Ildar Sagdejev, Wikimedia
The people of Flint could have to wait even longer for safe drinking water thanks to the backroom dealing of House Republicans. In a devious move that could perhaps be described as Grinch-like during this holiday season, House Republicans have split relief money for lead-ridden Flint, Michigan into two parts—requiring passage of both national water and spending bills. They then added a damaging rider to the water bill, pitting healthy waterways and fishing jobs in California and the Pacific Northwest against the people of Flint.
The California rider to the water bill, the Water Resources Development Act, would gut environmental protections for California’s Bay Delta, threatening thousands of fishing jobs, water quality, and endangered salmon runs and other fisheries. It would override the highly successful Endangered Species Act and upset the delicate balance that has been developed between species protection and economic development in California. Of course, what impacts the Bay Delta also affects families and businesses in Oregon and Washington that rely on the salmon that migrate through the Delta. To make a bad idea worse, the rider also authorizes the construction of more than a dozen new dams in 17 western states without Congressional oversight.
With the addition of this terrible rider, Congressional Republicans have unwoven a formerly bi-partisan water bill. Important stakeholders, including fishing communities and farmers in the Bay Delta were not consulted on the rider. Those adversely affected were left completely out of the process, as were the members of Congress who have been negotiating in good faith to find solutions. This last-minute backroom deal threatens to sink the entire water bill. And without the water bill, the people of Flint will only see a fraction of the relief money due to them.
Though the House of Representatives passed the Water Resources Development Act with the rider, there’s hope that hearts in the Senate might grow to give everyone the gift of clean water this year. The California rider must be stricken from the water bill.