■ President Joe Biden and lawmakers are looking ahead to improving the nation’s infrastructure.
Effort is timely amid storm fallout in Texas
WASHINGTON — Looking beyond the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, President Joe Biden and lawmakers are laying the groundwork for another top legislative priority: a long-sought boost to the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure that could face Republican resistance to its hefty price tag.
Biden and his team have begun discussions on the possible outlines of an infrastructure package with members of Congress, particularly mindful that Texas’ recent struggles with power outages and water shortages after a brutal winter storm present an opportunity for agreement on sustained spending on infrastructure.
Republicans say if the White
House approach on the COVID relief bill — which passed the House Saturday on a near party-line vote and now heads to the Senate — is a sign of things to come for Biden’s plan on infrastructure and other initiatives, it could be a difficult road ahead in Congress.
“They made a conscious decision not to include us,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA., on Sunday, calling the White House’s assertion that the views of Republicans were taken into account with the COVID bill a “joke.”
Cassidy, one of 10 centrist Republicans who met with Biden in early
February about getting bipartisan support on that bill, said Biden “so far has been about rhetoric” when it comes to his pledge of seeking unity and bipartisanship. He called it worrisome for other legislative initiatives.
“Republicans remain willing and are working on issues that require bipartisan cooperation,” he told CNN’S “State of the Union.”
Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the new chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said his goal is for his committee to pass an infrastructure bill by Memorial Day.
In the House, Rep. Sam Graves, the top Republican on the transportation panel, said Republicans would be open to a larger package as long as it didn’t greatly add to the national debt.