Date: 2016-02-03
Speaker: WATSON COLEMAN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Speaker. the city of Flint. Michigan. has been hit by a crisis of massive proportion. Its impact on the longterm health and future success of its residents remains unclear. The fact I find most disturbing is that it is a completely manmade crisis. It grew out of the same kind of stubborn faith in austerity measures that has handicapped our ability to govern for years. It grew out of a failure to protect the Flint River from environmental damage. It grew out of both a failure to invest in Flints crumbling infrastructure and in the willful disregard for the people of that city. a city in which more than 40 percent of the residents live below the poverty line and in which the majority of families are African American. My colleagues and I are here on the floor this evening to urge every Member of this body to understand one thing: If we fail to acknowledge the issues that led to the Flint water crisis. we will see similar and equally devastating events in more and more cities across the country. We need to recognize that tunnel vision for deficit reduction creates more problems than it solves. The emergency manager appointed by Governor Snyder instituted a plan to run Flint like a business in order to bring it back from the brink of death. In the process. he sought out the least expensive options for basic needs. like water. In doing so. he decided to pull from the corrosive and contaminated Flint River without ensuring the treatment protocol necessary to ensure the water was clean. We now know that. although the Flint River is in poor shape. a little additional spending could have prevented this crisis. Instead. Flint went the bare bones route. leaving a generation of residents to suffer the permanent consequences. Madam Speaker. Congress has. once more. been so focused on reducing the deficit that we have lost sight of our responsibility to govern. Only a few months ago did we finally abandon the absurd policy of sequestration. which has hampered the functioning of countless programs over the past several years. The benefits of austerity and small government are questionable at best. Flint has proven that. and we would all be wise to remember it. Unfortunately. that is not the only lesson that we can take away from this crisis. This Congress has made undermining environmental and energy regulations one of its core missions. In the first 100 days of the 114th Congress. it voted on more environmental and energy issues than on any other topic. and not a single one was aimed at protecting resources. like the Flint River. from the kind of contamination that allowed its water to corrode lead pipes. If reducing the deficit has been the first priority for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. allowing corporations and big businesses to take whatever liberties with our environment they choose has to be a close second. Under the majority of this House. our babies would choke on smog before we limit the amount of pollution a single smokestack can spew out. Our streams and rivers would poison even the fish swimming in them before we would set restrictions on where these companies can dump their chemical byproducts. Our forests and farmlands would turn barren before we would question the longterm impact of fracking. It took years to turn the Flint River into the downright dangerous water source that has caused so many problems. But for other rivers. lakes. or streams. there may still be time to repair or prevent the damage that we have done. Flint should move us to strengthen. not weaken. our environmental protections. Madam Speaker. there is one more lesson to learn here. and it is perhaps the most important. The infrastructure in Flint. like in so many other cities. is outdated. and no one at the local. State or Federal level seems willing or capable of making the necessary investments. Today in our Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. one of the topics of concern was that. even if individual homes had replaced their old lead pipes. the citys pipes would still have caused a major problem. Madam Speaker. that is a matter of infrastructure at the most basic level. In my home State of New Jersey. we spent more than a decade leading the way in the battle against lead poisoning. But with the onset of Governor Christies administration. all these advances have also come to an abrupt halt there. There are now 11 cities with levels of lead higher than what has been reported in Flint right in my State of New Jersey. This contamination from lead comes from paint instead of water. Nonetheless. it is a reflection of the reduction and diminution of services and resources to make our environment safe for our communities. Two of these cities are right in my district. Still. Governor Christies administration has ignored the problem and thoroughly failed our children by choosing not to fund our States lead abatement fund. Here at the Federal level we can take this even further. Our failure to invest in transportation and energy infrastructure is building up to a crisis of a different kind. a time when our roads. our bridges. and our power grids begin to fail. Madam Speaker. there are so many lessons we need to learn from Flint. I have a number of colleagues who are here with me this evening who have raised their voices in support of the people of Flint and who I know agree with me that this must be a watershed moment. We need to change course to prevent this from happening again and ensure the future of our Nation. Before I turn this over. I want to take a moment to add that there are a number of organizations. coalitions. and other associations that consistently are dedicated to protecting our natural resources. They defend the Clean Water Act. and they fight for the Clean Air Act. I hope to see more of them fighting for Flint in the near future. Madam Speaker. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan . who not only represents the district in which there is Flint. but he is a resident born and raised in the city of Flint. Michigan.