This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz has done it again. He has embarrassed the citizens of Utah in his position as chair of the House Oversight Committee. Last year it was the Planned Parenthood hearings. Now it is the investigation of lead in the drinking water in Flint, Mich.
Rep. Chaffetz tore into the EPA administrator for what he claimed was a failure on its part to do anything to fix the problem. In the hearings Rep. Chaffetz fails to understand the administrator's explanation. The information about the crisis was never properly or adequately shared with the EPA by the state of Michigan.
The whole time Rep. Chaffetz is upbraiding the EPA administrator, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, the person who should be held to account, sits at the witness table not once attacked by Republican Chaffetz or any other Republican member of the committee.
Rep. Chaffetz and other Republicans like to suggest that, in the spirit of Ronald Reagan, government is the problem and decision making is best left to those at the local level. Here is yet another example of how keeping information from the federal government makes things worse, not better.
Money is not more important than people!
Nicholas M. Bielaczyc
Salt Lake City