President Trump has touted massive infrastructure in the next coronavirus aid package, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to take up a more modest proposal, and he wants to keep it apart from the fourth round of economic aid.
The Kentucky Republican said the Senate would soon take up a “more modest” infrastructure bill, and an aide pointed to bipartisan legislation drafted by Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a member of the Republican leadership who has written three infrastructure measures.
“We have an equal interest in doing an infrastructure bill,” McConnell told Fox News when asked about Trump’s call for big infrastructure spending in a new coronavirus aid package. “But we don’t have an equal interest in borrowing money for future generations to pay for it. It’s unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic.”
Barrasso’s legislation includes a highway infrastructure measure and two bills to repair and improve the nation’s water infrastructure and drinking water safety.
”President Trump has called on Congress to pass comprehensive infrastructure legislation, once we are past the immediate health crisis,” Barrasso said in a statement. “Our bipartisan highway infrastructure bill and these draft water infrastructure bills will answer that call.”
McConnell hasn’t scheduled consideration of Barrasso’s legislation. The Senate returns to work on May 4 and will first vote on a Trump administration nominee. The House, run by Democrats, will remain in recess due to the threat of the coronavirus.
McConnell suggested in the Fox interview that infrastructure was a priority that would soon be on the agenda.
“I do agree with it that we need to do that,” McConnell said. “We’re going to pass a more modest infrastructure bill in the Senate in the near future since we are coming back to work next Monday.”
The Senate and Trump may be on different infrastructure paths.
Trump has signaled he’s hoping to strike a deal with Congress on major legislation to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges significantly as well as provide adequate internet access, and he’s hoping to wrap it into the coronavirus aid bill.
“With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long awaited Infrastructure Bill,” Trump tweeted last month. “It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country! Phase 4.”
Barrasso’s legislation is far more modest and is unrelated to the coronavirus.
A bipartisan highway bill calls for spending $287 billion over five years, of which $259 billion would be provided for formula programs that are currently used to maintain roads and bridges.
The legislation includes provisions aimed at road safety, streamlining construction of road projects, and protecting the environment by reducing emissions.
Barrasso said lawmakers agreed the measure should not add to the deficit, but it did not include a mechanism to cover the cost, such as cuts to other programs, a gasoline tax, or other fees.
Barrasso has also drafted two water bills with bipartisan support.
One measure would authorize $17 billion for increasing water storage, preventing floodwater damage, and improvement of ports and inland waterways. The measure would also provide funding to repair crumbling wastewater and irrigation systems. A second water measure would provide $2.5 billion “to provide resources and technical assistance to communities to help meet their drinking water needs.”
The three measures combined provide just a fraction of the spending Trump and Democrats have proposed for infrastructure spending.
Democrats introduced a $760 billion infrastructure bill earlier this year that is packed with climate change mitigation provisions such as a requirement for federal buildings to become carbon neutral and for the airlines to move away from the use of fossil fuels.
The Democratic bill is likely going nowhere in the Senate, but Democrats could decide to try to circumvent the GOP by partnering with Trump on an infrastructure proposal. Trump and Democrats tried negotiating in the past on an infrastructure bill, but the talks fell apart when Democrats tasked Trump with finding a way to cover the massive cost.
McConnell could get ahead of both Trump and Democrats by passing the Senate measure first. The bills enjoy rare bipartisan support. The highway measure is co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, and Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican. It passed unanimously out of a Senate committee last year. Barrasso and Carper co-sponsor the two water bills.
Trump may have a hard time rejecting the McConnell approach.
In his State of the Union address earlier this year, Trump called on the House “to pass Sen. John Barrasso’s highway bill to invest in new roads, bridges, and tunnels all across our land.”
