Senate Dems accept Flint aid deal, potentially averting shutdown

By Mike DeBonis

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats said Wednesday they are satisfied with a deal struck by House leaders late Tuesday to deliver federal aid to address the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, removing a major flash point in negotiations to keep the government fully operating past Friday.

Under the deal, the House will vote Wednesday on an amendment to a pending water-projects bill that would authorize up to $170 million in infrastructure funds for communities such as Flint whose water systems are blighted by “chemical, physical, or biological” contaminants.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., addressing the Economic Club of Washington Wednesday morning, said the amendment would “help unlock” the spending bill. “We should be able to move this through, I believe, before Friday,” he said.

An aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the amendment vote “represents a bipartisan agreement … that will, at the end of the day, provide the necessary funding Flint needs” once the bill passes and is reconciled with a Senate bill that authorizes $220 million in aid.

The breakthrough came after the Senate blocked progress Tuesday on a stopgap spending bill, raising the possibility of a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday. Most of those opposed were Democrats who vowed not to support any spending extension until Congress guarantees federal funding to address the Flint crisis.

By Wednesday morning, Senate Democrats were satisfied that, thanks to the House deal, Flint would be addressed once Congress returns after the Nov. 8 election.

“I am convinced that there is going to be help for Flint in the lame duck,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. “They’ve been waiting for help, they deserve help, and I am very happy it is going to come.”

Reid said the House deal “should lead to our being able to move forward” on the stopgap spending bill but a “couple of other outstanding issues” still needed to be resolved.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., unveiled a stopgap last week that addressed several Democratic demands, including a deal on funding for responding to the Zika virus and the elimination of several contentious policy riders. But it did not incorporate the $220 million Flint aid package that passed the Senate in separate legislation earlier this month.

With Democrats demanding funding for Flint, the bill failed to advance Tuesday on a 55-to-45 vote. The vote could be retaken as soon as Wednesday, setting up a vote on final passage no later than Friday.

Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., who co-authored the amendment with Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., said the agreement was “a step forward” to ensuring Flint gets aid but that work would have to continue.

“The people of my hometown have waited over two years for their government to help them in their time of need,” he said in a statement. “We will continue to fight until Flint aid reaches the President’s desk.”

Top Democrats in both chambers, as well as members of the Michigan congressional delegation, pushed Thursday for action on Flint as the shutdown deadline drew closer.

“We just want to get it done,” Pelosi told reporters. “We want a result, and we don’t see a result right this minute.”

Republican leaders countered by pointing out that Flint aid is likely to pass later this year as part of the separate water-projects bill, which cleared the Senate on Sept. 15 on a 95-3 vote. They instead charged Democrats with trying to create a shutdown crisis for political reasons.

“It’s almost as if a few Democratic leaders decided long ago that bringing our country to the brink would make for good election-year politics, and then they’ve just made up the rationale as they go along,” McConnell said Tuesday.

Democrats have sought federal relief money for the Flint crisis since January, and they have been eager to get the funding passed into law. The issue has stirred resentments over the inequities in the treatment of a majority-black city, and it has stayed near the top of Democrats’ congressional agenda for months.

“We understand the communities that we represent, and our minority caucuses do not want to vote for a bill that does not have Flint in it,” Pelosi said.

The Flint crisis is now into its second year, with most households and businesses in the Michigan city still unable to use their lead-tainted tap water for drinking or cooking. A decision made by a state-appointed emergency manager to switch water sources led to the corrosion of water-supply pipes that now must be replaced at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The federal aid package would fund a portion of those costs while also helping Flint and other communities deal with the public-health implications of lead exposure.

Democrats had preferred that the aid be attached to the stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, because it is a must-pass bill that is guaranteed to become law. Even if the water-projects bill passes the House this week, the two chambers will have to resolve differences between the two bills in a process that might stretch into November or December. The deal struck Tuesday, however, should assure that the final product will include Flint aid.

Democrats on both sides of the Capitol were skeptical on Tuesday that House Republicans would deliver on Flint. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., an architect of the Senate aid package, said Tuesday she had adopted a “trust but verify” approach toward the House; Pelosi said that while McConnell had been “pretty firm” about delivering aid, “I don’t get that from the House.”

The White House said Monday that “Congress should quickly pass targeted funding to support Flint, Michigan, whether in the Water Resources Development Act or another vehicle.”

Also aggravating Democrats was McConnell’s decision to include in the stopgap spending bill $500 million in disaster relief for flooding in areas largely represented by Republicans – mainly Louisiana and Texas.

“We are happy to help with the disaster that took place in Louisiana … but couldn’t they help Flint?” Reid said on Tuesday. “The Republicans are essentially saying the disasters in our states are more important than the disasters in your state. It is unfair, and it is wrong.”

McConnell had suggested Tuesday that one solution would be to drop both the flood relief and the Flint package from the bill. But Democrats maintained said there was no need to delay aid to any of the ailing communities.