On Wednesday, the Senate passed a critical milestone in the development of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure investment measure, moving it closer to official debate and possible passage.
The Senate voted 67-32 to take the first step toward discussing the bill, which has Democratic President Joe Biden's support.
On this first procedural vote, all 48 Democrats, two independents, and 17 Republicans voted in favor of the bipartisan agreement, which came after months of negotiations.
Additional procedural votes and debate on the law itself were scheduled to take place over the weekend and into the next week.
The bill, which includes spending for roads, bridges, broadband, and other physical infrastructure, is intended to be the first of two bills, to be followed by a $3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" package, which is opposed by Republicans and has some support among moderate Democrats.
The two lead Senate negotiators, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and Republican Senator Rob Portman announced the agreement to media separately on Wednesday.
Republicans blocked a similar proposal last week, claiming that the details were still being worked out. Details on transit and broadband were still being worked out in the latest draft, but parliamentarians stated that the legislative text would be completed soon.
"We're excited to have a deal," Sinema remarked. "We've got most of the test done, so we'll be releasing it and then we'll update it as we get those last pieces finalized."
According to the White House, the agreement includes $110 billion for roads, $73 billion for power grid spending, $66 billion for railways, $65 billion for broadband access expansion, $55 billion for clean drinking water, $50 billion for environmental resiliency, $39 billion for public transit, and $25 billion for airports.
Portman, responding to Republican lawmakers' concerns about money, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said the package is "more than paid for" and that "We look forward to moving ahead and having a healthy debate."
Officials stated that the package would be funded through a variety of methods. The most significant was the redistribution of $205 billion in COVID-19 relief money. Another was recovering $50 billion in unlawfully paid unemployment benefits during the pandemic, as well as convincing states to return unused federal unemployment payments, which raised another $50 billion.
With hospital admissions from the highly contagious Delta strain on the rise, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said he was looking into whether COVID-19 expenditure on hospitals and nursing homes is being tapped. "I'm gathering facts," he explained.
Biden's plans
The bill is an important aspect of Biden's broader domestic policy agenda. Democratic leaders intend to push through a $3.5 trillion budget "reconciliation" bill. Republicans have pledged to oppose the attempt, and Sinema expressed ambivalence about it in an interview with the Arizona Republic newspaper on Wednesday.
According to a White House fact sheet, the bipartisan measure will seek $550 billion in new spending, down from $579 billion in a framework that negotiators drew out a few weeks ago.
