Senators negotiating a $579 billion infrastructure package are seeking to finish negotiations early this week, under pressure from colleagues to salvage an August recess and to allow the Senate to turn to preventing a government shutdown and debt ceiling default in the fall.
To speed discussions toward a conclusion the White House and Democrats on Sunday night made an offer aimed at covering all outstanding issues according to a Democrat familiar with the talks.
The primary unresolved issues include funding for highways and bridges, water, broadband, transit, the creation of an infrastructure bank and how much unspent COVID money can be used to pay for infrastructure, among other controversial items.
A pending five-week break scheduled to begin Aug. 9 is motivating the 22-member bipartisan group to end dickering over relatively minor components of their plan after Republicans spurned Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s deadline for action last week.
“If it’s not ready for Monday vote, we’re going to lose a couple of weeks on our August recess if we don’t, so it’s got to be ready,” Montana Democrat Jon Tester said last week.
Getting the deal turned into legislation that can pass Congress is a major political goal for President Joe Biden, who ran for office pledging to govern as a centrist who could work with the Republicans. That promise is widely seen as helping him win suburban swing voters, who also will have a significant role in deciding control of Congress in the 2022 midterms.
Finishing a bipartisan infrastructure plan also is pivotal to getting all Democrats on board with a budget outline setting up a $3.5 trillion tax and spending package that will carry most of Biden’s agenda through Congress without Republican votes. Schumer, a New York Democrat, said last week he would keep the Senate working past Aug. 9 if necessary to pass both.
By the time Congress returns in late September, lawmakers will be occupied with passing a stopgap bill to keep the government funded and running past the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. They also will need to raise or suspend the U.S. debt ceiling, which officially comes back into effect Aug. 1. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen raised the specter of an Oct. 1 payment default in a letter to congressional leaders on Friday.
Schumer has the ability to quickly stage a re-vote on his failed motion to begin infrastructure debate as soon as Monday, but people familiar with the talks say that’s likely to push later in the week given lingering disputes about how to pay for it, transit funding and other issues.
“We should pay for this increase in infrastructure spending by repurposing money we already approved, but hasn’t yet gone out the door,” Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who isn’t part of the negotiating group, said Sunday on CNN. “But that’s a point of great contention with the Democrats.”
A Republican aide familiar with the negotiations said billions of dollars still separate Democrats and Republicans on transit. The main dispute is over how to divide money from the highway trust fund between roads and transit. Democrats want 20% to go to transit and GOP lawmakers want a smaller portion.
In addition, there are still differences over the allocation of broadband internet funds, the re-purposing of unspent COVID-19 relief money and a Republican attempt to waive Davis-Bacon Act requirements that federally funded projects pay wages commensurate with local prevailing levels, according to a Democratic aide.
Republicans say Democrats in the negotiating group already agreed to exclude Davis-Bacon requirements from the deal and other Democrats are reneging.
Both aides asked for anonymity to talk about the private negotiations.
Counting votes
Even if the bipartisan group announces a deal on Monday, hurdles remain to getting the 60 votes needed in the Senate as well as a majority in the House. Some lawmakers not party to the negotiations who sit on the committees normally charged with writing infrastructure bills are pressing to ensure the deal does not bypass their priorities.
That includes Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is battling to increase the transit funds in the deal, and Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Tom Carper of Delaware, who wants the funds for waterworks to be raised. Meanwhile, House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio of Oregon wants to add a host of climate-related policies in his House-passed surface transportation act.
Ohio Senator Rob Portman, the main GOP negotiator, said on ABC’s “This Week” program that the group is “about 90% of the way there” and should be able to finish this week.
Biden aides have been involved in the discussions, but publicly the White House is staying out of the disputes.
“We’re encouraged by their progress, they’re having conversations and we think they can get through any disagreement,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.
Biden calculus
There is no sign negotiators would abandon the talks even if a deal isn’t sealed early this week, given the political importance to Biden. The president last week held a meeting with business and labor leaders to rally support for the infrastructure plan.
“It’s very clear to me that he is personally engaging, he is personally making sure that the 36 years he spent in the United States Senate and the relationships he developed there, he is tapping into that network,” said Heather Zichal, chief executive officer of the American Clean Power Association, who attended the meeting. Zichal was a top climate adviser in the Obama administration.
Centrist Republicans also want to be able to take credit for infrastructure improvements and the deal outlined by negotiators would allow them to do so without having to vote for tax increases or new deficit spending. They also know that if the deal falls apart, Democrats will cast blame by pointing to statements by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky that his focus is to stop the Biden agenda.
“What is going to blow up the whole deal if it blows up is McConnell wants Biden to fail,” Brown said last week, echoing many others in his party.
But Democrats will have to stay unified to assure completion of both pieces of their agenda. Progressives in the party insist that the infrastructure deal and the bigger budget package move in tandem.
“I won’t put it on the floor until we have the rest of the initiative,” Pelosi said of the infrastructure package on the ABC program.
Some Republicans are already lining up in opposition to the infrastructure plan, saying Pelosi’s linkage of it to the bigger budget measure with its tax hikes and spending makes it unpalatable for them.
“That will make it impossible for Republicans to support it,” Texas Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Friday on Bloomberg Radio’s “Sound On” program.
— With assistance from Nancy Cook, MacKenzie Hawkins, Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Steven T. Dennis
