What to know about Snyder’s budget proposal

Instead, he said, “As soon as the water samples were tested and the results verified, Snyder announced the results at a press conference in Flint on October 8”.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday easily passed a bill requiring federal environmental regulators to act faster when lead contamination is found in drinking water.

The measure, which began as a $600 million request from Democrats, had been trimmed to a $220 million proposal to fix Flint’s infrastructure, help with the ensuing health care crisis and to support more than $1 billion in infrastructure loans that could have gone to Flint and other places dealing with lead problems.

That move provoked a national controversy and prompted several lawsuits by parents who say their children are showing dangerously high blood levels of lead.

Many have been angry with the governor for not spending time with the victims of the crisis.

Snyder is also seeking $72 million annually over 10 years to fund a plan to split DPS into an operating entity and a debt-paying entity. The river water wasn’t treated properly and the river’s highly corrosive water scraped lead from pipes and fixtures.

U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., called the EPA notification bill a first step to help Flint and prevent similar crises in the future. As a democrat we don’t have the authority to issue subpoenas.

Snyder said he also proposed $165 million to go to a state infrastructure fund, as “now is the time to act on the whole infrastructure issue across the state of MI”, so that makes a total amount of $400 million devoted to Flint and the state’s water infrastructure “in some fashion”.

“We’re here to investigate what possible crimes there are, anything [from] involuntary manslaughter or death that may have happened to some young person or old person because of this poisoning, to misconduct in office”, said Todd Flood, special counsel for the state attorney general’s office who is in charge of the investigation.

The Cruz campaign sent volunteers in the middle of January to hand out bottled water in Flint – but only to women at a “crisis pregnancy center”, a facility run by an anti-abortion group.

But Edwards says the Flint River is already high in phosphorus and adding more wouldn’t have had any effect on bacteria. Snyder’s funding request included $25 million for Flint infrastructure, which the mayor’s office described as “an important first step” in beginning the pipe replacement.

But without a comprehensive survey of all the homes in Flint, it is impossible to say how numerous city’s children might have been ultimately exposed.

More e-mails have been made public showing that a year ago health officials were anxious that the spike in cases of Legionnaires’ disease in Flint was connected to the use of the Flint River as a water source. Currently, both state and city officials have taken to passing the blame around and desperately trying to downplay whatever roles they may have played in the decisions that ultimately exposed thousands to poisoned water.

Susan Hedman, the EPA’s former regional chief, voiced concern to state and city officials over the next few months.