fund''s revenues. (5) Beginning in 1998, the annual interest charges on the debt alone have exceeded benefit payments made by the Trust Fund. (6) The annual interest charges to the Trust Fund now exceed its total annual excise tax revenues. (7) Without action, the Trust Fund''s indebtedness to the Treasury, which totals approximately $8,700,000,000, will continue to grow and the Trust Fund will never become solvent, even when benefit outlays have declined to a level approaching zero. (8) It is in the public interest to refinance the Trust Fund debt and to restore long-term fiscal solvency to the Trust Fund.