Placating Flint aid joins bill in House
Stopgap funding now easier to OK
WASHINGTON — House Republicans late Tuesday acquiesced to Democrats’ demands for aid to address the Flint, Mich., water contamination crisis, when the Rules Committee voted to allow an amendment to a water resources measure that would authorize $ 170 million in assistance to the city.
The move comes just one day after the rules panel blocked a similar attempt to get a vote on Flint aid as the chamber took up the Water Resources Development Act. The change of heart signals interest in resolving a stalemate over Flint that has held up a mustpass stopgap spending bill to keep government agencies running into December.
An aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., said the amendment vote “represents a bipartisan agreement … that will, at the end of the day, provide the necessary funding Flint needs” once the bill passes and it is reconciled with an already- passed Senate bill that authorizes $ 220 million in aid.
Under the deal with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R- Wis., the House will vote today on the amendment, which would authorize up to $ 170 million in infrastructure funds for communities like Flint whose water systems are blighted by “chem-
ical, physical, or biological” contaminants.
The breakthrough came after the Senate blocked progress Tuesday on a stopgap spending bill, led by Democrats who vowed not to support any spending extension until Congress guarantees federal funding to address the Flint crisis.
Senate Democrats have not yet examined the House amendment, but a senior aide said leaders are “optimistic” that the deal could offer a path to avert an unusual electionyear shutdown.
The 45- 55 vote stalled the stopgap funding bill and was exasperating top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who made several concessions to Democrats in weeks of negotiations over the measure.
The GOP votes against the bill left McConnell, R- Ky., short of a simple majority, much less the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster hurdle. Arkansas’ senators, both Republicans, have voted to move forward with the bill.
Republican leaders had promised to address the Flint issue after the election in a separate water resources bill, but Democrats in both chambers refuse to take them at their word. The separate water projects bill cleared the Senate earlier this month on a 95- 3 vote.
“‘ Trust me we will consider Flint later’ — that’s like nothing to me,” said Pelosi earlier Tuesday. “We just want to get it done. We want a result, and we don’t see a result right this minute.”
Democrats say it’s unfair that the water crisis in Flint has gone on for more than a year with no assistance, while Louisiana and other states are getting $ 500 million for floods that occurred just last month. Democrats have played a strong hand in the negotiations and know they have leverage because Republicans controlling the House and Senate are eager to avoid a politically harmful government shutdown at midnight Friday.
“Democrats have been clear that Congress should not leave Flint and other lead- tainted communities out of any [ stopgap spending] negotiation that includes emergency disaster funding,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nev., and other top Democrats in a Tuesday morning letter to McConnell.
Reid said separately Tuesday that Democrats “are happy to help with the disaster that took place in Louisiana … but couldn’t they help Flint? The Republicans are essentially saying the disasters in our states are more important than the disasters in your state. It is unfair, and it is wrong.”
McConnell characterized the Democratic position as “no Flint, no flood” and indicated that he is considering dropping the flood aid. But Democrats said there was no need to delay aid to any of the ailing communities. “Let’s take action, but let’s not pick and choose who we take action for,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D- Mich.
The stopgap spending bill would keep the government running through Dec. 9 and provide $ 1.1 billion in long- delayed funding to fight the spread of the Zika virus and develop a vaccine and improved tests to detect it. Zika can cause grave birth defects.
“It’s almost as if a few Democratic leaders decided long ago that bringing our country to the brink would make for good election- year politics,” McConnell said Tuesday.
McConnell has made numerous concessions in weeks of negotiations on the measure, agreeing, for instance, to drop provisions tied to Zika funding that led Democrats to filibuster previous Zika measures this summer and earlier this month. A provision to make Planned Parenthood ineligible for new anti- Zika funding for Puerto Rico was dropped, as was a provision to ease pesticide regulations under the Clean Water Act. A $ 400 million package of spending cuts added to the measure is no longer controversial.
The measure also includes a popular full- year spending bill that provides a 4 percent budget increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Senate GOP leaders have said Democrats are trying to create a shutdown crisis for political reasons.
“Can it really be that Democratic leaders have embraced dysfunction so thoroughly that they’d tank a noncontroversial, 10- week funding bill over — well, what exactly?” McConnell asked, as he opened the Senate on Tuesday.
FLINT FUNDING
Democrats have sought federal relief money for the Flint crisis since January, and they are eager to get the funding passed into law.
The issue has stirred resentments over the inequities in the treatment of a majorityblack city, and it has stayed near the top of Democrats’ congressional agenda for months.
“We understand the communities that we represent, and our minority caucuses do not want to vote for a bill that does not have Flint in it,” Pelosi said.
While the water bill that included Flint relief easily passed in the Senate, the House version of the water bill, which is set for a vote today, does not include the Flint funding.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R- Calif., told reporters Monday that “we are going to deal with Flint.”
Ryan on Tuesday said the water development bill “is the better place to address this.”
The Flint crisis is now into its second year, with most households and businesses in the Rust Belt city still unable to use their lead- tainted tap water for drinking or cooking. A decision made by a state- appointed emergency manager to switch water sources led to the corrosion of water- supply pipes that now must be replaced at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The federal aid package would fund a portion of those costs, while also helping Flint and other communities deal with the public health implications of lead exposure.
Flint’s public health crisis began in April 2014 when the city switched water sources, but the state Department of Environmental Quality did not require corrosion control treatments as it should have, a mistake that led to lead leaching from old water pipes into residents’ taps.
Now, more than a year after skyrocketing lead levels in some residences and high blood- lead levels among Flint children were detected, residents are still being told to drink filtered or bottled water.
Mayor Karen Weaver and others have said it could cost hundreds of millions to replace all of the lead pipes in the city and make other infrastructure improvements that would restore confidence in the water system.
State government has committed about $ 27 million but is being pressed to increase that amount.
“It’s fully paid for,” Peters, the senator from Michigan, said of the federal Flint funding, noting that unlike the $ 500 million for Louisiana, the Flint money is offset by a reduction in spending on a grant program for advanced technology vehicles. “This should be something that is very easy. And if we can’t do something that is this easy, it’s why people have such scorn for this body.”