Harris returns, touts jobs plan
Vice president says Biden’s infrastructure proposal is ‘about building up America’s workforce’
For the first time since her historic ascension as the nation’s first female vice president, Kamala Harris returned to her native Oakland on Monday to promote the Biden administration’s ambitious proposal to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and create jobs.
Along with Gov. Gavin Newsom, a longtime political ally, Harris toured the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s water treatment plant, speaking to employees and touting the district as the kind of operation that should be emulated.
“It is great to be in Oakland, and to be home,” Harris told a small pool of reporters and photographers outside the facility after pulling up in a black SUV with a number of Secret Service agents and others in her entourage.
After Harris and Newsom mingled with several EBMUD leaders and employees, the vice president noted the utility district “has been doing work that is a model for the country of what we need to do.”
Harris’ tour of the facility comes days after President Joe Biden unveiled the American Jobs Plan, a proposal to invest $2.3 trillion into infrastructure and jobs by upgrading roads, airports and transit systems, replacing all lead pipes and service lines in drinking water systems, and building and renovating housing, schools and commercial buildings.
The jobs plan hinges on getting congressional approval for reforming the tax code to increase the amount corporations must pay in taxes. If passed, it would set the corporate tax rate at 28% and close various elements of the 2017 tax law that allowed companies to use the taxes they pay in some countries to “shield profits in tax havens,” which the Biden administration says encourages offshoring of jobs.
Harris highlighted the water portion of the plan, saying the goal is to invest in jobs that can build up, replace and modernize water infrastructure — all with the goal of getting clean drinking water to everyone.
She briefly mingled with a couple of employees who had been promoted from union apprentices to, eventually, district plumbers and carpenters, asking them what they had learned during that time and what skills are
needed for modern water plant jobs such as those of pipefitters, electricians and machinists.
Those are the kinds of union jobs the infrastructure proposal aims to create, she said. “It’s about building up America’s workforce.”
The administration wants to give grants to individual property owners in rural communities who have water well and sewage systems that need upgrades but can’t afford to make them, Harris explained.
“We must understand how precious this resource is,” she said.
Newsom thanked the vice president for drawing attention to the state’s water issues.
“As you can hear, you don’t need to educate the vice president about water policy,” Newsom said after Harris outlined her concerns about making sure everyone has access to clean water.
Newsom noted that the recent California snowpack survey registered at just 59% of average, marking another dry year in the state.
Much of the West Coast faces “mega drought conditions,” making water issues critical, Newsom added.
That’s why the infrastructure plan is a “game changer” that would “complement the efforts happening at the local level,” he said.
Harris also visited a small catering business in West Oakland, Red Door Catering, to showcase how businesses benefited from the federal relief package recently passed to address the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, according to reports from the media pool.
Harris’ tour in Oakland lasted about five hours, and at 2:30 p.m. she was scheduled to travel back to Los Angeles, where she had spent the weekend.
Harris was born in Oakland and raised in Berkeley. She started her career as a prosecutor with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and called the Bay Area home for years as San Francisco District Attorney.