Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder listens as EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, right, testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on lead in Flint residents' water. | AP Photo House hearing on Flint erupts into partisan blowup

A House hearing on the Flint water crisis erupted into a bitter partisan clash Thursday over who was to blame for lead contamination in the Michigan city, with Republicans chastising the EPA chief and Democrats unloading on Michigan's governor.

House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) zeroed in on EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy for the agency's failure to act quickly to warn residents about the dangers of the lead contamination in the drinking water.


"You had the opportunity, you had the presence, you had the authority, you had the backing of the federal government, and you did not act when you had the chance, and if you’re going to do the courageous thing, you too should step down," Chaffetz, a frequent EPA critic, said to McCarthy.

But McCarthy gave little ground, saying only that her agency "missed the opportunity" last summer to alert Flint residents about the danger after a staff scientist found alarming levels of lead in the water at several residences.

"The system failed. We were part of that system," she said. "I will take responsibility for not pushing hard enough, but I will not take responsibility for causing this problem. It was not EPA at the helm when this happened."

The fight to parse the guilt for the lead contamination in the Michigan city's drinking water has been unfolding for months, and much of the anger on the ground has been directed on the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder, who appointed an emergency manager to run the financially struggling Flint and who oversaw the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

It was Snyder's emergency manager, with the blessing of the state environmental officials, who switched the city's water source without treating it with anti-corrosives, ultimately causing the water pipes to leach lead. That lead was later discovered in dangerous levels in the blood of the city's children.

EPA officials were first alerted to the lead problems early last year and beginning last summer pressed the state to address the corrosion in the water, but they did not issue health warnings publicly. The head of the EPA's Midwest region, Susan Hedman, resigned earlier this year as the agency's actions came to light.

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) also took aim at the agency, noting that state officials had been fired for ignoring the evidence that Flint's water presented a health danger to residents, and said the same should happen at EPA.

"I think you should be at the top of the list. They failed at the local level, they failed at the state level, and we failed at the federal level. And who’s in charge?" Mica said.

But Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel, argued responsibility lay primarily with the GOP governor in a scathing opening statement, saying the Snyder had bragged about running the state like a business, so he should be treated like a CEO.

"There is no doubt in my mind that if a corporate CEO did what Gov. Snyder's administration has done, he would be hauled up on criminal charges," Cummings said. Still, Cummings said EPA should have acted more aggressively. "They should have rushed in sooner to rescue the people of Michigan from Gov. Snyder's vindictive administration," he said.

Snyder has been in crisis mode on Flint since late last year. He's apologized for his administration's slow response, even as he maintained the state's environmental officials were providing reports telling him the Flint water was fine until last fall.

"I kick myself every single day about what I could have done more," Snyder told the committee.

And he sought to counter a contention from Cummings that he was pushing off blame to his staffers for telling him there was no water crisis in Flint. “I’m going to have to live with this my entire life,” he said under questioning.

Cummings dismissed that answer, saying it was Flint's "children that have got to live with the damage that has been done for the rest of their lives."

Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) also excoriated Snyder, saying he disregarded a letter that Flint Mayor Dayne Walling had written to him in Jan. 2015 seeking help to deal with Flint's water problems.

"Governor, plausible deniability only works when its plausible, and I'm not buying that you didn't know about any of this until October 2015. You were not in a medically induced coma for a year. And I've had about enough of your false contrition and your phony apologies," he said.

He ridiculed Snyder's comment about "failures at all levels" as an attempt to dilute the blame for the crisis.

"Pretty soon we will have men who strike their wives, saying 'I'm sorry dear, but there were failures at all levels,'" he said, drawing, gasps from the packed hearing room.

The Thursday hearing was the third on the Flint crisis by the committee, though Chaffetz would not commit to another hearing, or other action by the panel.

"I'm not ruling it in or out," Chaffetz said after today's hearing. "I still need more document production to make the final determination as to whether there are going to be more hearings

Democrats have said they want Snyder to help force 15 current or former officials, including his former chief of staff Dennis Muchmore, to agree to interviews.

"This governor communicated a lot over the phone and in person, that’s why it becomes very, very important to talk to the people that were around him," Cummings told reporters after the hearing. He said Muchmore "sounded all kinds of alarms," and lawmakers want to know whether and how those concerns were conveyed to Snyder.

The committee's Republicans, meanwhile, are focused on EPA's document trail surrounding the lead crisis. At a hearing on Tuesday, Republicans pounced on an internal email by an Midwestern EPA official who, wary of the Michigan city's poor financial management, wrote she was "not so sure Flint is the community we want to go out on a limb for."

Internal agency emails unveiled at that hearing showed EPA officials were reluctant to formally punish Michigan environmental officials for failing to require corrosion controls at Flint's water treatment plant, and that they doubted whether pushing Michigan to direct more federal dollars to Flint was worth the political fight. Other emails indicated that an EPA scientist who first raised alarms about lead levels in Flint felt retaliated against over the move.

That scientist, Miguel Del Toral, has been hailed on both sides of the aisle for his actions in Flint, including sharing a draft report showing dangerous levels of lead at several homes in the city with affected residents.

"It almost sounds like I'm to be stuck in a corner holding up a potted plant because of Flint. One mis-step in 27+ years here and people lose their minds," Del Toral said in an July 8, 2015, email to his section chief when she expressed skepticism about a travel request.

But Democrats raised questions about Republicans' allegations of retribution, including that Del Toral was sent to ethics training over the episode. Today they circulated an email from Del Toral in which he said he "was never required to take ethics training because of Flint or for any other reason," save for the mandatory training required of all employees.

Darren Goode contributed to this report.