Biden plan fuels lobbying in Congress
WASHINGTON » Members of Congress have begun a frenzy of lobbying to ensure that their pet projects and policy priorities are included in President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, eager to shape what could be one of the most substantial public works investments in a generation.
Officials across the country are dusting off lists of construction projects and social programs, hoping to secure their piece of a plan aimed at addressing what the administration estimates is at least $1 trillion worth of backlogged infrastructure improvements, as well as economic and racial inequities that have existed for decades.
Senior lawmakers have started collecting lists of requests from their colleagues
for what should be included in the bill, while top White House officials are fielding a torrent of calls from rankand-file lawmakers, all of whom have their own ideas.
“My phone is blowing up,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview. Nearly every lawmaker “can point to a road or a bridge or an airport” in his or her district that is in dire need of repair.
“There’s a ton of interest from Congress,” he said.
On Monday, Biden is set to meet at the White House with a group of Republicans and Democrats to discuss the plan, part of a push to forge a bipartisan compromise that may ultimately prove futile given GOP resistance to the scope of the package. The five Cabinet officials tapped to navigate the infrastructure package through Congress, including Buttigieg, are continuing to discuss the plan with both Republicans and Democrats.
“The door is open,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Our hand is extended. Let’s find out where we can find our common ground. We always have a responsibility to strive for bipartisanship.”
The process is crucial to Biden’s strategy for maneuvering the far-reaching plan through a Congress where his party has minuscule majorities, at a time when the space for a bipartisan compromise is narrow and even Democrats differ on how to structure and pay for such a huge package. Buttigieg said Sunday on Fox News that Biden wanted to see “major progress in Congress” by Memorial Day, and lawmakers are eager to weigh in.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., wants to tackle the Gateway rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Sen. Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky. and the minority leader, has suggested that surely the “functionally obsolete” Brent Spence Bridge in his state should receive funding. And progressive lawmakers have a five-part wish list that includes lowering drug costs and providing a pathway to citizenship for workers in the country illegally.
“If you want to get broad, bipartisan support, you invite other people to have some input into the process,” said Sen. Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, who leads the Environment and Public Works Committee. “Every senator has shared with us the priorities of their states. We’re getting good ideas.”
Rep. Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, are also asking lawmakers to identify priorities in their districts.
“I’ve been called the tunnel-obsessed congresswoman,” Sherrill said in an interview. “The Gateway Tunnel is the nation’s most important piece of infrastructure given the amount of people who go through the Hudson River tunnels, how decrepit they are and the economic blow we would take if those tunnels collapsed in any way.”
While infrastructure has long been hailed as the policy area with the ripest prospects for bipartisan cooperation, Congress has failed in recent years to agree on legislation that would fund long-term transportation projects beyond routine reauthorization of funding.
With Democrats newly in charge of both chambers of Congress and the White House, Biden is thinking much bigger. His proposal includes not just trillions in spending for highways, bridges and other physical facilities, but also huge new investments in areas that have not traditionally been seen as infrastructure, such as paid leave and child care.
That view, which critics say is too expansive and some progressives say needs to be bigger, has emboldened lawmakers in both chambers to try to use the package to accomplish all manner of policy priorities.
“Members are going to try to put as much on this vehicle as possible,” said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md.
While Republicans in both chambers have signaled that they are reluctant to support such an expensive and sweeping proposal paid for by tax increases, they are working to influence a final product that many of them may ultimately refuse to support.
“I think all of us would agree that we need a robust infrastructure package that focuses on roads, bridges, airports, seaports, water systems and broadband, but this proposal goes way beyond that,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of a bipartisan group searching for compromise, said in an interview. “It seems to me that our first goal should be to try to shape the package and reduce its cost.”
Biden and Democrats have repeatedly challenged
Republicans to engage in bipartisan negotiations. By incorporating Republicans’ proposals, including individual projects for their districts and states, Democrats hope to increase the political risks of voting against the bill. Some Republicans are already facing criticism for celebrating funding in the nearly $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package they unanimously opposed.
Yet the infrastructure measure has a far bumpier path to enactment than the stimulus package, which Democrats muscled through last month without any Republican votes. With narrow majorities in both chambers and conflicting ambitions for what could be one of the few major legislative vehicles this year, Democratic leaders are facing a steep challenge in steering the package through Congress.
“I think everyone realizes that we have to come together because failure is not an option,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said in an interview. The administration, he said, is “going to talk to many members — it is a big, broad bill — and try to incorporate
some good ideas that other members have, too.”
Schumer noted that the Biden administration had already included two of his priorities — funding to transition to clean cars and legislation meant to strengthen American technology investments and research — in the package, and will most likely accommodate other changes.
Buttigieg would not provide specifics on how officials would choose which transportation projects would get funding. But he said there would most likely be a mix of ways to fund proposals, including through existing grant programs and the creation of new funding streams.
Beth Osborne, the director of Transportation for America, an advocacy group, said the process of sorting through the competing priorities to produce the package will be a grueling one.
“God bless these staffers and members who have to figure this out,” said Osborne, a former Senate aide who helped work on the 2009 stimulus law. “On one hand, it’s going to be tough. On the other hand, this is why people come to D.C. to work.”