With a Halloween deadline, Democrats and Biden race to secure a deal on infrastructure spending
Democratic lawmakers trekked to the White House on Tuesday searching for new ways to figure out how to get a consensus and wrap up negotiations on what had been President Biden’s sweeping $3.5 trillion budget plan.
Nearly 20 centrist and progressive lawmakers met in separate groups with Biden as Democrats review a menu of alternative emission-reducing strategies — one of the most crucial issues for voters who support the president and his party — and race to reach accord on his overall package.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the first group and Biden did not discuss a carbon tax. She said the climate pieces of the overall bill are among the “most challenging,” but she also said the group feels “even more optimistic” about striking agreement on Biden’s priority package.
“Our goal is to continue to make progress,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said simply of the day’s fast-moving events.
A key holdout to Biden’s climate-fighting plan is conservative Sen. Joe Manchin from coal-state West Virginia who has made it clear he opposes the president’s proposal to have the government impose penalties on electric utilities that fail to meet clean energy benchmarks and provide financial rewards to those that do.
In a possible sign of progress, he met with two progressive leaders: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the powerful House progressive caucus.
“Everybody’s talking,” Manchin said.
Biden wants to show progress on his entire package, now being scaled back to about $2 trillion, by the time he departs for a global climate summit next week. And he’s not alone.
“There was universal -- universal -- agreement in that room that we have to come to an agreement and we got to get it done,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after a lengthy lunch at the Capitol that senators described as “lively” and “spirited.”
Schumer said he, Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are talking daily.
“What I told our caucus was, everyone is going to be disappointed in certain things but everyone is going to be glad about certain things,” Schumer said. “And overall getting something done of this magnitude for the American people is a huge, huge, huge accomplishment.”
With Republicans fully opposed to Biden’s plans, the president needs all Democrats in the 50-50 split Senate for passage, giving Manchin an effective veto along with every one of his colleagues..
But the progressives also have significant leverage because they won’t vote for the separate $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan without a deal on the bigger plan.
“I would hope that we’re going to see some real action within the next week or so,” said Sanders, the Vermont Independent, after meeting privately with Manchin.
With News Wire Services
