Lawmakers Call for Michigan Governor and EPA Official to Resign Over Flint Water Crisis
— -- The governor of Michigan and the Obama administration's top environmental official came under heavy criticism today from lawmakers over their roles in the Flint water crisis, with some members of Congress calling on them to resign.
Both Gov. Rick Snyder and EPA Chief Gina McCarthy accepted some responsibility for the lead contamination of the city’s water supply, while laying the blame for the biggest decisions and blunders at the feet of others.
Snyder and McCarthy appeared at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where members were unified in their disgust that the poisoning of Flint’s water supply was allowed to occur, while splitting on who deserved the most blame.
Democrats focused their anger at Snyder, a Republican, and other state officials, while panel Republicans spent the morning chastising McCarthy and her agency for not acting more quickly.
"If the EPA doesn’t know when to step in and ensure a community has safe drinking water, I’m not sure why it exists at all," said committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).
Questioning frequently grew heated, particularly when either Snyder and McCarthy cast blame elsewhere.
"Pretty soon we will have men who strike their wives saying 'I'm sorry dear, but there were failures at all levels,'" Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Penn.) told Snyder before saying the governor should resign.
Flint’s problems began when the city switched its water source from Detroit's system to the Flint River in 2014 as a cost-cutting measure. The river water was not treated properly for erosion and lead from aging pipes leached into Flint’s water supply, causing a public health crisis in the city.
The committee has been holding a series of hearings to investigate how the poisoning of Flint’s water supply came to happen and why it wasn’t addressed more quickly.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the panel, also called on Snyder to resign.
"The governor's fingerprints are all over this," he said. "It looks like almost everyone knew about this problem but you. You were missing in action. That’s not leadership."
Snyder said he was misled about the water crisis for more than a year, and insisted the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality told him water from the Flint River was safe. It wasn’t until Oct. 1, 2015, almost 18 months after the city started taking its water from the Flint, that Snyder said he learned the water was contaminated.
"Are you saying that the people you trusted... that they failed to inform you of a health crisis in your state?" Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) asked the governor.
He responded: "I kick myself every day in terms of what more questions could I have asked, what more could we have done."
