Dan Kildee: “I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) for yielding and for all of his advocacy on behalf of the people of my…”

“I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) for yielding and for all of his advocacy on behalf of the people of my community and, also, of the many forgotten people across the country. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the previous question in order to bring up a vote to finally help the people of my hometown of Flint, Michigan. In 2 days, it will have been 1 year since Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha released the results of her research that showed that blood levels of the children in Flint showed significantly elevated levels of lead-- that the water that they had been drinking had poisoned them. A year later, here we stand. This Congress has not yet acted to provide any relief to a community that is facing the greatest crisis-- the greatest disaster--of its history. It has been a year since it was known that that water was too dangerous to drink. Members in this body have heard me speak about this before. It has been 2 years since, actually, the water contained lead. It took that long for the information, finally, to come to light; yet Congress has continuously failed to act. We have a way to get this done. I just ask my Republican colleagues in the House to step out of the way and allow the bipartisan legislation that has passed the Senate to have a vote so that it may be included in the legislation that this body is considering. The House can do so by following the Senate's lead, which passed legislation to provide relief to Flint by a vote of 95-3.…”