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Biden ends infrastructure talks with GOP; Schumer touts bipartisan plan
09 June 2021IHS Markit Energy Expert
US President Joe Biden ended negotiations with Senate
Republicans to craft a bipartisan infrastructure bill, but Senate
Majority Leader Charles Schumer, suggested later the same day that
another compromise plan by a bipartisan group of lawmakers might be
more acceptable to the White House.
Senator Shelley Moore Capito (Republican-West Virginia), who led
the Senate GOP negotiations with Biden, announced 8 June the
president had ended talks following Republicans' offer late last
week to increase their previous $928 billion infrastructure
counteroffer by $50 billion. Biden said the GOP plan did not come
close enough to his $1.7-trillion proposal, which was pared down
from his original $2.2-trillion plan.
Biden's American Jobs Plan, announced
in late March, would repair existing transportation infrastructure,
expand and fix the power grid, and retrofit homes for energy
efficiency—among its many programs—all with an eye to
creating jobs, reducing carbon emissions, and improving public
health. It would include tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs),
funding for their charging stations, and extend tax credits for new
renewable capacity for 10 years.
Republicans have countered since then with a series of smaller spending bills, which
targeted traditional infrastructure such as water and power
installations.
After the suspension of talks this week, Capito said Republicans
drew the line over Biden's insistence on increasing corporate
taxes to pay for the new spending, and that she was "disappointed"
that he had ended negotiations.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden dropped
negotiations because the latest GOP offer "did not, in his view,
meet the essential needs of our country to restore our roads and
bridges, prepare us for our clean energy future, and create
jobs."
However, Psaki disclosed that Biden has been in talks with
Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat-West Virginia) and Senator Kyrsten
Sinema (Democrat-Arizona)—key swing votes—as well as
Senator Bill Cassidy (Republican-Louisiana) on developing another
infrastructure deal. She said Biden will continue those discussions
as he travels to Europe this week for a G7 meeting.
"[Biden] urged them to continue their work with other Democrats
and Republicans to develop a bipartisan proposal that he hopes
will be more responsive to the country's pressing infrastructure
needs," she said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Schumer hinted that the new bipartisan compromise in
the works could help Biden achieve at least some of his
infrastructure objectives. "A bipartisan group…is trying to put
something together that might be closer to what the president
needs," he said at a news conference before Capito announced the
end of negotiations.
Though Schumer did not offer specifics, there had been reports
that a group of lawmakers including Manchin and Senator Mitt Romney
(Republican-Utah) would offer their own roughly $878 billion
infrastructure proposal that would involve spending spread out
over between five and eight years.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee was scheduled to hold discussions and
votes on 9 June on two bills that could be legislative vehicles for
Biden's infrastructure proposal: the INVEST in America Act, a
five-year, $547-billion surface transportation bill, and the Water
Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021, which would
authorize $45 billion over five years for wastewater infrastructure
and related needs.
However, Biden appears to be under the gun to reach some sort of
bipartisan infrastructure deal because Manchin has said he will not
support a Democratic-only infrastructure bill, and Democrats have
only a bare 51-vote majority in the Senate with the vote of Vice
President Kamala Harris.