Pass the Families of Flint Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, the ongoing crisis in Flint, Michigan, is a clear reminder that this Congress has unfinished work to do.

Our constituents will rightly judge our job performance by our work, not by our finger-pointing, not by empty expressions of concern. We need to get to work, and we need to work together to provide clean water for the people of Flint; but we can't stop there because Flint is not an isolated incident. We have seen dangerous lead levels in schools that are outside of Fresno, California, and that are even in our own Capitol buildings here in Washington, D.C.

What has happened in Flint is a symptom of a much greater ill of underinvestment in our Nation's clean water infrastructure. A generation ago, it was a Republican President and a Californian, Ronald Reagan, who signed significant updates to the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1986. He knew then that clean water infrastructure was not a partisan issue. Thirty years later, it is our turn. The bipartisan case for investing in clean water infrastructure has never been stronger.

Every single American deserves access to clean and safe drinking water. So let's get to work. Let's pass the Families of Flint Act, and let's work on a national clean water infrastructure plan to prevent another disaster like this from happening in the future.

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