today michigan's two senators debbie stabenow and gary held a news conference to talk about flint michigan's contaminated drink it when her proposal forces us to clean up the city's water supply. their legislation would provide four and a billion dollars in federal matching funds to repair damaged pipes that have contributed to lead contamination. this is a half-hour. >> good afternoon. let me start by saying after last night being in london talking to people after the town hall meeting i just want to emphasize how resilient the people of flint are. they are proud. they love their community and their families. they just need our help. we all know that this was literally a man-made crisis and it says much of the catastrophe is any other kind of crisis and very personal when in fact you are trying to get drinking water or cook or bait in the water looks like that. the problem is in many places it still looks like that. it has been months and months and yesterday folks couldn't shower. last night someone said we can't shower with bottled water and that is true. you can't create a healthy enviro

today michigan's two senators debbie stabenow and gary held a news conference to talk about flint michigan'staminated drink it when her proposal forces us to clean up the city's water supply. their legislation would provide

the governor needs to dig those pipes immediately. >> senator stabenow? >> yes?>> the federal government has stepped up in a lot of ways. obviously there were problems in terms of the epa's response. federal government was not blameless here. since the crisis has come to light, the federal government has been devoting a lot of resourceses to this. that's on its face good. is it also letting the state of michigan off the hook? >> well, first thing i would say, the most important thing here is fixing things for the people of flint. we've got to make that number one. i do feel that there's another piece on emergency manager, rachel, i just want to get in. that is in 2012, we had a ballot proposal passed statewide to repeal the emergency changed the little bit and put it back in. >> so it can't be repealed by vote again? >> right. i want to say this is worse than it sounds. >> took over every blame city in michigan. took over every black city in michigan. flint, detroit, detroit public schools, and has failed at every citys has taken over. i'm putting in emergency ma

stabenow and the senator from minnesota ms. klobuchar. >> members of the aspartame like sip it chamber to unlock the doors. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> mr. speaker the diplomatic corps. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> mr. speaker the chief justice and associate justices of the supreme court. [applause] [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> mr. speaker the president's cabinet. [applause] [applause] [applause] .. in

i'm joined by michigan senator debbie stabenow.he possibility that the water crisis for flint could be even more potentially harmful than originally thought? >> thomas, first, let me say thank you for focusing on this. thank you to rachel, the entire msnbc team has been incredible in lifting up this story and advocating for people. this is another blow. we don't know if it's officially connected, but it's certainly of grave concern. the whole thing is outrageous when you look from start to finish. now they're talking about shutting off people's water for not paying bills on water that they were getting that was poisoning them. from my standpoint, the state response is so far late i don't even have a word for it. but they need to be stepping in incredibly aggressively right now to make sure that people are getting the water they need. now people can't even shower. they haven't even fixed the quality of the water yet. and i'm deeply concerned about what's happening to children. dr. mona brought to me the fact that wic moms were havin

eight states are going to be doing that. 24 states have applied, and senator stabenow and i are going to be talking more about what happens and what we might do to encourage those other 16 states. and the president says he wants to spend more money in mental health. i hope that everybody understands that if you don't have a place to go, it really doesn't matter how you share the information about what your mental health provider last told you or how many mental health providers you have if there is no place to go and access points and treating behavioral health like all other health is what excellence in mental health did. let me close with one final area. i think there's a lot of response to understanding, addressing the opioid epidemic, the drug issue. deaths from prescription drugs, from prescription opioids, pain-relieving drugs, quadrupled between 1999 and 2013, claiming more than 145,000 lives over the past ten years, but a substantial portion of those lives just over the last couple of years. these overdoses cost the economy an estimated $20 billion in medical costs and lost wo

includes a moderate version of the innovation act by senator peters, senator alexander and senator stabenow which will provide them a clear direction for its research mission. we've worked hard to make sure it's bipartisan, and we can make sure our innovative vehicle technologies are bipartisan, too. i'm looking forward to what the witnesses will provide. we do have a vote scheduled for 10:30 this morning, and i know the panel needs to leave by 11:30, so we will be expeditious here this morning. >> thank you for holding this important hearing. vehicles affect almost all americans, and today's hearing is a way to talk about the new vehicle technology, so i'm interested in hearing from our panelists about the changes that we're seeing in the transportation sector. the u.s. auto industry has come back during the last seven years, and it has sold a record number of vehicles last year, but there is still a lot of work to be done. american vehicles are still very dependent on oil. in fact, our transportation is responsible for 77% of petroleum uses and nearly 30% of greenhouse gas emission, so wh

[applause] >> michigan senator, debbie stabenow, tweeted in response to last night date of the state that governor snyder needs to tell the people of flint how he plans on helping them. she retweeted a message saying governor snyder has pledged to release his e-mails from 2014 and 2015 related to the water contamination in flint. attorney general loretta lynch was on capitol hill this morning to answer questions about the president's executive action on guns in the justice department roles on the new rules. we will show you that tonight at 8:00 eastern. then coverage of some of the lesser-known presidential candidates, more than 20 candidates spoke at anselm college in manchester. that's on c-span2 at 8:00. >> c-span's campaign 2016 is taking you on the road to the white house with the iowa caucuses. getting february 1 on c-span and c-span2, we bring you live pre-caucus coverage, taking your tweets and texts and phone calls. live coverage begins of the republican caucus and on c-span2, live coverage of the democratic caucus. stay with c-span and join in on the conversation at c-span.

this was a priority that senator peters of michigan, as well as senator stabenow of michigan, and senatorn working collaboratively on, so we were able to help advance that discussion with vehicle innovation. we agreed to a new -- dosh excuse me, to renew the r&d program on coal at the department of energy. this was advanced by senator manchin and senator capito. we agreed to protect reliability within the electric sector, an incredibly important part of what we do in this legislation. many of us believe that reforms were necessary and we have done just that to ensure that we don't have taxpayers at risk with certain aspects of that program. we agreed to reauthorize -- and this was something that the minority leader mentioned was the land and water conservation fund. as folks will recall, the authorization -- or that authorization expired toward the end of last year. we were successful within the omnibus to advance a three-year extension of that. but what we did within the committee was we advanced permanent authorization of land and water conservation fund, but we put reforms within that

have been reports of multiple recommendations to increase human capital specifically noting the stabenow and what are you doing to address them in the leadership and the district offices? >> yes, again, i think that continutity is important to insure continuous program benefits so i am committed to that work. we are reconstructing many of the job descriptions to make sure they are forward looking and responding to the evolving technology and communication standards and generally the way entrepreneurship is going. earlier the member mentioned the importance of being nimble and it is an art form and a science to be nimble and follow sops and all of the general performance and results modernization act and dodd-frank and this is my life, right? to make sure i am crossing every t and dotting every i. the characterization, these allegations are valid, i respect to gao but i must tell you each and every day sba employees are working hard and dedicated. and i don't think people have an appreciation that we are talking about half a dozen people who are managing states of challenges and business

the advanced vehicle technologies program senators stabenow and peters and senator alexander all worked on this section of the legislation to try to, as i mentioned earlier, drive safe fuel efficiency into advanced trucks as we have in automobiles. this is something in my state where companies like pack car and the pacific northwest laboratories are already trying to drive down the cost of truck transportation. why? because they see how much freight the united states is moving to overseas markets. we see that we have products that we're going to sell to developing overseas world but we have to move them cost effectively, so we've put a lot of work into making our truck transportation more efficient. and i thank senator warren for her work on the energy information administration and senator manchin for his work on workforce issues which i'm sure we're going to continue to hear about when we come to the floor as it relates to our mine workers and a variety of other people of how we keep transitioning to training and making sure we have the workforce for tomorrow. and lastly, i just want

senators debbie stabenow and peters and congressman dan kildee sent a letter to the president urgingt michigan's request for federal aid and see with this new development, thomas, how this progresses. >> swift moving now that they have finally taken this so serious seriously. thank you very much. >>> just as the world health organization declares an end to the biggest outbreak of 0 bah la, another virus, the zika virus, spreads across latin america and the caribbean and passed mostly by mosquitos and suspected of severe birth defects and no treatment or vaccine. i want to bring in dr. cory abar at health sciences centers. doc, good to see you. explain how worried we should be about this virus and why it is being linked to birth defects. >> well, i mean, you should be very worried. we hate to hate to be alarmists but be very clear. it is around for a long time. part of a family and passed by the mosquito. sap type of virus as fever but there's babies born with a small brain and a small head. they saw the increase in one year from 150 babies to 3,500 babies and really at that spoint th

her guests include flint mayor, karen weaver, senator debbie stabenow, as well as local doctors, researcherss. you can catch all of that wednesday night at 9:00 eastern, 6:00%, only here on msnbc. >>> coming up, dnc chairwoman debbie wasserman schultz joins us live from iowa ahead of tonight's democratic forum. what she makes of the president's take on the primary field and bernie sanders' rise in the polls. hey! this is lloyd. to prove to you that the better choice for him is aleve. he's agreed to give it up. ok, but i have 30 acres to cover by sundown. we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. yeah, i was ok, but after lunch my knee started hurting again so... more pills. yep... another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? for my pain... i want my aleve. get all day minor arthritis pain relief with an easy open cap. you can fly across welcome town in minutes16, or across the globe in under an hour. whole communities are living on mars and solar satellites provide earth with unlimited clean power. in less than a century, boeing took the world from seaplanes to space pl

we have senator debbie stabenow, democrat from michigan. to talk about the automotive resurgence there. >> right. >> is that off message considering the grave hardships in that state? >> well, first ever all, chris, we have seen a great turnaround in the auto industry. that's the good news. but what is happening in flint is really outrageous. you're right on. it's not done. it's almost been two years. since the very beginning, when people complained about the smell, the taste of the water, epa did testing and the governor attacked the epa for being wrong. then a flint pediatrician found out there were higher lead levels in children. they attacked the pediatrician. it was only finally, after there was great public attention on it, that they even took this seriously at all. today, you still can't drink the water. you can't bathe your children. one gentlemen said you can't take a shower in bottled water. i'm trying to make sure every low income mom who is mixing baby formula is not doing it in that dirty water, even though i have a commitment

along with my michigan colleagues, senator stabenow and representative kill de, i have been -- kildee, i have been working tirelessly to levy all available resources for flint. the effects of lead on children are insidious, causing long-term development problems, nervous system damage and decreased bone and muscle growth. there is no cure, but we can mitigate these problems with a commitment to delivering nutrition, education, health care and other wraparound services that a generation of flint children now need more than ever. my colleagues and i have requested that the u.s. department of agriculture allow existing programs to provide ready to feed infant formula which does not need to be mixed with water to all infants in flint. we have urged the department of health and human services to make head start available for every eligible child in the city of flint. we are working to make sure every flint resident has access to affordable health care and are encouraging residents to purchase coverage through the open enrollment at healthcare.gov before january 31 deadline or sign up for m