The Senate returned Monday and the House comes back into session Tuesday, with just seven legislative days left before a promised Oct. 31 vote on both infrastructure and reconciliation.
Last month, the House delayed the vote on the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA) and passed a one month extension of crucial highway funding. After the House punted last month on the Senate-passed, bipartisan infrastructure bill, Democratic leadership are hoping to get that bill and a separate, still-being-negotiated social spending bill to Biden this month.
The highway funding extension was passed as progressive Democrats sought an agreement on the larger piece of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, the initially proposed $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan, Democrats plan to pass through reconciliation.
This Build Back Better Act was originally projected to cost around $3.5 trillion but is likely to be cut down to $2.2 trillion to get wider support - amid a standoff between progressives and moderates in the party over the scope and final price tag.
Biden acknowledged that the price of the reconciliation bill will likely have to come down even further if it's going to pass.
"I'm convinced we're going to get it done—we're not going to get $3.5 trillion; we'll get less than that, but we're going to get it," he said in Connecticut on Friday. "And we're going to come back and get the rest."
This "Build Back Better" budget framework has been tied to the bipartisan infrastructure plan since early this year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) insisted that the infrastructure bill would not be voted on until the Senate passed the broader spending plan, effectively holding this crucial legislation hostage.
Opposition on Both Sides
With an extremely thin majority in the Senate—Democrats only hold 50 out of 100 seats, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tie-breaking vote—the party can't afford to lose any votes if it wants to advance the legislation without any Republican support. Democrats need their party unified to pass the bill without Republican support and two moderate Democratic senators have opposed aspects of the Democrats' sweeping reconciliation bill, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Sen. Manchin declared his opposition to the Clean Electricity Performance Program, a pillar of President Joe Biden’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. The coal-state senator’s opposition has the White House scrambling to cobble together other programs everyone can agree upon.
"To be clear, again, Congress should proceed with caution on any additional spending and I will not vote for a reckless expansion of government programs," Manchin said.
Sinema on the other had has reportedly told Democrats that she wouldn't support a vote on the reconciliation bill until Congress approves the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Sinema's position, first reported by Reuters, comes as House progressives have pushed for the opposite.
Progressives continue to say that without a deal on the larger reconciliation package—which includes measures to not only address climate change, but has programs that include paid family and medical leave, Medicare expansion and universal pre-K—they will decline to advance the infrastructure bill.
The time to reach an agreement is running out. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said it is a priority to get both bills to Biden's desk by the end of October.
“I have said from the beginning that the execution of the two-track legislative strategy for the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better Act would be difficult. To pass meaningful legislation, we must put aside our differences and find the common ground within our party. As with any bill of such historic proportions, not every member will get everything he or she wants,” Schumer wrote in a letter to his caucus about the upcoming work period. “At the end of the day, we will pass legislation that will dramatically improve the lives of the American people. And we must aim to do that in the month of October,” he added.
Important to Note: Oct. 31 is a Sunday. An Oct. 31 deadline , when the authority to spend federal highway and public transportation funds will lapse again, is really an Oct. 29 deadline.
Enactment of the IIJA would provide highway and public transportation programs with a five-year, $370 billion reauthorization along with additional supplemental spending to improve surface transportation and other infrastructure networks.
