Funding for Flint, Michigan

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to thank my colleagues for their ongoing support and patience as we continue to fight to deliver Federal support for Flint families. With an agreement earlier today to take up a bipartisan House amendment to the Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA, we have taken another step forward to finally put Flint on the road to recovery.

Just a few days ago, we still had some Members in Congress who were refusing to allow even a vote to provide any assistance to the families in Flint, but with this agreement, we now have a commitment from the House leadership to move forward in helping Flint families. While I am pleased with this development, I remain disappointed that the passage of today's continuing resolution will not deliver Federal funding to Flint residents.

To be clear, I strongly support continuing to fund the government, and I believe there are many good policies in the CR. It contains resources to address the spread of the Zika virus and disaster relief for flood victims, both of which I support a great deal. In fact, we know the threat Zika poses to our Nation's public health, and it is critical that we have finally passed funding to accelerate vaccine development, prevent Zika transmission, and boost public health efforts to the impacted communities. In addition to addressing these emergencies, I also support the inclusion of legislation to fully fund military construction and the VA for the coming year.

As a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, I support investments in VA programs, military personnel, and family housing for our servicemembers. This critical funding will also address disability claims processing, the health care needs of female veterans, and the urgent need to modernize the VA's information technology systems.

Inclusion of veterans funding and resources to fight Zika had broad bipartisan agreement, but I think it is important to know the Senate also reached consensus on providing much needed relief to the victims in Flint by passing a WRDA bill earlier with 95 votes, but these fully paid-for Flint resources were put on hold while disaster relief for flood victims in Louisiana was included in the CR. I support helping the people of Louisiana, but I also strongly believe we should not be in a position where we pick some States to help and not others.

Everybody, no matter who they are or where they live, if they are facing a crisis, if the U.S. Congress is going to help those in need, we need to help everyone regardless of where they live. Americans are Americans regardless of the State in which they reside; therefore, I could not support a government spending bill that will once again force the citizens of Flint to wait for the help they so desperately need.

It is simply unacceptable that a bipartisan, fully offset Flint aid package was left out of the CR. There is no excuse whatsoever for leaving the people of Flint behind. It has been a year since the first public health emergency declaration was made in Flint and over 8 months since a national emergency was declared. Yet almost 100,000 residents of Flint still do not have a reliable source of safe water. They are still using bottled water to drink, cook, and bathe.

I deeply appreciate the progress we have made so far, but Flint families should not have to wait any longer. When a disaster strikes in this country, we pull together to help each other out. We should do that for all communities. We shouldn't tell people who have waited so long--yet we are telling them--to get to the back of the line. This is why I cannot support this bill which prioritizes one State's emergency over another.

We should do right by the people of Flint as well as the victims of flooding, Zika, and other national emergencies.

Over the coming weeks, I will be working to ensure that we follow through on the promises that were made to the people of Flint this week in both Chambers of Congress. We must send a bill to the President that will help the people of Flint continue to replace their damaged pipes so they can turn their faucets on and have clean, safe water flowing from their taps once again. I certainly hope and expect that my colleagues in both Chambers will not let the people of Flint down in their desperate time of need.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source