“In the process of legislating, there are periods where people want to have their voice heard,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said when asked about Carper’s objections. “We support that” and it’s “part of the messy process of legislating,” she said.
Negotiators are still working on exactly how much money to funnel to transit systems, according to Romney and Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. Some Republicans have argued that, given the large boost in the bill for transit, future highway trust fund disbursement for that area should be reduced to 18% from 20%. Democrats say the traditional 20% share of the trust fund, which is primarily funded by the gas tax, should be maintained.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made an attempt Wednesday to start debate on the bill, seeking to accelerate its consideration, but Republicans blocked the move, arguing they needed to see a deal first.
“If it’s not ready for Monday vote, we’re going to lose a couple of weeks on our August recess,” Montana Democrat Jon Tester, another member of the negotiating group, said. “So it’s got to be ready.”
Schumer indicated on the Senate floor Thursday he is prepared to keep the Senate in session past its Aug. 9 recess date to finish work on both the infrastructure bill and a separate, multi-trillion dollar budget bill carrying much of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.
“My colleagues on both sides should be assured: as majority leader, I have every intention of passing both major infrastructure packages—the bipartisan infrastructure framework and a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions—before we leave for the August recess,” Schumer said. “I laid out that precise schedule both publicly and privately and I intend to stick with it.”
Even if the infrastructure bill makes it through the Senate in the coming weeks, it could face some significant resistance among progressives in the House who have clamored for more spending.
“We’re not just going to rubber stamp what the Senate sends our way,” Georgia Democratic Representative Nikema Williams said on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power with David Westin.”
Williams raised concerns that the Senate bill does not do enough to help Black communities still feeling the effects of the 1956 Federal Highway Act.
Williams was one of 30 Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to sign on to a letter Wednesday to the Democratic leadership in both chambers urging them to include many of the provisions in an infrastructure bill that was previously passed in the House.
“We won’t resolve these problems by continuing the status quo and spending more money through a broken and outdated system,” they wrote.
Oregon Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio, the committee’s chairman, said Wednesday at a progressive rally that the Senate bill had only “a little green dressing on the side.”
“We can’t afford to do that for our people, for our safety, for our climate, for our country, for the world. This is our time,” he added.
—With assistance from MacKenzie Hawkins, Jarrell Dillard, Laura Litvan and Jenny Leonard.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.