Despite Holdups, Senators Determined to Pass Infrastructure Bill
After weeks of intense negotiations and several tactic changes from both parties and the White House, a bipartisan infrastructure bill was finally achieved; however, holdup has made the move to passing the bill difficult, but that is not stopping senators from pushing the bill towards passage.
After failing the initial cloture vote called by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and some further detailing by the bipartisan group of senators, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was able to garner enough votes to be debated on the senate floor and now must be fully debated before it can be voted on for passage and adoption.
One of the holdups was a single Republican senator, Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty, who refused to relent on the mandatory debate time, according to an Associated Press article on NPR. Fortunately, despite his refusal to acquiesce time, the senate was able to overcome another 60-vote hurdle, garnering 68 votes to 29 in order to continue debating and working towards bill passage.
According to that same article on NPR, Haggerty is a known ally of Former President Donald Trump and was leading an effort to “run out the clock on debate time” in order to slow the march towards President Biden’s next bill, the proposed $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” plan. Many Democrats have already spoken out about their refusal to pass this infrastructure bill unless the accompanying human infrastructure bill is also passed.
Other Republicans in the senate are reluctant to pass the bill, specifically after an analysis of the package by the Congressional Budget Office found that the legislation would “increase deficits by about $256 billion over the next decade,” according to NPR.
Regardless, senators and other government officials are determined to see it passed. The House of Representatives is currently in recess and is expected to consider both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the human infrastructure bill when it returns in September.
