Sen. John Cornyn dismissed any notion that Republicans would be damaged politically by some of the party's senators trying to slow the Flint deal. | Getty Senate closing in on Flint aid deal

With the political spotlight squarely on the water catastrophe plaguing Flint, Michigan, key senators hammering out an aid package for the beleaguered city said they were on the cusp of a deal Tuesday after being bogged down by partisan and procedural obstacles.

Hillary Clinton has focused relentlessly on the Flint water crisis in her bid to win over Michigan voters — who went to the polls Tuesday — by visiting the city, demanding a Democratic debate there and, on Sunday, ultimately following the lead of Bernie Sanders in calling on Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to resign. Her focus on Flint — a poor and predominantly black city — also dovetails with her drive to dominate the African-American vote against Sanders.


It's the kind of national attention, Democrats argue, that could help revive the stalled aid measure — even as some Republicans threw up objections to the package and a bipartisan energy bill was nearly derailed over the Flint fight in the Senate.

“It’s a national story, even an international story,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “It’s one even Republicans can’t avoid. They need to show that they care about these poor people, thousands of people who’ve been poisoned and the thousands of others whose health has been compromised.”

Despite some reservations on the GOP side that the lead crisis was primarily a state and local issue, and that an aid package could set a dangerous precedent, the vast majority of Republicans are willing to move ahead with the measure. And Sen. Mike Lee, who announced his hold on the package last week due to his concerns about new spending in the proposal that would offer at least $850 million in loans and other aid, signaled Tuesday that he may relinquish his hold. Lee, a Utah Republican, and Michigan’s two Democratic senators indicated that they were close to an agreement that would let votes on the water infrastructure aid package proceed.

A separate hold from Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) regarding getting a vote on his language helping Gulf of Mexico anglers has been resolved, his spokeswoman said.

"We have possibly found a path forward,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said Tuesday. Lee said briefly that “we’re close,” and Sen. Gary Peters, Michigan’s other Democratic senator, said negotiators were “down to a very small amount of objections.”

The water crisis has animated Democrats on both Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail, as Democratic senators blockaded an energy measure in order to secure Flint aid Clinton and Sanders aggressively highlighted the issue, particularly at their debate Sunday.

In contrast, GOP presidential candidates have tread carefully around the water issue. The crisis was barely raised at the Republican debate last Thursday in Detroit. When it did come up, GOP candidates accused Democrats of politicizing the emergency.

“The way the Democrats have turned this into a partisan issue, that somehow Republicans woke up in the morning and decided, ‘oh, it’s a good idea to poison some kids with lead,’ it’s absurd, it’s outrageous, it isn’t true,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said during the March 3 debate. “All of us are outraged with what happened and we should work together to solve it.”

Peters alluded to last week’s Republican debate on Tuesday, arguing that “certainly, folks saw the contrast” between the two parties on the Flint crisis.

“I think the Republicans spent a sum total of 30 seconds talking about Flint and in the Democratic debate it was 15 to 20 minutes,” Peters said. “Folks in Michigan are looking for people who are talking about Michigan issues that are important to people in our state.”

Peters, who has endorsed Clinton, also said the former secretary of state’s focus on the Flint campaign as she campaigned in Michigan will help her.

“She has been to Flint. She has talked to families. She has brought some resources already to Flint to address the problem,” Peters said. “The one thing about the Flint issue is that it’s not confined to Flint. It’s the entire state that’s very focused on it. And as I traveled around the state, the western side of the state which tends to have a lot of Republican voters, whenever I’m there, the first question I get is about Flint.”

Meanwhile, Snyder, the embattled Michigan governor, has been making calls to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including, on Monday, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn. During that call, Snyder updated the Texas Republican on the money that the Michigan legislature was setting aside for the Flint crisis and while the governor didn’t make a specific request of Congress, Cornyn said Snyder believes the general contours of the Senate package would be “helpful” for Flint.

Cornyn also dismissed any notion that Republicans would be damaged politically by some of the party's senators trying to slow the Flint deal.

“I know Secretary Clinton is trying to capitalize on this,” Cornyn said. “But I don’t think there’s any fallout because we are actually trying to work with the governor.”

Lee's objection revolves around his insistence that new spending be offset immediately. The bill's current offset ending Energy Department loans for advanced vehicle manufacturing after 2020 would pay for the bill over 10 years but wouldn't kick in right away.

Some Senate Republicans, including Cornyn, had echoed Lee's concerns about deficit spending, and some worried that Congress was getting too far ahead of the responsibilities of the states.

But others have distanced themselves from Lee’s objections, including those whose states have had their own drinking-water contamination crises.

“In this case we’ve got children who’ve got lead poisoning from their drinking water. That shouldn’t be happening in this country,” said West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, whose state suffered a chemical spill that shut off the capital city’s tap water for five days in 2014. “I’m willing to look at it through that lens.”

Capito added: “Obviously, I don’t agree with his hold.”

Adding to the incentive for Republicans to close the deal, two of the original GOP cosponsors of the bill — Ohio’s Rob Portman and Mark Kirk of Illinois — are two of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents whose races may tip the balance of power in the Senate next Congress. Portman’s state, in particular, has lead-contamination problems similar to those in Flint.

“It’s important to have this legislation,” Portman said.

The initial Flint-focused proposal by Stabenow and Peters has been expanded to include at least $700 million in loans and other aid for water infrastructure across the country as a means to winning over more Republicans.

Peters and Stabenow made a major concession by agreeing to end the Energy Department loan program for advanced vehicle manufacturing, which Stabenow had helped create in the economic stimulus package. Initially, Stabenow had called the idea proposed by Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a key Republican negotiator, a “complete insult.”

The negotiations mainly involving Stabenow, Peters, Inhofe and a handful of other Republicans has also expanded the original plan by the Michigan Democrats that had focused on the Flint crisis to now include the ability of any other area in the country to compete for the aid.

There are $384.2 billion in total drinking-water infrastructure needs nationwide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's latest estimate to Congress.

“Officials from my largest city came to see me today,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Tuesday. “They have a lead problem, they have a water problem and a water infrastructure problem. And so the point I think is coming across clearly from all 50 states that just because one locality is getting more of the publicity it doesn’t mean that we don’t have a national problem.”

Annie Snider contributed to this report.