August 11, 2021 | Kristin Withrow

The U.S. Senate passed, 69-30, on Tuesday the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which would authorize $1 trillion in a range of infrastructure investments.

The package includes the Senate’s transportation reauthorization legislation along with funding for water, power, airports, ports, waterways, electric vehicles, broadband, and more. Nineteen Republican Senators joined all Democrats to pass the measure.

After the infrastructure vote, the Senate immediately took up the second portion of President Biden’s domestic agenda, a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that would set the guidelines for a reconciliation package in order to bypass the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate.  The budget resolution would include expanding Medicare, immigration reform, combating climate change, and universal pre-K. The vote to proceed was 50-49 with no Republican support.

While an official detailed section-by-section summary of the bill is not yet available, the White House previously released a fact sheet on the bill, which outlines the top-level funding allocations for all parts of the bill. Additionally, a more detailed unofficial summary of the legislation was circulated to Senators, which provides further information regarding many parts of the bill. Here are the proposed top-line funding levels in the legislation, in addition to approximately $539 billion in pay-fors:

While Tuesday’s votes in the Senate mark a significant step toward final passage of an infrastructure package, there is still a long road ahead. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has vowed not to move the bipartisan infrastructure package until the Senate has completed its reconciliation bill, pushing any final passage of a package into late fall, at the earliest. The timeline could be even longer – into the winter – if the infrastructure bill is absorbed into the coming debates on overall appropriations and the debt ceiling may further muddle the process.

NSDC will release a comprehensive special report with details of the Senate-passed infrastructure bill that builds off the summary information provided above. The report will include more detailed analysis of the funding authorized by the bill and will reflect any changes made by amendment. NSDC will have the report by the end of the week, if not sooner.

For questions, contact Cole Karr, NSDC Federal Advocacy Coordinator, at colek@nationalspecialdistricts.org.