The White House used the flight to Flint, Mich., Wednesday as an opportunity to slam Republicans over their criticism of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Press secretary Josh Earnest took a shot at the agency’s critics during the flight to the eastern Michigan city of 100,000 people where lead-contaminated water is keeping residents from drinking the city’s water. Obama is visiting Flint Wednesday afternoon.
Earnest said the Republican goal of shrinking the EPA, and perhaps eliminating it as presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump has proposed, is not what’s best for Flint.
“The president does not believe that eliminating the EPA, for example, is going to prevent this from happening in other places,” Earnest said. “We need an EPA that is properly funded and operating effectively … eliminating that agency, as many Republicans advocate, is not going to contribute to that goal.”
In April 2014, a state emergency manager appointed by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed off on a symbolic vote from the Flint City Council to change the city’s water source to a new local authority. While a pipeline was being built, a state official decided the city would get its water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.
The Flint River water, however, was so acidic that it caused the lead pipes bringing water from the city’s cast iron mains into homes to corrode. Lead leached off the pipes and into drinking water throughout the city.
The state and the federal government have declared a state of emergency, and Flint residents are not able to drink the water coming out of their taps.
A report done by the state indicated state environmental officials are at fault for the crisis. Three people, two state regulators and one city official, have been charged with state crimes, and the Michigan attorney general’s office continues to investigate the incident.
The EPA has been slammed for its role in failing to prevent the water crisis in Flint. Despite knowing for months that homes in the city were being poisoned with lead leaching off old pipes, the EPA failed to notify the public and didn’t step in until earlier this year.
Earnest said he can understand why Flint residents are frustrated with the EPA and other agencies that were charged with protecting them. Earnest said the president is “quite serious about making sure that the federal government is living up to its obligations to its citizens.”
