On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. After President Joe Biden signs it, which he’s expected to do shortly, it will inject $550 billion in new spending over the course of five years into America’s roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and other physical infrastructure badly in need of an update.
The bill was helmed by Democrats in both chambers, but 19 Republican senators and 13 Republican representatives voted for it — a testament to the fact that infrastructure is widely recognized as a critical priority by both major political parties in the U.S. “This legislation will mean that our majority will have delivered a major victory for the American people in a bipartisan way,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in an address to the House.
Climate change, on the other hand, is still squarely in Democrats’ wheelhouse. That’s why this infrastructure bill, which Biden initially envisioned largely as a climate package, pretty much exclusively focuses on what Republicans like to call “traditional” infrastructure — bridges, tunnels, roads, and the like.
The rest of Biden’s cl... Read more
