Infrastructure Bill Passes Another Procedural Hurdle, But Challenges Loom Ahead

July 31, 2021

The Senate voted Friday to begin debate on a bipartisan infrastructure package, easily clearing another procedural hurdle as senators scramble to move to final passage on a key priority for President Joe Biden in the coming days before the August recess.

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But the confusion and frustration that clouded the day underscored the challenging road ahead for the $550 billion in new spending on physical infrastructure priorities of both the White House and Congress – and Democrats' separate spending plan through budget reconciliation.

Friday's vote initially got delayed after some last-minute disagreements over a bill that the bipartisan working group and staffers were still finalizing. But the Senate ultimately held the procedural vote and agreed to start debate on the forthcoming legislation and amendments. Similar to the vote on Wednesday, the package garnered 66 votes and more than a dozen Republicans. But this time, they only needed a simple majority to move the process forward.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York laid out a possible timeline with the process wrapping up "in a matter of days." As he has repeatedly warned, senators could possibly work over the weekend. And while the dynamics are still very fluid, the Democratic leader has made one thing clear: He wants the bill – and the $3.5 trillion budget proposal wrapped up by next Friday, when lawmakers leave town for a month for August recess.

"Given the bipartisan nature of the bill, the Senate should be able to process this legislation rather quickly. We may need the weekend. We may vote on several amendments," Schumer said Friday morning. "But with the cooperation of our Republican colleagues, I believe we can finish the bipartisan infrastructure bill in a matter of days."

As of late Friday afternoon, the text of the bill still hadn't been released. Several drafts of legislative text floated around Capitol Hill throughout the day, but members of the bipartisan group said none were the final product. Senators who are part of the infrastructure group, however, said the legislation could become public by Friday evening or Saturday as they work to put the final touches on new investments in roads, bridges, public transit, broadband, rail, electric vehicles and water infrastructure.

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"We are close to finalizing legislative text that reflects the work of the bipartisan working group and hope to make it public later today," GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said in a statement. "When legislative text is finalized that reflects the product of our group, we will make it public together consistent with the bipartisan way we've worked for the last four months."

Portman told reporters that he received assurances from Schumer that the GOP senator's amendment with Sinema – the final text from the bipartisan group – will replace the legislative vehicle used to move the infrastructure package forward.

Final passage of the bill isn't guaranteed in the Senate, even with initial support from a sizable number of Republicans. But the greater challenge will likely come once it reaches the House, where progressives want their support for the bipartisan bill to be conditioned on a vote for the $3.5 trillion budget deal that includes top party priorities like education, health care, immigration and climate.

But progressive and moderate Democrats are in a standoff with drastically different approaches to all of the new spending.

While progressives expect the two bills to be linked, moderates are hyper-focused on the bipartisan bill and have raised concerns about the price tag of the Democrat-only bill that'll be passed through budget reconciliation. That process lowers the vote threshold from 60 to 51 votes, meaning Democrats in the split 50-50 Senate won't need support from Republicans, though it requires zero defections among their own party.

Key moderates in the Senate like Sinema and Jon Tester of Montana say they'll agree to move the budget proposal with reconciliation instructions forward but indicated that they want serious compromise when it comes to the topline numbers. That's expected to come in direct conflict with progressives who had pushed for an amount more than double the size.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has said that the lower chamber won't move on the bipartisan infrastructure legislation until the Senate also sends over the Democrat-only bill – a strategy likely to complicate the maneuvering of both pieces of legislation.

"We need to be transformative in terms of how we go forward with infrastructure investments and reconciliation bills that truly meet families' needs," Pelosi said at her Friday press conference.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-07-30/infrastructure-bill-passes-another-procedural-hurdle-but-challenges-loom-ahead