Lawmakers turned up the outrage in the first congressional hearing about the lead water debacle in Flint, Mich., as a crowd full of residents from the eastern Michigan city looked on.
During a four-hour hearing Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee took shots at those who failed to keep lead from leaching from pipes and into the drinking water. Among them was Michigan’s top environmental official and the top drinking water official at the Environmental Protection Agency.
For once it seemed that partisan squabbling was set aside, as Democrats ripped the EPA’s response while Republicans urged stronger regulations on lead and copper regulations.
Perhaps the most passionate speaker was Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. The top Democrat on the committee told the Washington Examiner that he has seen children in his neighborhood get lead poisoning, which has given him first-hand evidence of the effects.
During the hearing, Cummings often shouted. He pounded the table at one point, saying the committee was the last line of defense for Flint residents.
“Why are they paying for [water] they cannot use? This is not American,” Cummings yelled.
“They’re also Americans, just like you and just like your children and I want to be real, real, real clear: I don’t care whether it’s EPA, whether it’s local, whether it’s state, I want everybody who is responsible for this fiasco to be held accountable. We are the last line of defense and if we don’t do it nobody is going to do it.”
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz announced early in the proceedings that the U.S. Marshals will find former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley to serve a subpoena for him to testify in front of the committee and that Susan Hedman, the former region head of the EPA in charge of Flint, also would be subpoenaed to give a deposition.
Earley’s attorney told MLive he plans to testify in front of the committee if he is called again.
“This is the United States of America,” Chaffetz said. “We’re not some third world country where people are poisoned, poisoned, for an extended period of time.”
Chaffetz sidestepped questions after the hearing about when a second hearing may be held. He said Hedman’s emails about the water situation in Flint will be given to the committee by the end of the week and it’s not known when they will be released to the public.
Chaffetz grilled Joel Beauvais, the EPA’s acting deputy administrator for the office of water, over the findings of EPA researcher Miguel Del Toral.
Del Toral reported in early 2015 that the drinking water at some Flint homes had extremely high levels of lead. Instead of going public with the results, Hedman, then Del Toral’s boss, ordered him to keep quiet about the results.
“Why wasn’t that made public?” Chaffetz asked Beauvais.
“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Beauvais responded.
Chaffetz was incredulous. “You can’t come to a hearing in front of Congress and be in charge of water quality for the EPA and not know the answer to that question,” he said.
Some representatives took the state to task for ignoring Flint residents as the crisis worsened.
Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., called the situation “environmental racism” and asked if it would have happened in a richer, whiter city.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, compared the lead poisoning of children to the actions of Jim Jones, a cult leader who convinced his followers to drink poison and cause their own deaths.
Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., called the Flint situation “despicable” and wondered why the EPA allowed Hedman to leave her position instead of firing her.
“Make sure the administrator has an answer to that,” Gosar said. “We’re going to ask that when she’s here: Why wasn’t she fired?”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s Democratic non-voting member of Congress, recalled the leaded water situation in Washington 15 years ago and said the EPA and other regulators have learned nothing.
She was one of many lawmakers to call for stricter enforcement of the existing lead and copper rule while suggesting a new rule that would strengthen the regulation. There are loopholes, she said, and no one accounts for “preflushing,” or the act of running water through the tap before collecting it. Pre-flushing before a test leads to much lower results, she said.
“All of the United States, your pipes are full of lead,” she said.
“That is a problem in our ancient water system, so I want to know how to get a quick fix now. These people are not going to remove themselves from Flint. They can’t sell their homes now, no one wants to come to Flint, an already troubled area.”
