Gina McCarthy, who testified alongside Governor Rick Snyder, faced Republican calls for her to resign as administrator of the EPA.
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Snyder as governor oversaw the state amid a massive water crisis in Flint that caused residents to drink and be poisoned by lead in the water system.
On Thursday, Governor Rick Snyder of MI blamed the federal officials and Environmental Protection Agency for the Flint water-contamination problems.
Lower-level officials both in the EPA and Snyder administration have already resigned over the mishandling of Flint’s water crisis, including former EPA midwestern regional head Susan Hedman and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant. Snyder took a personal tone in his message, saying that “Not a day or night goes by that this tragedy doesn’t weigh on my mind”. “The questions I should’ve asked, the answers I should have demanded…how I could have prevented this”.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said McCarthy understands how serious Flint’s problems are, adding: “There’s a strong case to make that the United States of America has never had a better administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency than Gina McCarthy”.
Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, also called for Mr Snyder’s resignation during the hearing.
“I will take responsibility for not pushing hard enough, but I will not take responsibility for causing this problem”, said McCarthy.
But Mr Cartwright said: “Plausible deniability only works when it’s plausible”. “That’s why I am so committed to delivering permanent, long-term solutions and the clean, safe drinking water that every MI citizen deserves”, he said.
By September, a group of doctors are urging Flint officials to stop using the Flint River as a water source as they are seeing high levels of lead in children’s blood. “Nobody believes that you took action”. Depite that general agreement that someone high up ought to get fired or quit, Republicans and Democrats disagreed on exactly who that should be.
The email was in reference to Flint getting back into the Detroit water system, which the Flint city manager, appointed by Snyder, chose to leave as a water source in April 2014 for the polluted Flint River.
“The governor’s fingerprints are all over this” crisis, Cummings said. They know they’re in trouble, they’re asking for that help and I’ve got email after email from the EPA saying, you know what?
Cummings mentioned another email by Muchmore in July 2015 that warned how Flint residents are “concerned and rightfully so about the lead level studies they are receiving”. “Tragically, his superiors at the EPA told local leaders in Flint to ignore his call for action”. He continued by telling Gov. Snyder he “needs to resign”.
“Let’s put aside resources, let’s get the lead pipes out of the ground”, Snyder said.
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Republicans on the committee placed much of the blame on McCarthy and the EPA, which many party members want to eliminate because they feel it is too powerful.
