Oklahoma congressman Steve Russell and others on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will start Tuesday with the first of two hearings into the lead-poisoned water of Flint, Michigan.
The committee will hear from Darnell Earley who is Flint’s former emegency manager; former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling; Susan Hedman, the former EPA Region 5 Director and Marc Edwards, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute professor who helped uncover the leading poisoning.
A second hearing will be held Thursday and that’s when EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder will testify and answer questions from the committee. Snyder’s taken fire from Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for his administration’s response to the crisis.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the Oversight Committee visited Flint, Michigan over the weekend and promised to get to the bottom of what happened and how it was allowed to happen.
“This is the United States of America, we’re not supposed to be acting like some third-world country, this should not happen here,” said Chaffetz as he toured a water treatment lant and spoke at an EPA open house. the Detroit News said Chaffetz was joined on the trip by Reps. Bill Huizenga, Tim Walberg, John Moolenaar and Dan Kildee.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Oversight Ranking Minority member was on CNN over the weekend, blasting Gov. Snyder.
“What was he doing? Did he fall asleep at the swich? Was he negligent? Did he care?”
He wants to create an emergency fund to help the residents of Flint.
“Much of this damage will never be corrected with these children, there should be some sort of fund similar to 9/11 fund where these people can be compensated,” said Rep. Cummings.
Representative Russell is one of 19 Republicans on the committee.
