BREAKING: GOP Reps Walberg & Chaffetz lied at #FlintWaterCrisis hearing about meeting with EPA staff [View all]

[kpete]

BREAKING: GOP Reps Walberg & Chaffetz lied at #FlintWaterCrisis hearing about meeting with EPA staffer Miguel Del Toral


This past Tuesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held the second of three hearings on the Flint water crisis. At the hearing, Republicans on the Committee tore into former EPA Region 5 administrator Susan Hedman for her role in what many see as the EPA’s delayed response in dealing with the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water with the powerful, tasteless, odorless, invisible neurotoxin lead.

Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz along with Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg (MI-07) both indicated during their questioning that they had met with EPA staffer and whistleblower Miguel Del Toral and that he told them that he had been punished for a memo he written last summer, a preliminary version of which he leaked to the media.

Despite these accusations, during her testimony Hedman denied that there had been retaliation against Mr. Del Toral. She also took issue with Rep. Walberg’s assertion that she had instructed former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling to disregard the memo. Both men claimed to have spoken with Del Toral during a Congressional trip to Flint last weekend.

Here’s the segment where Rep. Walberg made the claim:

WALBERG: Ms. Hedman, in July 2015, you told Flint’s mayor to disregard Mr. Del Toral’s preliminary memo that found high levels of lead in Flint’s water supply. Why did it take another five months for the final report to come out?

HEDMAN: I never told the mayor to disregard that memo. In fact, if you look at Appendix 3 to my testimony, you’ll see what actually occurred during the conversation that I had with the mayor…

WALBERG: There’s dispute on that coming across the board.

HEDMAN: Yes, I wrote the email and I know what I said and if we could take the time to take a moment to talk about that, I think we could clear that up.

WALBERG: I’m not sure we could. Mr. Del Toral certainly has a different recollection of it, as well as responses to him. And I had the opportunity to talk with him in Flint this Saturday, as well. Very different from what we are being told here and that’s the concern.

http://www.eclectablog.com/2016/03/breaking-gop-reps-walberg-chaffetz-lied-at-flintwatercrisis-hearing-about-meeting-with-epa-staffer-miguel-del-toral.html