House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cast doubt on a drive by progressive Democrats to get some version of President Joe Biden’s agenda through Congress by March 1.
“We don’t have a timetable,” Pelosi said during an appearance Friday in her hometown of San Francisco. “We will pass the bill when we have the votes to pass the bill.”
Biden’s social spending and climate plan has been held up in the Senate since December, when Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia walked away from negotiations on the legislation, which had already been trimmed down from the measure that passed the House.
Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Thursday urged Senate Democrats to break the logjam so that Biden could feature it in his March 1 State of the Union address.
“That is an aspiration that they have,” Pelosi said in response to a question about Jayapal’s statement. “And we cannot stop pressing for that. It is so important.”
But she said, “we have other things to do,” including wrapping up a package of spending to fund the government, a bill to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry and “a number of other pieces of legislation.”
Biden’s plan, known as Build Back Better, was intended to be the centerpiece for Democratic congressional campaigns for the midterm elections this November. But Democrats have not been able to resolve differences over the size of the package and what should be included.
Manchin said in a radio interview Thursday that there have been conversations about potential compromises but no direct negotiations yet.
