This is good news. The only problem will be where it goes to states with Republican administrators who don't spend it on its intended purpose. You know there'll be some of that.The first major infusion of federal cash from the bipartisan infrastructure law is on its way to states to overhaul the country's aging water infrastructure and dangerous lead pipes.
The Biden administration announced Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency will distribute $7.4 billion to states, tribes and territories for 2022 focused on water infrastructure grants and loan forgiveness. The funding is part of a broader $50 billion investment in water infrastructure from the infrastructure law, which will be doled out over five years.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in an interview that it is the "single largest investment in water infrastructure" in the history of the federal government.
NBC
Don't hold your breath.The Biden administration has only limited say in how the money gets spent. Some of the funding will flow through federal grants, which the administration can issue to specific projects. But the majority of the dollars will be distributed to states, which will ultimately decide what projects they want to fund.
That has created a challenge for the administration to ensure that the money is spent in a way that meets its goals, such as focusing funds on underserved and disadvantaged communities, rather than on other priorities that states may have.
In a letter being sent to governors Thursday and obtained by NBC News, Regan said the federal government and the states "share the same goals" and implored them to focus their share of funds on low-income, disadvantaged and minority communities.
Can we expect Flint, Michigan, to finally get cleaned up? Again, don't hold your breath.The money includes $2.9 billion specifically earmarked to replace lead pipes — President Joe Biden has promised that every remaining lead pipe in the country will be eliminated under the deal. Another $866 million will be designated to deal with "forever chemicals" and other water contaminants that threaten the drinking water supply, the EPA said.
Swell guy that orange man.Former President Trump ripped into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) once again on Wednesday, giving the leader an invective-filled ultimatum to stand firm against raising the debt ceiling and keep his conference unified against President Biden’s spending agenda.
Trump blasted his former Senate ally as “stupid” and a “fool” and accused him of “incompetence” in a long, tangled statement that jumped from expressing displeasure over Republican votes on a procedural motion related to raising the debt limit in October, to Congress’s passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill this month, to the ongoing Democratic talks over a social spending bill.
Trump’s scathing statement follows several similar attacks in recent days in which he lashed out at “Old Crow” McConnell.
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“McConnell is a fool and he damn well better stop their ‘Dream of Communism Bill’ and keep his Senators in line, or he should resign now, something he should have done a long time ago. Use the Debt Ceiling like it should have been used, you Old Broken Crow, to do so would hurt our Country far less than this horrible Bill,” Trump declared in a statement released through his Save America PAC.
The Hill
Yes, McConnell is still a piece of shit.[McConnell] defended his vote for the infrastructure bill on Tuesday by noting it “did not raise taxes, did not revisit the 2017 tax bill.”
“From the Kentucky point of view, it was extremely good for our state. I’m proud of my vote,” he said.
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“Mitch McConnell couldn’t stop the first Bill so 19 Senators, including himself, joined in. That’s what he does—if you can’t beat them, join them. If he wasn’t so stupid and didn’t give the two-month extension, he could have stopped it all. Now he and his RINO friends will allow a much bigger and far worse Bill to pass, ruining our Country while giving the Democrats a great political lift, all at the same time,” [Trump] said.
McConnell has refused to respond to Trump’s attacks and regularly deflects them by saying he’s more focused on fighting what he sees as the most extreme elements of Biden’s agenda, such as $550 billion in new spending to fight climate change.
A chicken dick.McConnell has touted the infrastructure bill during a series of stops in Kentucky this week, where he's discussed the amount of money the state will get and the infrastructure projects that are expected to get funding.
"This bill was basically written in the Senate by a bipartisan group," McConnell said during the Thursday radio interview. "I think it was good for the country and I'm glad it passed."
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McConnell is one of 19 Senate Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill in the Senate earlier this year. The House passed the bill last week with the support of 13 House Republicans.
But his support for the bill has sparked criticism from former President Trump, who lashed out at the Senate GOP leader as recently as this week, questioning in a statement why "Old Crow Mitch McConnell voted for a terrible Democrat Socialist Infrastructure Plan."
I bet Terry McAuliffe is complaining that if they'd only done it a week earlier, he could have won the Virginia governorship.House Democrats have passed a $1tn bill to rebuild the nation’s ageing infrastructure after months of delay, delivering Joe Biden a long-awaited legislative victory that he boasted would put the US “on a path to win the economic competition for the 21st century”.
Applause filled the chamber as a bipartisan group of lawmakers gave final passage to the measure late on Friday night, sending it to Biden’s desk. The vote was 228 to 206, with 13 Republicans supporting the bill and six leftwing Democrats opposing it.
Guardian
Joe finally goes to work.Unexpected losses in Virginia and elsewhere across the country earlier this week injected a sense of urgency into the deliberations, with Democrats eager to prove they could govern a year after voters gave them control of the White House and Congress.
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In a second vote, held shortly after midnight, the House voted 221-213 to clear a procedural hurdle that paves the way for a final vote on a $1.75tn domestic policy and climate change bill, which they hope to pass before Thanksgiving.
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Under the terms of a truce, brokered by Biden and Democratic leaders, progressives agreed to end their blockade against the infrastructure bill in exchange for a commitment from moderates to support the social policy and climate change package, known as the Build Back Better Act, in a vote later this month if an official estimate of its cost and economic impact are consistent with White House projections.
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The five centrist holdouts in the House agreed to the term to support the bill “as expeditiously as we receive the information” from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), but no later than 15 November. If there is a discrepancy between the cost estimates, the group said they remain committed to resolving them.
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As negotiations dragged into the evening, Biden delayed a trip to his home in Delaware to remain in Washington to continue lobbying lawmakers.
By all means, don't raise taxes on corporations. I wonder why Kyrsten Sinema insisted on that.[O]ne sign of progress came late Thursday afternoon. [Arizona senator Kyrsten] Sinema has now agreed to a package of tax changes that would meet the president's goal of fully paying for the social spending package, according to a source familiar with Sinema's thinking. These changes would not impact the corporate rate, according to this source.
NPR
For a mere 14,000 people in West Virginia's coal industry, the planet will die as far as Manchin is concerned.The president had touted the Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP), which provides incentives for utility companies to switch to greener technologies and fines those who don't, as the centerpiece of his climate agenda. He saw it as a tool that could achieve his goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030. But the program has been dropped because Manchin, who represents a state heavily reliant on coal production, doesn't support it.
Sure.Biden, Pelosi and other congressional Democrats, are scheduled to travel to the COP26 climate change conference in Scotland at the end of the month, so negotiators are sorting through various other proposals that Manchin can back — a mix of tax credits and other programs — and that can show world leaders the U.S. is making good on its climate goals.
Doesn't sound encouraging.The expanded child tax credit that was enacted as part of this spring's coronavirus relief package has been credited with dropping child poverty rates. Democrats view it as a key policy achievement. Biden had hoped to extend it for four more years. Democrats say now the plan is to extend the tax credit for just one year.
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Paid family leave has also been scaled back in this smaller bill. During a CNN Town Hall in Baltimore Thursday evening, Biden said "it is down to four weeks." He had originally proposed 12 weeks.
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Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proposed to expand Medicare to cover vision, hearing and dental procedures. The costs for all three could prove too expensive in this smaller package. Biden said it would be a "reach" to get all three, but progressives say the president is committed to including something in the final bill. They also say Medicaid coverage is also expected to be expanded, but gave few details.
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The Democrats' original bill included a plan for two years of free community college, but it is one item that both progressives and moderates said was not going to make it in a final deal.
Asshat.The [$550 billion] infrastructure package to upgrade transportation systems and power transmission has divided Senate Republicans, despite it being an area that has been seen for many years as one area of mutual interest for both parties to work together. Several Republican senators, including Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, blasted the overall price tag and said they would oppose the bill.
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“President Donald Trump recommended a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package. Republicans were all on board,” Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who was part of the group that negotiated the current package, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “If Republicans were on board for former President Trump, we are one-third the cost and have it paid for, it seems like something that should be acceptable.”
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Seventeen Republicans joined with Democrats in a vote this week to begin the process of considering the legislation, but 32 Republicans voted no.
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Trump has panned the deal and threatened to oppose GOP members who support the deal.
“It will be a continued destruction of our Country,” Trump said in a statement earlier this week. “If this deal happens, lots of primaries will be coming your way!”
Bloomberg
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway."The budget committee has come to an agreement. The budget resolution with instructions will be $3.5 trillion," Schumer said, speaking to reporters with Sanders and other members of the panel. "Every major program that President Biden has asked us for is funded in a robust way." The deal will also include funding for expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing and addressing climate change — key asks from progressives, including Sanders. A Democratic aide familiar with the deal said that the budget resolution will also include language prohibiting taxes from being raised on individuals who make less than $400,000 or small businesses.
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The agreement is a significant breakthrough for Democrats' infrastructure push as the party faces a tight timeline and even tighter margins to advance Biden's sweeping jobs and families plan.
Schumer has vowed to hold votes on two pieces before the Senate breaks for the August recess: a smaller bipartisan deal for $1.2 trillion over eight years and the budget resolution that includes the instructions for and sets up a separate Democratic-only bill.
Senate Democrats want to bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the floor as soon as next week, though negotiators have warned that is an ambitious pace. Democrats didn't say on Tuesday night when specifically they will be ready to take the budget resolution to the floor.
To pass both the budget resolution and a subsequent $3.5-trillion infrastructure bill through the Senate Democrats will need total unity from all 50 of their members.
The Hill
Is this a new tune for Manchin?Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Tuesday that he's supportive of going forward with a larger, Democratic-only infrastructure bill but that it shouldn't be linked to a separate bipartisan framework.
Manchin, during an interview with MSNBC, said that he had been assuming since "day one" that Democrats would have to use reconciliation, a budget process that allows them to bypass a 60-vote legislative filibuster, to pass a larger infrastructure bill because Republicans don't want to make changes to the 2017 tax bill.
“We're going to have to work it through reconciliation, which I’ve agreed that that can be done. I just haven’t agreed on the amount, because I haven’t seen everything that everyone is wanting to put in the bill," Manchin said on MSNBC.
The Hill
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Democrats are still in the early stages of trying to figure out how big to go in a Democratic-only infrastructure bill. But they have no room for error in the Senate, where they need all 50 of their members and Vice President Harris to pass an infrastructure bill under reconciliation.
And Manchin has long been viewed as the biggest hold out on greenlighting a Democratic-only bill.
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The bipartisan plan was thrown into limbo late last week after President Biden suggested he wouldn't sign the agreement if it didn't come to his desk with the larger Democratic-only bill. Biden walked back that statement over the weekend, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has warned that the House won't take up the Senate bipartisan deal until they also pass the Democratic-only bill. Manchin, during the MSNBC interview on Tuesday, argued that the two bills shouldn't be linked, urging that Democrats should "take the win" on the bipartisan agreement.
Good luck with that.Biden had said on Thursday that he would not sign a bipartisan deal on infrastructure unless a larger reconciliation deal was passed through the Senate, but on Saturday he attempted to walk back some of those remarks.
"At a press conference after announcing the bipartisan agreement, I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Families Plan and other priorities, including clean energy," Biden said in a statement released by the White House Saturday afternoon.
"That statement understandably upset some Republicans, who do not see the two plans as linked; they are hoping to defeat my Families Plan—and do not want their support for the infrastructure plan to be seen as aiding passage of the Families Plan.
“My comments also created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent,” he added.
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The president announced the deal in front of the White House surrounded by the lawmakers including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), among others.
However, during a press conference later in the day, the president indicated that he would not sign the bipartisan deal unless a reconciliation bill came "in tandem."
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Some progressives threatened not to support the bill unless Biden passed a separate reconciliation bill through the Senate, which would only need the support of 50 Democratic senators.
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Several Republicans have already signaled that they were against a reconciliation bill fast-tracked by Senate Democrats, especially after some had signaled openness to the bipartisan proposal.
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“No deal by extortion! It was never suggested to me during these negotiations that President Biden was holding hostage the bipartisan infrastructure proposal unless a liberal reconciliation package was also passed,” [Lindsey] Graham tweeted on Friday.
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Biden signaled that he planned to pursue both plans.
“I will ask Leader Schumer to schedule both the infrastructure plan and the reconciliation bill for action in the Senate. I expect both to go to the House, where I will work with Speaker Pelosi on the path forward after Senate action. Ultimately, I am confident that Congress will get both to my desk, so I can sign each bill promptly,” Biden said, referring to Democratic congressional leadership.
The Hill
Gullible.President Biden’s deal with a bipartisan group of 10 senators is throwing a lifeline to one of Washington’s most endangered species: The political center.
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The breakthrough came after a cycle of closed-door meetings.
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Thursday’s breakthrough will only be the start of a weeks— if not months-long—slog to get an infrastructure package to Biden’s desk.
The bipartisan agreement is already facing pushback from both sides of the aisle.
Some Republicans warn that Biden’s threat to not sign the bill unless a larger package is passed through special budgetary rules sidestepping the filibuster is a “dealbreaker.”
Progressives want an “iron-clad” commitment that the bipartisan package won’t become law unless the sweeping Democratic-only bill has a clear path to Biden’s desk.
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“This reminds me of the days that we used to get an awful lot done in the United States Congress. ...We get bipartisan deals. Bipartisan deals mean compromise,” Biden said, at one point gripping Portman on the shoulder.
“A lot of us go back a long way,” he added. “They have my word, I'll stick with what they propose. And they’ve given me their word as well. Where I come from that’s good enough for me.”
The Hill
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Thursday that it was "inevitable" that Democrats would move forward with a separate, Democrat-only infrastructure package — it was just a question of what the size and scope will be.
"Reconciliation is inevitable because basically Republicans I understand on the tax they don't want to undo anything on the 2017 [bill]."
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Progressives are sending warning shots that they want concrete details on what will be in the Democrat-only bill before they agree to help pass the bipartisan package. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), amid progressive pressure, vowed on Thursday that her chamber will not pass the bipartisan package until it is ready to pass the Democrat-only bill.
Manchin endorsed the two-track system on Thursday.
"The only strategy we have is two tracks. I think we're going to do, hopefully ... the bipartisan agreement see if we can get that done and then move to the other one," Manchin said.
The Hill
