Infrastructure Bill Passes First Vote Test As Senate Accelerates Action

AP: Infrastructure Deal: Senate Suddenly Acts To Take Up Bill
The Senate has voted to begin work on a nearly $1 trillion national infrastructure plan, acting with sudden speed after weeks of fits and starts once the White House and a bipartisan group of senators agreed on major provisions of the package that’s key to President Joe Biden’s agenda. Biden welcomed the accord as one that would show America can “do big things.” It includes the most significant long-term investments in nearly a century, he said, on par with building the transcontinental railroad or the Interstate highway system. (Mascaro, Freking and Fram, 7/29)

Politico: Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Sails Through First Senate Vote
The Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure deal finally moved forward on Wednesday night after weeks of grueling negotiations, handing a group of centrists and President Joe Biden a major win. Though the legislation is still unfinished and failed just a week ago, more than a dozen Republicans took the plunge and voted to break an initial filibuster on the bill. Among them was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has previously said “100 percent” of his focus was on standing up to Biden’s agenda. (Levine and Everett, 7/28)

The Washington Post: Bipartisan Infrastructure Pact Clears Key Senate Vote After Breakthrough In Talks
The day of breakthroughs began with news of a deal, as a bipartisan bloc of 10 negotiators coalesced around a package to upgrade the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. The announcement from some of the group’s leaders, including Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), capped off a series of frenetic talks that nearly collapsed amid behind-the-scenes battles about the new spending and how to pay for it. With that once-elusive agreement finally in hand, the Senate hours later then took its first formal legislative step. Lawmakers voted 67-32 to put themselves on track to begin debating infrastructure reform this week, clearing the first of many hurdles toward adopting a proposal that the White House has described as historic. (Romm, 7/28)

Roll Call: Infrastructure Bill Advanced With $550 Billion In New Spending
Although Senate negotiators were celebratory in a post-vote news conference, the bill’s future is already in question in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed not to take it up until after the Senate approves a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package that includes many of Biden’s other domestic priorities. Democratic hopes for a package of that size dimmed a little Wednesday when Sinema said she won't support a price tag that high. House progressives, meanwhile, say they’re not willing to advance one without the other. (Morton, Wehrman and Clason, 7/28)

Arizona Republic: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema Won't Back Democrats' $3.5T Reconciliation Bill
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema does not support Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget plan that aims to deliver major components of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda that Democrats hope to pass after moving a separate bipartisan infrastructure deal that Sinema negotiated. Sinema, D-Ariz., told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday she had reviewed the Senate Budget Committee’s spending framework and has told Senate leadership and Biden that she supports many of its goals, including job growth and American competitiveness. (Wingett Sanchez, 7/28)

Politico: Biden Ignores The ‘Shiny Objects’ And Nears A Bipartisan Win 
President Joe Biden moved significantly closer Wednesday to achieving his massive infrastructure overhaul — the type of bipartisan win he’s dreamed about since launching his campaign for the presidency. Seventeen Republican senators voted with Democrats to advance a roughly $1 trillion deal that would spend heavily on roads, bridges, broadband and public transit. And though it was a vote merely to start debate, Democrats expressed cautious optimism that a bill would eventually reach Biden’s desk. It was, the White House stressed, a testament to the president’s political skill and persistence. Despite constant fits and starts, grumbling from many in his party, and predictions that negotiations would fall apart, Biden refused to give up on working with Republicans. (Barron-Lopez and Cadelago, 7/28)

Key details of the infrastructure plan —

The New York Times: The Infrastructure Plan: What’s In And What’s Out 
The bipartisan deal is less than a quarter the size of the $2.6 trillion plan that President Biden proposed in March, which included $2.2 trillion in spending and around $400 billion in tax credits. It’s also significantly smaller than the counteroffer the White House proposed in May, which scaled back spending by $500 billion, and it leaves out many of the Democrats’ biggest ambitions. ... There were six major areas in Mr. Biden’s original infrastructure proposal: transportation, utilities, pollution, innovation, in-home care and buildings. Almost all these areas were scaled back or eliminated in the bipartisan plan, with one exception: pollution cleanup. (Bhatia and Bui, 7/28)

AP: Key Details Of The Senate's Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan
Here’s a breakdown of where the dollars would go, according to a summary released by the White House on Wednesday. (Freking, 7/29)

The New York Times: What’s In The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal 
The package would invest $55 billion in clean drinking water, which would be enough to replace all of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines. While Congress banned lead water pipes three decades ago, more than 10 million older ones remain, resulting in unsafe lead levels in cities and towns across the country. (Ngo, 7/28)

One big question: How to pay for everything? —

Modern Healthcare: Congress Proposes Sequester Extension To Pay For Infrastructure Bill
Despite fervent opposition from hospitals and other healthcare providers, the Senate is slated to vote on an infrastructure bill that would be financed, in part, by extending Medicare payment cuts. The legislation, which includes $550 billion in new spending over five years for roads, bridges and other transportation projects—but nothing for hospital infrastructure—would finance a small fraction of that new spending by continuing the automatic Medicare reimbursement reductions created under budget sequestration in 2013. (Hellmann, 7/28)

Stat: Hospitals And Pharma Are Both On The Hook To Help Fund Infrastructure Deal
Both hospitals and drug makers are on the hook to help pay for the Senate’s grand infrastructure bargain, though hospitals scored a big victory in defending their Covid-19 relief dollars. A group of senators and the White House announced they had reached a $550 billion agreement to fund traditional infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, public transit, airports and broadband. They turned to health care policy as a piggy bank, proposing cuts to drug makers and hospitals to pay for their wish list, according to a list circulating on Capitol Hill and K Street. The negotiating group has not officially distributed details of the deal, Senate aides said. (Cohrs, 7/28)

Also —

Politico: Trump Tries To Sabotage The Biden Infrastructure Deal 
Donald Trump tried and failed to pass an infrastructure bill so many times over the course of his presidency that his attempts were reduced to a punchline. Now out of office, Trump is trying to ensure that his successor, Joe Biden, suffers the indignity of the “infrastructure week” jokes as well. The former president has sounded off repeatedly in the past week about the negotiations taking place between Senate Republicans and Democrats on the Hill and in the White House. He’s encouraged GOP lawmakers to abandon the talks and criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for even entertaining them. Senate Republicans have said, in interviews, that they have directly asked the former president not just to tone down his criticism but to actually support the infrastructure deal. (McGraw, 7/28)