Rep. Chaffetz i will never mind recognize the gentleman from georgia for five minutes. Mr. Mccarthy, i am sure that you either saw or you were briefed on the hearing of is held by this committee the past tuesday, is that correct . Gina mccarthy i was briefed on it. Then you are aware that susan hedmun testified under oath that she acted immediately upon the the high level of lead in the water. In the same hearing, dr. Edwards , whom you just referred to ago in the hero and an expert, repeatedly time and andn refuted her testimony thereby obviously the entire regions actions to this entire thing. Let me start right here. Do you believe susan headman provided this committee with false testimony on tuesday . Gina mccarthy to the best of my knowledge, no she did not. You thenor, let me ask same question. How do you feel about the . Stimony from mr. Edmonds in regards to the epa acting immediately on getting information. Governor snyder congressman, i appreciate your question. I hope i had that moment when i decided three emails in particular, epa emails to the deq talking about their partnership to work these issues. And no flag was going up. I am sorry, for a moment i heard this entire discussion about the law and the us issue about saying you could not do things or this or that because of the law. I have a really simple question. Why didnt susan hedman just . Ll dan wyatt to didnt administrator mccarthy just call me . This is the culture that got us in the mess to start with. Where is common sense . Let me take you continue on. Mrs. Mccarthy, is it your testimony today under oath that hedmanieve that susan and region five did act immediately and do everything they could upon the hearing information . Gina mccarthy they did, and they did reach out. From april on when they found out there was no corrosion. We have conflict and info on that, but that is your testimony under oath . We are speaking of emails in september last year. You were praising susan hedman and other epa officials for their work on the flint water crisis. Do you believe that that phrase of mrs. Hedman was warranted . Gina mccarthy yes i do. Ok. I have here two letters, one from, in fact, mr. Hillman, written to you. In september, and it was asking you, begging you, please get involved in this situation. Are you familiar with that . Gina mccarthy yes. You did not respond, susan man. Een did susan hed and her response fluffed off the entire thing. And mr. Chairman, i would like both of these letters to be submitted for the record. Rep. Chaffetz no objections. And during this time, did you praised el toro . Gina mccarthy i actually did not note me guilt el toro at that point in time. Toro. El del so you were not aware . Gina mccarthy i was not aware of any report in particular. But you were aware of what he brought forth, and he referred to him as a hero, and you were not praising him but susan hedman at the time . Gina mccarthy he was a member of her team, and he was a vital member of her team. Are you aware of any retaliation against del toro . Gina mccarthy no, i am not. And yet we have testimony or we have records that would reflect that he certainly was retaliated against and was fearful of greater retaliation, but you are saying you have no knowledge of that whatsoever. Gina mccarthy i do not believe he was retaliated against. I have no information to indicate he was. Mr. Chairman, my time is expired. I will submit these. Rep. Chaffetz we now recognize the gentlewoman from illinois, miss kelly. Think the witnesses for being here. Governor, i have a question. Are there any arrangements being made for the people of flint to get their money back forgetting paying for water that is obviously damaging . Congresswoman, that process has been set up. The appropriations had been made. People should not have to pay for that water. It did, we didnt announce to show there is a water and sewer bill, but with respect to the water bill, we try to do a calculation and we roughly said about half the water was for drinking, cooking, those kind of activities. The rest is for flushing or toilets, doing your laundry. We rounded up to 65 . We went back to records of april 2014 through the period and again, for the mac used the end of april 2016. I will not say it is done by then. We did calculations and 65 of the water portion of the water and were built amounted to 35 million, roughly. I want to ask for a supplement of appropriation, and the legislators were very supportive. We got put in place, and now we are working with the city which runs utilities to have Software Programming done so we can apply it as a credit on their bill in a way it should work. As we get it set up im sorry, we are working to get this taken care of. As the chair for the congressional black caucus, part of my mission is to look out for health care for underserved communities, low income communities, and communities of color. And i have to tell you, this really reeks of environmental discrimination in my opinion. And mid administrator mccarthy, i want to talk about safety control, which the Governors Task force concluded less led to the mass poisoning of inhabitants. He made additions to the flint river in april 2014. They told the epa they had Corrosion Control in place. Is that right . Gina mccarthy that is right. But that was wrong. They did not have it. They said it was not necessary. Epa discovered this on april 24, 2014, the epa official miguel del toro sent a letter x pressing concern they had not started implementing conversion control. There are only two scenarios for the large system to be optimized without treatment, and flint does not appear to have either of them. Gina mccarthy that is correct. Even though the epa told Governor Snyders administration to implement Corrosion Control, they did not do it. Months went by with no action by the state. 2015, the august 17, Michigan Department of environment equality said the city must now recommend a treatment to fully optimize Corrosion Control treatment within six months. The state response was not until august. The was four months after governor schneiders and ministration said they had to do something. Gina mccarthy that is right. A longmonths see what time when lead has been leaking from pipes for over a year and people throughout flint were getting poisoned. You agree . Gina mccarthy i do. Six months is way too long to waste. The state never implemented Corrosion Control prices. In december, the governors own task force, as we have heard concluded that the actions of his ministration led to the contamination of water. Do you agree with that . Gina mccarthy yes. I know that you have been asked if you have any regrets. It seems like Governor Snyder was fighting you at every turn. They were completely unable to handle the crisis. Looking back, do you regret you did not recognize the other dysfunction in the state sooner so you could step in and take away control from Governor Snyder and his ministration and his administration . Gina mccarthy i think we spent way too long trusting the stage they would do the right thing. We begged them to give subsistence in march. We begged him for Corrosion Control. We begged them at the city level and the state level with personal communications as well as professional. At the hearing today, and i have heard accusations the epa was to slow in responding to the flint crisis, i think the epa should have acted more quickly to respond to this. But it is the state that had the primary authority to enforce the safe water tricking act, correct . Gina mccarthy correct. We did not have data until july 21 to discuss a problem, and we did not have an ability then because they kept saying they are going to fix it. That is the way the law requires us to act. I think it is michigan that michigans slogan is pure michigan, because that was not the case. Rep. Chaffetz now recognize the gentleman from alabama, mr. Palmer, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Oh, i am sorry, thank you. Mr. Chairman, i just got my notebook back, can i yield and come back . Rep. Chaffetz lets actually recognize the gentleman from arizona. Thank you, chairman. I think mr. Waltman. Mccarthy administrator mccarthy, how serious do you think poisoning those humans, especially the children . Gina mccarthy it is one of the most serious areas we face. Lets go back. Atjuly 2015, we are emailing susan hedman about an elite memo sent by an employee, Miguel Dell Tauro to a flint resident. Del toro investigated and intervened. Leaked,d not have been called a preliminary draft report and did nothing to address the serious threat that had been created for the citizens of flint. When you were made aware of these communications between and mayor mullings, did you ask her to resign . Gina mccarthy i did not believe the facts are here. Knowing this, did you ask her to resign . Gina mccarthy no, sir. . Why not fire her you know the seriousness of this issue, and you still got do it very but i am going to quote you, you praised her when she resigned. She was noty criticizing miguels report, she was indicating it was into round, more data needed to be done, and she was giving a heads up because it had gone public. You know about the seriousness of lead poisoning, and yet this is the action you take. You made another comment here earlier that it is insulting to us. Congress is specific on this about safe rights and not stepping on them. I want you to go back and start in termst your at it of waters of the u. S. Lets keep going. Is that a serious response, really, with your response to mrs. Hedman. A response for somebody to understand the complexity of seriousness of lead poisoning . That is an appropriate response . Gina mccarthy she did nothing that is my point. You know better, she knows better. This is not my first rodeo with you. All over and over. Southwest colorado and then the ineptitude you had there to . Determined was taken responsibility. I look at somebody else, i want to see responsibility. American demands it. Policy is the chairman over and over again, you so dont get it. Member after member, you still dont get it. You have bred a culture at epa that has built on fraud, denial, incompetence, bureaucratic nepotism. Gina mccarthy im not try to shift responsibility this whole hearing that is all you have done. You have never taken accountability for any of the problems at epa. Maybe we could have done something a little faster. Fluid andnes are very very ineffectual. Let me ask you something else. Multiplettee has made requests for epa documents relating to flint. Gina mccarthy we are working with all of the recasts requests. You are professional at slow walking and delaying informational that is pertinent to investigation. Over and over again. Have beenent redacted. You provide us with a full, productive on redacted Company Documents . Gina mccarthy we will keep releasing those. Are you going to release on redacted forms of these emails . Gina mccarthy of course we will respond to congress and allow you to do your job as well. That is the same old trap we hear over and over again, and that is the not with the president promised us. The most transparent administration, period. That includes you. I am sick of this, and you should be also. America is sick of this, and you are the culture of the problem. Interesting us as governor of michigan, but i dont see anything coming from your part of the problem. It does not condone that. To bely am i asking you fired, if you are not going to be resigned, you should impeach. Rep. Chaffetz now that gentlewoman from michigan, mrs. Lawrence. Thank you, mr. Chair. As a member of congress representing a part of michigan, this is very personal. It is a sad day for me. Governor snyder, you have stated that state officials did not tell you about these problems as a matter of fact, in your statement, yusor and note is that it was not until october that you were aware of the problem. But governor, despite the huge numbers of new stories that were reported far and wide, let me show you some of those headlines. On june 2, 2014 only months after switching to the flint water mdc 25 stated Flint Residents avoiding the cap, tricking bottled water instead. Red headlinedc 25 stuff released to the flint river due to pump failure. It continues. Concerned over the color of water. It continues. On september 7, 2014, Michigan Live ran flint expands boil water advisory after more withive tests were to bacteria. And then it continues. January 2, 2015, she can live reported city warns of health risk after flint water tests revealed to much bacteria. It continues. March 2015, detroit news says Flint Council votes for detroit em or opposed. Our do any of these reports ever get reported to you, did you ever observe them . According to your statement over both, it was not until under oath, it was not until october that you became aware. Governor snyder i was aware of water problems, and i was involved in heavy discussions to address those in terms of resources we had currently available to us. In terms of going back to your list, the color and odor of the water was not good. You dont want to see people drink that if you can help that. We didnt have all the resources we needed to do that, and they were working on these issues. In terms of e. Coli and other issues, we would continually go through my administration articlet to add another. The national journal, which i hold right here. It says michigan to honor Governor Snyder conceded monday that hit his administration handling of the flint water ,risis is a stain on his legacy and i quote, i am not sure of the specific dates in terms of stain. If there is any lead in the water, sometime during 2015. Again, they presented some of the information about having to do with a second set of tests. Knownor snyder, we all that when we are elected to an office we take an oath. And we are empowered by the electorate to hire staff. Do you have regular staff meeting for those report to you . Governor snyder im rigler discussions i have regular discussions. Are you saying people you entrusted, and you pay your salary with taxpayer money, they failed to inform you of a Health Crisis in your state . Governor snyder i will actually share the document with you, congresswoman. This is my briefing of september 28, 2015. Before that time, all the time these headlines are going, you had a member, mr. Much more your chief of staff, this is dated july 22, telling other members of your circle, sir, that i really dont think people are getting the benefit of the doubt. Now they are concerned and rightfully so about the lead studies. Sir, this was january 22. The 22nd. And you are saying under oath it was not until october. He was not until october. Governor, you are my governor. This could have been my city. And governor for the life of me i cannot understand that you as thevernor, who led on purpose of operating as a business, you are going to operate as governor of the government, that you met with your staff and they refused to bring you uptodate, or bring you in, or get you engaged. This is a sad day in this just sad aboutam this, governor. I am very sad about this. Accountability for those you held accountable. You said you fired or the resigned, what does accountability look like for you . Rep. Chaffetz the gentlewomans time is expired but you may answer. Governor snyder it is a tragedy that never should have happened. I understand why people in flint should be angry. , iterms of looking at this kick myself every day asking what more questions can i ask, what can we have done . We have a lot of discussions about water during the entire period. And over go back over again, we were told the water was safe. That was wrong. It was not just one department. As a continued on, we got information not only from the deq but also the health and Human Services deducted they did not see elevated levels in blood. Dr. Ramona spoke up. So we took outside extra experts. Beingled in terms of bureaucrats, being experts. I get mad i never should have believed them. It came down to finally saying, after reports came out in september, and dr. Ramona and from professor edwards, we have to have a talk. T call was on center 28 september 28. It is tragic to have it in the records. Here is my briefing from the night before, and this information from both those departments is missing people, not talking about the real issue. When we got on that call, no, that was enough, but it was later than it should have been. I wish it had been far earlier. So the issue was they took immediate action. The eq Start Talking about there could be a lead problem. We had to confirm the data on the blood level. They came back and said that the doctors work was correct. In the we went into action in terms of opportunities to do things, and that was not enough. Every day i get up rep. Chaffetz the gentlewoman the gentlewoman will suspend. I appreciate the connection to michigan, but the gentlewomans time is misfired expired. The dental woman yields back. Governor, did you finish that question, or can we ok, we will go now to mr. Palmer of alabama for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to follow up on questions you asked, how did this escape your attention . I would to point out your executive response abilities include fiscal management and administrative oversight over most of all agencies. There are 18 in michigan. Health and Human Services, education, that sort of thing. This is in no way excusing you from the failure to protect the people of the flint, michigan. But what i want to ask, and what i want to know, mr. Mccarthy, you have one agency, one agency tasked with protecting the public in terms of admin our mental issues. Had this is get your attention . Gina mccarthy the issue was called to my attention on september 3. Prior to that was called to susan hedmans attention. , susan took action prior to that, the agency was directly involved. I do want anyone to think that january of this year was the beginning of our involvement. We asked the heard from people back when the switch was made. We rely too heavily on the judgment of mdeq and they were acting as a partner with you just want to point out were, you sent an email if you are 26, two days before mr. Snyder made his call taking immediate action. It appears he took immediate action, and you wrote and said these emails raise my level of concern. And then you suggested that they take options to intervene, but it was not until january 21 that you issued an order demanding action. Gina mccarthy there is Different Levels of engagement and inter