Flint’s congressman said it’s unconscionable that funding for the lead-contaminated water in his hometown isn’t in the government funding bill filed by Republican leaders Thursday.
Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., said he was disappointed, but not yet defeated, by the latest setback in his fight to get federal funding for the lead water crisis in the eastern Michigan city. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved to end debate on a funding proposal that would keep the government open through Dec. 9, a proposal without a deal for the city.
Kildee wondered why Republicans didn’t find that his hometown, a poor and predominantly black city of 100,000, was in need of federal help just months after Republicans ripped the Environmental Protection Agency for its role in the crisis.
“The federal government bears some responsibility for what happened in Flint, they made that point crystal clear,” Kildee said. “But, yet, when the moment occurs that they could actually do something to help the people of Flint, absolute silence from those same voices.”
Flint’s residents are unable to drink their tap water without a filter. In April 2014, the city government, which then was controlled by the state, switched water sources from Lake Huron to the Flint River in an effort to save money.
The river was so polluted and corrosive that it caused lead pipes leading to residents’ homes to deteriorate, contaminating the drinking water in the city. The state was placed under federal and state states of emergency. The federal state of emergency lifted in August, though some federal agencies remain in the city.
Recent test results show homes still have high amounts of lead in their drinking water and only a few homes in the city have had their lead pipes removed.
Last week, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a water infrastructure bill that included a $220 million deal for Flint and cities like it. Included in that deal is $100 million to any state experiencing a drinking water emergency, $70 million to back secured loans to upgrade clean water and drinking infrastructure and $50 million in funding for health programs to address and prevent the effects of lead exposure.
A Department of Energy program for advanced vehicles that would be eliminated pays for the deal. The program is popular among Michigan lawmakers because it helps the auto companies based in their state.
Kildee says Republican lawmakers know there’s a deal that passed the Senate with overwhelming support, but they’re still not willing to place the deal on the floor of the House, Kildee said.
“It leaves open the question: What is it about the situation in Flint or what is it about the people of Flint that causes Republicans to look at this situation differently?” Kildee asked.
“I cannot believe, for the life of me, that we’d see this same sort of apathy and inaction on the part of the Congress if this happened in a more affluent community.”
In a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan drew a line contrasting funding for Flint and the flood-ravaged towns of Louisiana. He said he supports flood relief for Louisiana — and, indeed, there is money in the continuing resolution for those communities — but not for Flint because it’s a local government issue.
“That is an issue that should be dealt with in the [Water Resources Development Act] bill,” Ryan said. “We’re bringing the WRDA bill up next week … that’s where that belongs, in that conversation.”
Kildee said he doesn’t buy Ryan’s argument.
He says it’s a deflection from the speaker to put Flint in a bill that doesn’t necessarily need to pass Congress, as the bill funding the government does. Kildee is not sure if WRDA, which passed the Senate, will even pass the House. And if it does there’s no guarantee that a conference committee between the Senate and the House versions of the bill will wrap up before the end of the year.
As Flint’s congressman, Kildee says he knows he was sent to Congress to help fix the community’s many problems. He said it has been frustrating that he has not been able to vote on sending money to help his hometown in the year since Flint’s crisis has been in the news.
“It is painful. It is particularly painful when I know, and many other members of Congress know, that if this circumstance had sadly been visited on a community of a different type, that had greater wealth, that wasn’t poor, [it would be fixed],” he said.
“This is what happens when a community is poor. They get left behind.”
