President Trump and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle appear willing to start working together on a bipartisan infrastructure bill, which could be considered by House committees as early as May.
Trump made infrastructure a top priority during his 2016 campaign and most recently mentioned the issue during his State of the Union address. Amid partisan battling and congressional investigations of the president, an infrastructure bill, though a heavy lift, is one of the few pieces of legislation that might actually pass Congress and be signed by the president this year — or even next.
This week, in a rare display of cooperation between top Trump aides and a House Democrat, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and senior presidential adviser Ivanka Trump met with Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, to talk about infrastructure.
Additionally, at a Wednesday conference hosted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or AASHTO, U.S. lawmakers said they were ready to get down to business.
“We’re going to get busy here pretty quick,” said Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the House Transportation Committee. “There’s some oversight stuff that’s taking place right now, but then we’re going to jump right into the infrastructure package.”
The meetings come after more than a year of inactivity on the infrastructure front. In February 2018, President Trump rolled out a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, but Congress didn’t move the bill.
Now, however, Congress and the president seem interested in making infrastructure a priority. A White House spokesman said the president was looking forward to working with Congress “in the weeks ahead.” And, speaking with the Washington Examiner, Ed Mortimer, vice president of infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has told Neal and House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., to bring up a bill in the House by May or June.
A Ways and Means Committee hearing set for Wednesday on infrastructure is the first addressing the topic since June 2015, according to Brian Pallasch of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Pallasch told Washington Examiner Wednesday’s conversation between the White House and Congress is a positive step.
“These folks need to speak,” Pallasch said, adding that he is “hopeful” about prospects for an infrastructure bill.
Several lawmakers are also optimistic about bipartisan support for a bill. At the AASHTO meeting, Graves said he and DeFazio “get along” and pointed out that the transportation panel has traditionally been a “very bipartisan committee.”
DeFazio said at the AASHTO meeting that the bill should be nonpartisan. “We’ve got lots of things to disagree with the president over,” DeFazio said. “We don’t need to disagree or make political the rebuilding of America’s infrastructure.”
In a statement, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told the Washington Examiner, “Democrats and Republicans agree that we must take action to address our aging infrastructure systems.”
Lawmakers have not yet concurred on the scope of legislation, though Graves said the House wants a more comprehensive bill than the Senate.
When it comes to paying for the legislation, Graves said “everything is on the table,” including tolls, a gas tax hike, and taxes on vehicle miles traveled.
Despite the early activity and optimism in some quarters, others believe legislation faces potentially insurmountable hurdles. D.J. Gribbin, Trump’s former top White House infrastructure aide, is doubtful, saying passage of infrastructure legislation is “unlikely to happen in this Congress.” He said among his biggest concerns is a “compressed calendar” due to the 2020 presidential election and the loss of more than a month to the partial government shutdown in December and January.
Graves said if the bill is not out of committee by August, he does not think it will happen. DeFazio expressed a “faint hope” for accomplishing a bill if both Congress and the president “sort of hold hands and jump off the crumbling bridge together.”
Another concern is that some lawmakers, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have indicated that they want an infrastructure bill to include provisions on climate change, “which makes it much more difficult” to pass the legislation, Gribben said.
Some see a lack of leadership from the White House. During his remarks at the AASHTO meeting, DeFazio said there seemed to be “some conflict at the White House” regarding the specifics of the issue.
“From the president, we haven’t received anything,” Fazio’s spokesman told the Washington Examiner.
An industry lobbyist said the infrastructure proposal “doesn’t have much juice or backing from the president himself” but added that he thought Trump was “willing” to work with Congress on the issue. He added that Congress and the White House are “passing the hot potato,” with neither side “willing to stick their neck out” and take responsibility for controversial aspects of an infrastructure bill, such as raising the gas tax. Nevertheless, he noted that, “if everybody jumps at the same time, you can’t pinpoint” who decided to raise the gas tax.
But Mortimer, the Chamber of Commerce official, said there was “active White House engagement” concerning prospects for an infrastructure bill “from the president on down.”
