The Senate gave overwhelming bipartisan approval to a $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Tuesday to rebuild the nation’s deteriorating roads and bridges and fund new climate resilience and broadband initiatives, delivering a key component of President Biden’s agenda.
The legislation would be the largest infusion of federal investment into infrastructure projects in more than a decade, touching nearly every facet of the American economy and fortifying the nation’s response to the warming of the planet.
It would provide historic levels of funding for the modernization of the nation’s power grid and projects to better manage climate risks, as well as pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the repair and replacement of aging public works projects.
The vote, 69-30, was uncommonly bipartisan; the yes votes included Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, and 18 other Republicans who shrugged off increasingly shrill efforts by former President Donald Trump to derail it.
This is good. But it’s only the beginning:
But the measure now faces a potentially rocky and time-consuming path in the House, where the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the nearly 100-member Progressive Caucus, have said they will not vote on it unless and until the Senate passes a separate, even more ambitious $3.5 trillion social policy bill this fall.
For Democrats, passage of the bill opened the way for consideration of their ambitious, $3.5 trillion budget plan, which is expected to be packed with policies to address climate change, health, education and paid leave. It will also include tax increases — and it is expected to generate unanimous Republican opposition.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, has said he intends to move immediately to take up the budget blueprint, unveiled on Monday, that would put Congress on track to pass that larger package unilaterally, using a process known as reconciliation that shields it from a filibuster.
The infrastructure legislation faces a tricky path in the House, where Ms. Pelosi has repeatedly said she will not take it up until the Senate clears the reconciliation bill.
The ultimatum has prompted mixed reactions in the House, as eight moderate Democrats, including Jared Golden of Maine and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, circulated a letter to Ms. Pelosi calling for a swift vote on the bipartisan deal.
But leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a letter to Ms. Pelosi, warned that a majority of its 96 members confirmed they would withhold their support for the legislation until the second, far more expansive package cleared the reconciliation process in the Senate.
“Whatever you can achieve in a bipartisan way — bravo, we salute it,” Ms. Pelosi said on Friday. “But at the same time, we’re not going forward with leaving people behind.”
I think Pelosi has this in hand. It’s the sort of thing she knows how to do to well.
But fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bloody fight. If the Democrats win, it could be the most productive legislative session since the New Deal. It’s huge.
But right now I’m listening to pundits blather on endlessly about Andrew Cuomo resigning. If this sort of thing continues (following the bright shining object) I’m not sure anyone’s going to know about it…