Democrats said Snyder only recently admitted the magnitude of the fiasco, at least three months too late.
“This is the kind of disaster, the kind of failure to deliver basic services that hurts people’s trust in government,” House Minority Leader Tim Greimel said.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver refused to call for Snyder’s resignation while at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., saying investigations should go forward. She said she wants Snyder to give Flint “the services and the money, the funds that we need to address the population.”
“People have said how they want things handled with him,” Weaver said Wednesday. “I’m staying focused on what I need to get from him right now.”
In his speech, Snyder committed $28 million more in the short term to pay for more filters, bottled water, school nurses, intervention specialists, testing and monitoring — on top of $10.6 million allocated in the fall. The money also would replace plumbing fixtures in schools with lead problems and could help Flint with unpaid water bills.
The new round of funding, which requires approval from the GOP-led Legislature, is intended as another short-range step while Snyder works to get a better handle on the long-range costs. A House committee on Wednesday swiftly approved the spending bill, which could reach his desk next week after more legislation voting. He plans to make a bigger request in his February budget proposal.
Snyder also announced the deployment of roughly 130 more National Guard members to the city and revealed his appeal of President Barack Obama’s denial of a federal disaster declaration for the area.
“To you, the people of Flint, I say tonight as I have before: I am sorry, and I will fix it,” he said.
Snyder, a former venture capitalist and computer executive who took office in 2011 billing himself as a practical decision-maker and a “tough nerd,” has rejected calls for his resignation. He has previously apologized for regulatory failures and for an underwhelming initial response and on Tuesday outlined a timeline of the “catastrophe” dating to 2013, and blamed it on failures at the federal, state and local level.
The crisis began when Flint, about an hour’s drive from Detroit, switched its water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in 2014 to save money while under state financial management. Michigan’s top environmental regulator Dan Wyant resigned over the failure to ensure that the Flint River water was properly treated to keep lead from pipes from leaching into the water.
Elevated blood-lead levels were found in two city zip codes.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who attended the address, said Snyder’s contrition “does not mitigate the crime that has been committed.” But Republican Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof said Snyder is a “real leader who took responsibility even though he did not cause the situation.”
The U.S. Justice Department is helping the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate, and GOP state Attorney General Bill Schuette has opened his own probe, which could focus on whether environmental laws were broken or if there was official misconduct. The EPA is under scrutiny for its role, too.