White House jabs Snyder on Obama meeting request
Chad Livengood
and
Keith Laing,
Detroit News Washington Bureau 1:36 p.m. EDT May 2, 2016
IMG_1589
Gov. Snyder fills up water jugs at the Blackstone bar in downtown Flint.(Photo:
Dale G. Young / Detroit News)
Flint — The White House press secretary chided Gov. Rick Snyder Monday after
the Republican requested a meeting with President Barack Obama when he visits
the water crisis-stricken city on Wednesday.
“I’m still waiting to hear back on that request,” Snyder said at a Monday press
conference in Flint, backtracking on comments he made
last week to The Detroit News
that he didn’t have time in his “pretty full schedule” to meet with Obama.
When asked about Snyder’s new request to meet with the Democratic president and
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver on Wednesday, Press Secretary Josh Earnest wouldn’t
make an immediate commitment but made a jab.
“Guess his schedule got a little freed up,” Earnest said at the Monday daily
briefing.
The press secretary did not commit to a meeting with Snyder being scheduled
during Obama’s trip, although he said they could at least cross paths during
the president’s arrival.
“We’re still putting together the president’s visit,” he said. “It’s
traditional when a president travels to invite the governor of a state to at
least
greet him on the tarmac. …We’ll keep you posted on what interactions they’ll
have.”
“We’re obviously pleased that he will be in Flint on that day,” he added.
Snyder resumed his pledge to drink filtered Flint water on Monday, filling up
four gallon-sized jugs at Blackstone’s Pub & Grill in downtown Flint in his
first public event since spending seven days in Europe last week on a trade
mission.
Earnest sidestepped a question about whether Obama also would drink filtered
water in Flint.
Snyder said he wants the chance to forge a closer partnership with the outgoing
Democratic president and Weaver, who also is a Democrat.
“It’s really a question of how we can work together. It’s not to get into the
history of all of this,” Snyder said. “There’s major challenges here, given
the water crisis. There were significant challenges in Flint prior to that.”
Snyder also said the state plans to begin enrolling 14,000 Flint children and
1,000 pregnant women next Monday in an expanded Medicaid program.
The Detroit News reported Monday
the Republican-controlled Legislature has taken two months to approve Snyder’s
request for the additional health coverage assistance for Flint families
potentially exposed to high levels of toxic lead.
“I think that’s another major step forward,” Snyder told reporters.
The Republican governor is trying to encourage residents to drink Flint’s water
with the use of properly maintained faucet filters.
“The research shows drinking filtered water is safe, even at high lead levels,”
Snyder said.
While Snyder was wooing foreign investment across Europe last week, Weaver was
in Lansing trying to lobby for more money to remove thousands of residential
water pipelines blamed for leaching lead into the city’s drinking water over
the past two years.
Snyder said the state gave the city $2 million to remove up to 500 lead service
lines.
“We need to continue getting the lead service lines out,” Snyder said.
Flint has replaced 33 lead service lines since March through Weaver’s Fast
Start initiative, spokeswoman Kristin Moore said Monday.
The city is taking bids from contractors to remove and replace another 400 lead
service lines that connect homes to water main pipelines along streets,
Moore said.
Weaver has said the city needs $55 million to replace all of Flint’s lead
service lines.
“It no doubt would lower the per-home cost to replace the pipes if contractors
were bidding on $55 million worth of work rather than $2 million,” Moore
said in an email Monday.
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Twitter: @ChadLivengood
