Flint water crisis: Senate passes bill funding removal of lead-tainted pipes (with a poison pill)
Source: The Guardian
Flint water crisis: Senate passes bill funding removal of lead-tainted pipes
But environmentalists raise concerns about measure in bill
reducing protections on California’s Bay-Delta estuary amid
‘partisan games’
Jamiles Lartey
Saturday 10 December 2016 17.26 GMT
In some of its last business of the year, the Senate on Friday passed a bill that included $170m in funding to remove lead-tainted pipes from the water supply in Flint, Michigan.
Environmentalists were concerned, however, about a “poison pill” in the legislation which rolled back environmental protections in California’s Bay-Delta estuary.
“We should not have to trade delinquent congressional action in Michigan for the erosion of endangered species protection and a threat to fishing jobs in California,” said Scott Slesinger, legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement.
“But that is the result of the partisan games at play in this bill.”
Drought relief was cited as the reason for the easing of protections in the Bay-Delta. The bipartisan bill, crafted by two Californians, the Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein and the Republican representative Kevin McCarthy, will steer more water from the bay to farms for irrigation. It also opens the door to new dams, desalination and other water projects.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/flint-water-crisis-senate-bill-lead-pipes