The bipartisan spat over a Senate proposal to send federal aid to Flint, Mich., for its water crisis ratcheted up Thursday.
Shortly after Democratic Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow took to the floor to express her frustration with the process of sending federal aid to Flint, Republicans struck back and noted she voted against allowing the chamber to vote on a package last week.
In a statement released Thursday morning, Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee pointed out that on Feb. 4, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, offered an amendment to the energy bill currently in the Senate. The amendment would have provided $550 million to the beleaguered Michigan city whose drinking water is contaminated with lead.
“Senator Stabenow objected to Senator Murkowski’s request to make her amendment, and an amendment that Senator Stabenow herself had filed, pending for a vote,” said Mike Tadeo, a spokesman for the committee.
“If there’s any confusion about why the Senate has not considered a solution for Flint, we hope this clears it up.”
Stabenow objected to the amendment being brought to a vote because she said it would not pass.
“We want to get this solved, not just have votes go down,” Stabenow said on the floor Feb. 4.
Earlier on Thursday, a spokesman for Stabenow said she and Sen. Gary Peters, the other Democratic senator from Michigan, are frustrated with the lack of progress.
Later on Thursday morning, Stabenow took to the Senate floor to say she feels like Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoon, trying to kick a football that keeps getting pulled away at the last second.
“Every time we think we have something, the rug has been pulled out from under us after hours and hours and hours of work,” she said.
Tadeo said the Republicans on the energy committee would not add any measure to the energy bill that violates “the rules of the Senate, the Constitution or increases deficit spending.”
“Doing so would prevent the bill from ever reaching conference and, among other consequences, prevent aid from reaching the people of Flint, Michigan,” he said.
When asked for comment, a spokeswoman for Stabenow pointed to sections of her floor speech that she believed were pertinent.
In that speech, Stabenow touted her willingness to work with Republicans and her track record of bipartisan legislation.
“I know that when you want to get things done, you can,” she said. “It’s just a matter of having the will to do it. And when you don’t want to get things done, you come to the floor and you attack the people you’re supposed to be negotiating with and you negotiate in the press.
“And that’s what we have seen, unfortunately, in recent days, and that’s why we are so deeply concerned about the fact that there is not the resolve to come together to be able to help the children of Flint.”
