Infrastructure plan clears procedural hurdle in Senate
WASHINGTON – The Senate could pass a sweeping infrastructure bill by the weekend now that it cleared a procedural hurdle Wednesday.
By a vote of 67-32, senators voted to advance the bipartisan bill – the largest transportation bill in U.S. history – clearing the way for one of President Joe Biden’s priorities.
The vote to move the bill to formal debate came only hours after the White House announced it reached a deal with the Senate on a mammoth bipartisan infrastructure package that has been in the works for weeks.
“This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function, deliver, and do big things. As we did with the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway, we will once again transform America and propel us into the future,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday in a statement from the White House before the vote.
Twenty-one centrist senators – 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats – have been trying to reach a compromise since Biden first unveiled his American Jobs Plan in April. But their scope has been around traditional transportation infrastructure, not Biden’s more ambitious proposals to address poverty, climate and economic injustice that progressives are demanding.
Senate Republicans last week blocked the start of formal debate on bipartisan infrastructure legislation because the bill text and cost weren’t available at the time. This time, GOP senators said enough details about the deal had been agreed to to get the ball rolling.
“Reaching this agreement was no easy task – but our constituents expect us to put in the hard work and show that two parties can still work together to address the needs of the American people,” a coalition of senators said.
The deal includes about $550 billion above what the federal gas tax and other fees are expected to generate over the next eight years, the White House says.
That money includes $40 billion in new funding for bridge repair and replacement, which the White House calls “the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system.”
There’s $66 billion to modernize Amtrak and increase high-speed rail corridors, $55 billion to rehabilitate clean-water systems and $65 billion to expand broadband to millions of Americans who found out how much high-speed internet meant in the pandemic.
The package would advance climate change priorities by spending $7.5 billion on electric charging stations and another $73 billion on clean energy transmission “by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy,” the White House said.