‘We have a deal’: Biden announces a bipartisan infrastructure agreement with senators

• By Kelsey Snell/NPR

President Biden on Thursday announced a bipartisan infrastructure agreement after meeting with a group of senators from both major parties.

“We have a deal,” Biden said, appearing with the group outside of the White House.

The package focuses on traditional infrastructure investment items like roads, bridges and rail, along with broadband internet and water systems.

The bipartisan framework is the result of weeks of negotiations and is seen as an early step in a broader negotiation over Biden’s calls for more than $2 trillion in new spending. This Senate-driven bill is meant to address traditional infrastructure, leaving Democrats to figure out how to pass other key elements of Biden’s plan.

The final details of what Biden and the lawmakers agreed to wasn’t immediately available, but the group of roughly 20 senators had settled as of Wednesday night on $559 billion in new infrastructure spending as part of a broader package that would include approximately $1 trillion in new investments over eight years.

“It’s something that traditionally has been very bipartisan,” said Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, the top Republican negotiator in the group. “And I’m very pleased to see today that we are able to come together on a core infrastructure package … without new taxes.”

A key sticking point has been how to pay for the measure, with Republicans opposed to undoing any of their 2017 tax cuts, and Biden against raising the gas tax.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., the lead Democratic negotiator, said the package would amount to “a historic investment in our country’s infrastructure,” but noted that the senators still have to go back to Capitol Hill and sell the deal to their colleagues.

The bipartisan plan does not address investments in child care, tax credits for families or other programs that Democrats say are necessary to ensure all people are able to participate in the economy.

Pelosi insists two infrastructure packages be linked

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters on Thursday that the House will not move forward on any bipartisan agreement until the Senate passes a separate bill to address those other priorities.

“We aren’t going down the path unless we all go down the path together,” she said.

Pelosi said she supports the concept of a bipartisan bill on the elements of infrastructure that have widespread support. But she also called on Senate Democrats to use special budget rules, known as reconciliation, to pass the partisan elements of Biden’s plan without the threat of a filibuster in the Senate.

“There won’t be an infrastructure bill unless we have a reconciliation bill, plain and simple,” Pelosi said. “If there is no bipartisan bill, then we’ll just go when the Senate passes a reconciliation bill. But I am hopeful that we will have a bipartisan bill.”

A two-track effort

Democrats have been preparing for a two-track approach to infrastructure for weeks.

Senate Democrats have begun the budget process that would allow such a measure to move through the chamber.

“Discussions about infrastructure are progressing along two tracks,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the chamber floor Wednesday. “The first is bipartisan, and the second incorporates elements of the president’s American Jobs and Families Plan. The second track is something we must support even if it doesn’t get any Republican support.”

Biden originally proposed a more than $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, in addition to a separate proposal of near similar size on education, child care and paid leave.

“For several weeks, the trains have been chugging down both tracks quite well,” Schumer added. “When the Senate returns after the July 4th state work period, it will be time to take the next step forward.”

Schumer and Pelosi met with White House aides Wednesday evening to discuss the latest on infrastructure.

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NPR’s Benjamin Swasey and Arnie Seipel contributed reporting.