Senior House Dem wrecks bipartisan Senate infrastructure talks



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DeFazio’s frustrations were echoed by several other members during the call. One lawmaker, Representative Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.) Has called the current process “bullshit,” and some have vowed to work against the bipartisan effort by the Senate.

“I said the whole process seemed to be [bullshit]”Carbajal told POLITICO in a brief interview afterwards.” A lot of work has gone into that. There has been a bipartisan effort to really get everything aligned, and you know it’s just very frustrating and disappointing when so much work goes into this… It’s just boring, to say the least. ”

The comments reflect weeks of latent tension in the House, where some senior Democrats say they have been largely excluded from Biden’s talks with the GOP. One of DeFazio’s main complaints is that the Senate’s bipartisan framework measure included a paltry number of priorities from its own infrastructure package, which was passed by the House earlier this summer.

DeFazio also circulated a five-page memo on Monday contrasting the package passed by the House he led with the Senate version of the Surface Transportation Bill, which should be a key part of any bipartisan bill. which the Senate GOP and the bipartisan GOP Biden bill can agree with.

The House transport bill, for example, included $ 30 billion in climate measures, while its Senate counterpart included $ 18 billion, according to the DeFazio committee panel note.

“Republicans in the Senate are pushing to underfund public transit,” the memo said, calling the Senate GOP position “no go.”

The dissatisfaction of members of the House infrastructure panel exposes some of the loopholes that Democratic leaders will need to address in their own ranks – if they can garner enough GOP support for Wednesday’s vote to move these bipartisan talks forward .

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