Progressives look to prod Biden on housing, energy
Lawmakers seek triple the amount proposed in infrastructure plan
WASHINGTON — Top liberal lawmakers unveiled legislation Monday that would pour more than $100 billion over a decade into modernizing the public housing system and starting a transition to renewable energy, as progressives seek to prod President Joe Biden to expand his far-reaching infrastructure plan.
The legislation, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is the first of multiple proposals from progressives who are trying to shape the $2.3 trillion package, which Biden has said aims both to overhaul infrastructure and to address climate change and economic inequities.
Its proponents estimate that it would invest at least triple the amount that Biden has proposed to tackle a large backlog of improvements to the nation’s aging public housing system.
The proposal reflects the fraught politics surrounding the plan on Capitol Hill: To pass his plan, Biden can probably afford to lose no more than a few Democratic votes given the potential for united Republican opposition. Republicans say they want to compromise on the measure, but have panned it as too costly.
Democrats are broadly in favor, but their leaders will have to navigate between the demands of liberals like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, who want even more spending, and moderates who have signaled they would support a smaller package that could draw some Republican backing.
While the president has outlined the broad contours of his proposal, it is up to lawmakers to reach agreement on the final details of the legislation, and the package has already spurred a flurry of lobbying from rankand-file members.
The progressives’ latest proposal, called the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, is a prong of the broader climate platform that Ocasio-Cortez and others have championed to help the nation wean itself from fossil fuels. It would repeal limitations on the construction of public housing and create grant programs to ensure improvements that not only address unsafe and aging housing, but reduce carbon emissions.
“We’re here to make sure the Democratic Party upholds its values and keeps its promises, and to also push and expand the scope and the ambition of the Democratic Party,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She and other liberal lawmakers are expected to reintroduce additional parts of the Green New Deal platform this week.
To qualify for the grants, recipients would have to adhere to strong labor standards, such as protection of collective bargaining rights and the use of American manufacturing and products. The legislation would also fund tenant protection vouchers for displaced residents and create apprenticeship programs for residents.
“What’s different now is there really is an opportunity — a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — to address this backlog and have Congress address the funding that’s needed,” said Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “This may be the moment, at long last.”
When Biden outlined his proposal last month, he called for more than $40 billion to improve public housing infrastructure. At an event in New York on Sunday, a group of lawmakers from the state, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, pushed for at least double that figure.
“Public housing has been neglected, left to get worse, and we’re not going to stand for it anymore,” Schumer said. The president’s plan, he added, was “a good start, but it ain’t enough.”
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and their allies envision their proposal costing $119 billion to $172 billion over 10 years to meet the needs of the country, according to an estimate from the Climate + Community Project provided to The New York Times. It aims to create thousands of maintenance and construction jobs.
While some lawmakers have floated the prospect of splitting apart Biden’s plan and moving a scaled-back version first in an effort to win the 10 GOP votes needed to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate, the progressives are pushing for one huge bill that goes further.
“Probably our best bet would be one bill — and it should be a large bill,” Sanders said. “I think it’s just easier and more efficient for us to work as hard as we can in a comprehensive broad infrastructure plan, which includes human infrastructure as well as physical infrastructure.”
Republicans, who have sought to portray the Green New Deal as federal overreach that would harm the economy, have already seized on the climate and housing provisions in Biden’s plan as far beyond the traditional definition of infrastructure.
Biden is also preparing a second proposal that would focus even more on projects outside what Republicans call “real” infrastructure and could bring the total cost to $4 trillion.
“Republicans are not going to partner with Democrats on the Green New Deal or on raising taxes to pay for it,” Sen. John Barrasso, RWyo., said at a news conference last month.