Michigan’s Senate delegation took to the chamber’s floor after meeting with Flint families dealing with lead-contaminated water and urged lawmakers to move forward on a bipartisan deal that would send federal aid to the beleaguered city.
Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, both Democrats, implored the upper chamber to take up the $220 million funding package agreed to between Republican and Democratic Senate leadership. Multiple senators, notably Utah Republican Mike Lee, have placed holds on the bill to keep it from coming to the floor.
Peters and Stabenow met with families from Flint Thursday after a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the lead water crisis. Peters said he wished Lee and other senators blocking the legislation could have heard the stories of those families.
“Hear their anguish and see the tear in their eyes as they talk about what they’re dealing with,” Peters said, adding later, “What would our Founding Fathers think?”
In April 2014, 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.
The deal would make $100 million available to any state experiencing a drinking water emergency, $70 million to back secured loans to upgrade water and drinking infrastructure, and $50 million in funding for health programs to address and prevent the effects of lead exposure.
A $250 million Department of Energy program for advanced vehicles would be used to pay for the package.
Stabenow said that program was dear to both her and Peters, but they willingly gave it up to help pay for aid to Flint. Now they want Republicans to negotiate in good faith.
“We’re willing to have that end in order to be able to pay for what is happening in Flint,” she said. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
Lee has said he’s against various parts of the deal and believes the state of Michigan has enough money to deal with the crisis on its own without federal help.
Peters said he couldn’t understand why Lee and other senators who have objected to the deal wouldn’t allow it to come to the floor for a vote and just vote against it.
He said that’s the grown-up response to legislation that a lawmaker doesn’t like, not simply blocking it from being voted on.
“I cannot imagine folks here in the U.S. Senate will not allow legislation that is so important for people who have been impacted in such an extreme way to even come to the Senate floor,” he said.
