Joe Donnelly and Todd Young, and East Chicago's mayor for closed-door meetings in an industrial corridor of in roughly 25 miles from downtown Chicago.
The predominantly low-income city is working to address the contamination issues, but community members and advocacy groups have said more resources are needed.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers representing the Midwestern states around the Great Lakes raised concerns over the past two days after a report by the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper that the EPA was considering closing its Region 5 office.
In February, Holcomb declared East Chicago a disaster area due to unsafe environmental issues emerging from the USS Lead Superfund site.
While in town, Pruitt toured the epicenter of its lead crisis, the West Calumet housing complex.
The pollution from the Superfund site is not the only issue facing the city.
Pruitt also met with government officials ― including Holcomb, Sen.
Reports of the closure alarmed both Republican and Democratic lawmakers from around the region, which relies on the EPA to carry out work state and municipal governments can not handle alone.
"If true, this report is shocking", said U.S. Representative Fred Upton, a Republican from MI.
North Koreans 'playing volleyball' at nuke site
The agency notes that this would be the first time that three games at the same location had been recorded. The status of the test site remained unclear, experts Joseph S.
The private sector is set to get a big boost under this administration, and the latest talk to limit the power of the public sphere involves pushing legal consideration to outside counsel, potentially bypassing the influence of longtime EPA employees in favor of kowtowing to corporate concerns. IL lawmakers and Chicago EPA workers said they've reached out to the EPA about the possible closure. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Jan Schakowsky, held a news conference to demand that Pruitt meet with office employees.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, officials with the American Federation of Government Employees, along with U.S. Reps.
"The administrator and governor are arriving at a moment where the residents of this city, these cities, literally are watching or witnessing their children being poisoned by lead in the water, heavy metals in the soil, contamination in their homes", Brooks said. "We wanted him to come for lunch and tell our employees the truth of the matter".
Residents and environmentalists are calling for more support and testing. The NAACP presented Pruitt with a list of demands, including a call for an executive order that would include a greater commitment to communities like East Chicago.
"East Chicago is a flawless example of the need for the specialized input and oversight of the EPA where there are concerns about the local and state response", Geertsma told HuffPost.
EPA officials did not respond to questions concerning the petition. In a statement, spokesman J.P. Freire said the agency is "focusing on getting results by improving environmental conditions and human health in places like East Chicago".
The meeting between Pruitt and residents was "intense", with people providing emotional first-person accounts, according to Robert Kaplan, acting regional administrator for EPA's Region 5 office in Chicago. But other stories have said the agency has been instructed to eliminate two of its regional offices.
She said her organization wants to see the EPA do more to protect the East Chicago community.
Meanwhile, residents of the small, majority-minority city are still waiting for a solution. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford) Eddis Marie Loving, of East Chicago, Ind., holds a sign as supporters and residents of East Chicago, Ind., rally near a public-housing complex Wednesday, April 19, 2017, ahead of a visit by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.
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