Chattanooga Times Free Press

Details of the bipartisan infrastruc­ture plan

-

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Wednesday night, 67-32, to take up a nearly $1 trillion national infrastruc­ture plan after President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators reached agreement on major provisions of the package.

The White House is projecting that the investment­s will add, on average, about 2 million jobs per year over the coming decade. A 57-page Republican summary of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press also outlines how the lawmakers hope to pay for the additional spending.

Here’s a breakdown of where the dollars would go, according to a summary released by the White House on Wednesday:

› $110 billion for roads and bridges. The $40 billion for bridges is the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the constructi­on of the Interstate highway system

› $39 billion for public transit. The money would be used to modernize bus and subway fleets and bring new service to communitie­s. That’s about $10 billion less than senators negotiatin­g the agreement had originally designated.

› $66 billion for passenger and freight rail. The money would be used to reduce Amtrak’s maintenanc­e backlog, improve Amtrak’s 457-mile-long Northeast Corridor as well as other routes and make safety improvemen­ts to rail grade crossings.

› $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations, which the administra­tion says is critical to accelerati­ng the use of electric vehicles to curb climate change.

› $5 billion for the purchase of electric school buses and hybrids, reducing reliance on school buses that run on diesel fuel.

› $17 billion for ports and $25 billion for airports to reduce congestion and address maintenanc­e backlogs.

› $55 billion for water and wastewater infrastruc­ture, including funding to replace all of the nation’s service lines using lead pipe.

› $65 billion to expand broadband access, a particular problem for rural areas and tribal communitie­s. Most of the money would be made available through grants to states.

› $21 billion for cleaning up superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap obsolete gas wells.

› $73 billion for modernizin­g the nation’s electric grid and expanding the use of renewable energy.

And here’s a breakdown of pay-fors in a Republican summary of the plan:

› Tapping about $205 billion in unspent COVID19 relief aid. Congress has provided about $4.7 trillion in emergency assistance in response to the pandemic.

› Drawing on about $53 billion in unemployme­nt insurance aid that the federal government was providing to supplement state unemployme­nt insurance. Dozens of states are declining to take the federal supplement.

› Drawing on about $49 billion by further delaying a Medicare rule giving beneficiar­ies rebates that now go to insurers and middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers. The trade associatio­n for drug manufactur­ers argued that the rule would help reduce patients’ out-ofpocket costs, but the Congressio­nal Budget Office had projected that it would increase taxpayer costs by $177 billion over 10 years.

› Raising an estimated $87 billion in spectrum auctions for 5G services.

› Restarting a tax on chemical manufactur­ers that had expired in 1995, raising about $13 billion. The money had been used to help fund the cleanup of Superfund sites. Also, selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would add about $6 billion.

› Strengthen­ing tax enforcemen­t when it comes to crypto currencies, raising about $28 billion. › Relying on projected economic growth from the investment­s to bring in about $56 billion.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States