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WASHINGTON—President Biden and a group of centrist senators agreed to a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure plan, securing a long-sought bipartisan deal on overhauling the nation’s transportation, water and broadband infrastructure that lawmakers and the White House will now attempt to shepherd through a closely-divided Capitol Hill.
“We had a really good meeting and to answer the direct question, we have a deal,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House. “We’ve all agreed that none of us got what we all would have wanted.”
“I clearly didn’t get all I wanted. They gave more than I think they were maybe inclined to give in the first place,” he added.
Drafts of the agreement had called for $579 billion of spending above expected federal levels, totaling $973 billion over five years and $1.2 trillion if continued over eight. The lawmakers had discussed financing the package with a mix of public-private partnerships, existing federal funds, and revenue collected from enhanced enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service.
Lawmakers had said Wednesday that they reached an agreement on an overall framework for a deal, with some details still to be worked out, pending Mr. Biden’s agreement.
“We’ve agreed on the price tag, the scope and how to pay for it,” said
Sen. Susan Collins
(R., Maine) on Thursday. “It was not easy to get agreement on all three, but it was essential.”
While the framework between the bipartisan group of lawmakers and the White House marks an important step toward a final agreement, passing the legislation is set to be a delicate balancing act.
Many Democrats on Capitol Hill have called for the party to wield their narrow control of the House and Senate to push through a separate, much broader package that incorporates more of Mr. Biden’s $4 trillion economic agenda.
Other, centrist Democrats, however, have said they favored a bipartisan product, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has said the Senate will simultaneously move forward with both a bipartisan agreement and a larger bill. Democrats can skirt the 60-vote threshold for advancing most Senate legislation through a budget process called reconciliation.
House Speaker
(D., Calif.) said Thursday that the House won’t take up the bipartisan agreement until the Senate approves a package through reconciliation.
“I said there won’t be an infrastructure bill unless we have a reconciliation bill, plain and simple,” Mrs. Pelosi said.
If some Democrats ultimately oppose the package, Republicans would need to sign on in larger numbers to ensure its passage. A group of 21 Senators, including 11 Republicans, have previously lent their support to the bipartisan efforts, though some of those lawmakers said Thursday they were still reviewing details of the emerging deal.
Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), the lead Republican negotiator, spoke with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and other top Republicans Thursday morning to discuss the agreement. Mr. Portman said Mr. McConnell told him he was open minded about the framework.
A previous effort to craft an infrastructure agreement between the White House and a separate group of Senate Republicans fell apart earlier this month, with the GOP group proposing roughly $300 billion in funding above baseline levels.
Write to Andrew Duehren at [email protected] , Kristina Peterson at [email protected] and Sabrina Siddiqui at [email protected]
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