Cite as: 524 U. S. 498 (1998)
Opinion of OTMConnor, J.
Eastern employed miners, retirement and health benefits were far less extensive than under the 1974 NBCWA, were unvested, and were fully subject to alteration or termination. Before 1974, as Justice Breyer notes, Eastern could not have contemplated liability for the provision of lifetime benefits to the widows of deceased miners, see post, at 562-563, a beneficiary class that is likely to be substantial. See General Accounting Office, Human Resources Division Report, Retired Coal Miners' Health Benefits 7 (July 1992) (reporting to Congress that widows composed 45% of beneficiaries in Jan. 1992); see also Brief for Petitioner 45, n. 54 (citing affidavit that 75% of the beneficiaries assigned to Eastern are spouses or dependent children of miners). Although Eastern at one time employed the Combined Fund beneficiaries that it has been assigned under the Coal Act, the correlation between Eastern and its liability to the Combined Fund is tenuous, and the amount assessed against Eastern resembles a calculation "made in a vacuum." See Connolly, supra, at 225. The company's obligations under the Act depend solely on its roster of employees some 30 to 50 years before the statute's enactment, without any regard to responsibilities that Eastern accepted under any benefit plan the company itself adopted.
It is true that Eastern may be able to seek indemnification from EACC or Peabody. But although the Act preserves Eastern's right to pursue indemnification, see 26 U. S. C. § 9706(f)(6), it does not confer any right of reimbursement. See also Conference Report on Coal Act, 138 Cong. Rec., at 34004 (explaining that the Coal Act allows parties to "enter into private litigation to enforce . . . contracts for indemnification," but "does not create new private rights of action"). Moreover, the possibility of indemnification does not alter the fact that Eastern has been assessed over $5 million in Combined Fund premiums and that its liability under the Coal Act will continue for many years. To the extent that Eastern may have entered into contractual arrangements to
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