Lawmakers play the blame game over water crisis

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy took turns being blamed by lawmakers for the crisis during a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, when they weren’t blaming each other. Both were told by multiple lawmakers to resign.

Most of the lawmakers focused on their party’s preferred target. For Republicans that was McCarthy, and for Democrats that was Snyder.

Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said McCarthy should step down for her agency’s failure to insert itself once it knew there was lead in the water.

“If you were going to do the courageous thing, you too should step down,” Chaffetz said.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chastised McCarthy for repeatedly not accepting blame for the crisis and instead saying only the EPA could have moved quicker. He said that was indicative of the agency’s culture.

“Even if there’s enough blame to go around, there were a number of times where people acted like it wasn’t their fault,” he said.

Meanwhile for Democrats, the hearing was a chance to chastise Snyder after weeks of clamoring to get him in Washington.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, said he hadn’t decided if Snyder should resign when he came into the hearing. However, as the hearing wore on, Cummings made up his mind.

“You were completely missing in action,” the Maryland Democrat said, calling for his resignation minutes later.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Penn., asked Snyder a number of questions about the slow delay of state environmental employees to the crisis, often cutting Snyder off before he had a chance to say more than “that’s correct.”

After listing them all, Boyle said the question of whether to resign is a moral decision that Snyder has to make.

“As the governor of an administration that failed and poisoned its own people, don’t you have the moral responsibility to resign?” he asked.

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., was one of the few lawmakers who openly called for both officials to resign.

She said if McCarthy should step down, then Snyder should as well. During questioning, she made it clear she thinks McCarthy also has to go.

“I’m not on your side in this,” she said.

McCarthy and Snyder appeared in front of the committee to testify about the crisis that began in April 2014, when a state emergency manager appointed by Snyder signed off on a symbolic vote from the Flint City Council to change the city’s water source.

The move aimed to cut costs by requiring the city to take its water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department while a new pipeline was built to connect the city to Lake Huron.

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 the 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.

Snyder said he took responsibility for some aspects of the crisis but the EPA and bureaucrats in his administration shared blame as well.

“We failed at doing what should have happened, in terms of career bureaucrats who were quote-unquote experts,” Snyder said. “I get so mad. I should have never believed them.”

Meanwhile, McCarthy put the onus on state employees who “slow walked” their response. While the EPA could have moved faster, she blamed the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for not giving accurate information about the situation.

She said the state agency must have been incompetent because they switched from a treated water source to an untreated source and did not think to add corrosion control. When asked why the EPA didn’t require them to add it, she said she thought it was common sense.

“I never thought we had to say that because I never thought that people would do that.”