Dems' $760B infrastructure plan likely will go now here with GOP
— House Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a five-year, $760 billion framework for rebuilding the nation’s highways, airports and other infrastructure, laying out an election-year package with little chance of enactment after bipartisan talks with the White House on the issue failed to gain traction.
The outline, billed as the “Moving Forward Frame- work,” provides a founda- tion for legislation that is being drafted or debated in House committees.
It is the product of a collaboration led by Reps. Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, the chairman of the House Trans- portation and Infrastructure Committee; Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
“This is not just about fixing our roads and bridges,” the three said in a joint statement. “It is about seizing the opportunity to make trans- formational changes in com- munities of all sizes, in every corner of our country.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Cal i fornia and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Mary- land, the majority leader, announced the plan Wednesday, after a closed-door presentation to the House Democratic caucus.
Democrats also renewed calls for bipartisan talks with the White House to forge an agreement on infrastruc- ture, the aide said, includ- ing a mechanism to pay for it. But after they struck an initial deal with President Donald Trump last spring to pursue a $2 trillion package, talks faltered over how to finance the initiative, and the president stormed out of a meeting on the topic, declaring he could not work with Democrats until they stopped investigating him.
“We thought we would be able to move in a positive way on this,” Pelosi said at a news conference this month. “So far, they have not come on board. However, we’ve decided now, we’ll just have to go forward.”
The renewed push for agreement on an infrastruc- ture plan comes as Democrats, eager to shift the focus from the divisive impeachment proceedings against Trump, are mapping out an election-year agenda that showcases their policy priorities.
It is highly unlikely that the plan will prompt a genuine round of negotiations with the Republican-led Sen- ate and the White House that would yield legislation that could be signed into law before the election. But the rollout suggests that Dem- ocrats intend to spend the coming months passing a slate of popular infrastruc- ture bills to show voters, then seek to blame Repub- licans and the White House if they fail to succeed.
The 19-page plan proposed by Democrats includes $329 billion for investment in transportation systems, including improving safety measures for bicyclists and pedestrians, and $105 billion for transit agencies and main- tenance needs. The frame- work also includes $55 billion in railway investments for both the expansion of the country’s passenger rail network and improvement of Amtrak stations and ser- vices, $19.7 billion for the upkeep of harbors and ports, $86 billion for the expansion of broadband access and additional funds to address greenhouse gas pollution and increase climate resiliency.
There is also $21.4 billion for the preservation of clean drinking water and communities dealing with toxic chemicals that can contaminate drinking water, known as PFAS. Democrats struggled to include stronger regula- tions for PFAS in must-pass defense policy legislation late last year, and passed a stand-alone measure to do so in early January.
And while the framework also includes transportation and infrastructure legislation routinely addressed by Congress, Democrats made a point of emphasizing efforts to counter climate change and its effects.
An infrastructure plan has been an elusive goal for both the Trump administration and Congress over the past three years. The phrase “Infrastruc- ture Week” has become some- thing of a joke that encapsu- lates the dysfunction of Wash- ington in the Trump era, after the White House repeatedly scheduled one during Trump’s first two years in office, only to have it overshadowed by a jarring comment by the president or a damaging revelation about him.
Nine months before Elec- tion Day, a $1 trillion infrastructure plan is still one of Trump’s unfulfilled promises from his inaugural campaign.
The Senate has begun work on its own infrastructure legislation, with one highway bill passing unanimously out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this session. That bill authorizes $287 billion over five years, and includes provisions for road safety and programs to maintain and repair roads and bridges.
The template announced Wednesday is the first sig- nificant overture by Demo- crats on the issue since the blowup at the White House in May, when the president said he would not strike a compromise on infrastruc- ture while Democrats were working to investigate him.
“I walked into the room and I told Sen. Schumer and Speaker Pelosi: ‘I want to do infrastructure. I want to do it more than you want to do it. I’d be really good at that, that’s what I do. But you know what? You can’t do it under these circumstances. So get these phony investigations over with,’ “the president said at the time.