Before Flint, Hillary Clinton Voted Against Measure To Prevent Groundwater Pollution [View all]
Before Spotlighting Crisis In Flint MI, Hillary Voted Against Bill To Prevent Groundwater Pollution
BY ANDREW PEREZ & DAVID SIROTA * 03/04/16 * ibtimes.com
When the Democratic presidential contenders meet on Sunday for their debate in Flint, Michigan — where thousands of residents have been poisoned by polluted water — the candidates’ records on clean water policy are likely to be in the spotlight. Hillary Clinton seems eager for that discussion, recently telling NPR: “The idea that you would have a community in the United States of America of nearly 100,000 people who were drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water infuriates me.”
But despite that rhetoric, the issue of clean water may be politically perilous for the leading Democratic candidate, thanks to her vote against banning a possible carcinogen at the center of one of the largest water pollution scandals in recent history.
Facing reports that a controversial fuel additive was contaminating water supplies across America, Clinton as a senator in 2005 opposed a bipartisan measure to ban the chemical — even though Bill Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency had first proposed such a prohibition. At roughly the same time, one major company producing the chemical also tried to use provisions in a trade deal backed by Hillary Clinton to force local governments in the United States to let it continue selling the toxic compound.
Clinton’s campaign did not respond to International Business Times’ questions about her vote. ... Breaking with then-Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton joined 14 Republicans and 11 Democrats in voting against the measure to phase out MTBE, which passed the Senate by a vote of 70-26. ... When Clinton cast her vote against banning MTBE, she was in the midst of a re-election campaign in which she raised more than $74,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-spotlighting-crisis-flint-michigan-voted-against-measure-prevent
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