Senate votes to move forward on bipartisan trillion dollar infrastructure bill

Senators voted 66-28 on a motion to go ahead, a vote that will open the legislative package to potential changes through the amendment process.

It remains to be seen whether any amendments will be accepted since they should be subject to a threshold of 60 votes. The text of the bill has yet to be officially released, and the amendments are not expected to be considered until Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer proposes the finalized deal as a surrogate amendment. which could happen later on Friday afternoon. It is expected that there may be amendment votes over the weekend.

“Given the bipartisan nature of the bill, the Senate should be able to deal with this legislation fairly quickly,” Schumer said Friday before the vote. “We may need the weekend, we can vote on several amendments, but with the cooperation of our fellow Republicans, I think we can complete the bipartisan infrastructure bill in a matter of days.”

The Senate is rushing to pass the bipartisan deal before leaving for the fast approaching August recess, which is expected to begin at the end of next week, although chamber leaders may change that.

The vote comes after negotiators announced a deal earlier this week. More than half of the bill – $ 550 billion – is new federal funding. It is investing $ 73 billion to rebuild the power grid, $ 66 billion for passenger and freight rail transport, $ 65 billion to expand broadband Internet access, $ 55 billion for water infrastructure, 40 billion dollars to repair bridges, 39 billion dollars to modernize public transport like buses and 7.5 billion dollars to create the first federal network of charging stations for electric vehicles.

The effort to push through the bipartisan deal is part of a two-track strategy by the Democrats as they simultaneously push forward a much more radical second effort to embrace key elements of Biden’s agenda through the budget reconciliation process, which will allow them to adopt legislation. with only Democratic votes.

The first step in passing this more important bill will be for the Senate to pass a budget resolution.

Schumer said on Friday they remained “on track” to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget resolution before the August recess.

“It is an ambitious deadline, absolutely. But the hard work of senators and staff means that we are on the right track to get there,” he said.