Supporting Transparent Regulatory and Environmental Actions in Mining Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Chairman, first of all, the underlying bill is an attempt to delay the implementation of the stream protection rule, an important rule that protects our Nation's rivers, our streams, and the nearby communities from the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining.
My amendment would not allow any rule that improves drinking water quality to be delayed. Ensuring that we protect our streams and rivers--often important sources of drinking water--is of vital importance.
Listen, I know firsthand something about what happens when regulations are not strong enough to protect drinking water.
Today, in my hometown of Flint, safeguards for better drinking water could have prevented the entire city and upwards of 10,000 children under the age of 6 from being exposed to dangerous levels of lead.
Lead is a deadly neurotoxin that is especially harmful to young children. It can permanently lower the IQ, increase disruptive behavior, and stunt neurological development.
These children in my hometown, many of whom already have great hurdles to overcome because of the misfortune of the ZIP code into which they were born--communities of very high poverty--now must endure another blow to their futures due to the decisions that were outside of their control and the lack of effective protection of their drinking water.
No other community should ever face that same danger, the danger of having their children literally poisoned by unsafe, contaminated drinking water. My amendment will ensure important protections for other communities.
Look, I have seen my community live through this. They continue to live through it. We should be doing everything we can not to weaken protections for drinking water, but to strengthen them to prevent this from ever happening anywhere else.
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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Chairman, let me first thank the gentleman for his kind words and his concern over my hometown. It is an extraordinarily difficult situation.
Sadly, it is actually the creation of a series of decisions by our State government to switch from the freshest, cleanest water on the planet, the Great Lakes, to the Flint River in order to save a few dollars, and then the failure of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to enforce even the minor protections that it has available to it.
The reason I am offering this amendment and the reason that I offer it on this particular piece of legislation is that, in my hometown, it was led and it was a bad set of decisions made by an emergency financial manager. In another community, it may be another source.
My view--and the reason I offer this amendment--is that we ought to do everything within our power in this Congress to make sure that we protect our environment and particularly protect drinking water. I believe my amendment would do that. I urge my colleagues to support it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
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Mr. KILDEE. I am opposed.
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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, this final amendment to the bill will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage as amended.
The bill is yet another attempt to delay the issuance of new and updated regulations to protect our streams, our rivers, and our communities from mountaintop coal mining. These safeguards are important for protecting the health and safety of the drinking water in communities and of children living near mountaintop removal coal mining.
Mr. Speaker, my motion would prevent the stream protection rule from being delayed if there is an increase in the incidence or prevalence of lung cancer, heart or kidney disease, birth defects, or heavy metal contamination in these communities.
We cannot allow the underlying bill to further delay important protections of public health. I know, firsthand, what happens when protections are not strong enough to prevent heavy metals, mainly lead, from contaminating drinking water. I have seen thousands of kids in my hometown of Flint, Michigan, poisoned by lead-contaminated water.
Let me repeat: Today, in the 21st century, thousands of children being poisoned by lead in their drinking water due to the lack of effective enforcement.
For 14 months, in my hometown of Flint, children, citizens have been exposed to drinking water with very high levels of lead. These kids, especially, will face consequences.
This is not a problem without victims. Children will face cognitive difficulties, developmental problems, behavioral issues, all because in Michigan our Governor appointed an emergency financial manager to take over the city of Flint, and without any concern for health or the welfare of the people who live there, simply to save a few dollars, switched the city of Flint, not by the city itself, but the State of Michigan switched the city of Flint from Lake Huron to the Flint River as its primary drinking water source.
That highly corrosive river water led to lead leaching into the water system and, for 14 months, going into the bodies of people in my hometown, into children, all because of ineffective, lackluster enforcement of protections built into the law.
These kids in my hometown have a right to expect that the water coming through the faucet is safe for them to drink, and the Department of Environmental Quality in Michigan was warned--warned--by the EPA, warned by a researcher from Virginia Tech who came to Flint to study the water, and warned by a local pediatrician who saw elevated lead levels in the children's blood in Flint, Michigan.
What was the State's response? To try to discredit those claims that there were elevated lead levels, to actually--believe it or not--tell the people of the city of Flint that those researchers are wrong and they should just relax. That is what they were told. Relax.
This is the 21st century. We ought to have in place adequate protections to make sure that drinking water is safe. What has been the response, even now in my own hometown in the State of Michigan? There have been some news conferences, but from July, when the State was first made aware of this, until today, the State has yet to step in to even supply bottled water, relying on the generosity of corporations, of labor unions, and of citizens, neighbors helping neighbors.
Unfortunately, I think they see this more as a public relations problem than as a public health emergency. This is what happens when we don't recognize the importance of regulation to protect public health. This is what happens when we weaken protections for drinking water for our environment and for our land.
Is this really what we want to do? Or don't we have an obligation to do everything in our power to protect the people back home, to protect children from this terrible, terrible kind of contamination?
The steps that we are taking today that are on the floor of the House will simply be one more step to weaken those sorts of protections. My motion to recommit would correct that.
Mr. Speaker, I ask all my colleagues to please join me. Protect our people, protect our land, and protect our kids. Join me in supporting this motion.
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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
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