US Senate Passes $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill

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The US Senate has approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Tuesday to rebuild the nation's deteriorating roads and bridges and fund new climate resilience and broadband initiatives.

The vote, 69-30, was uncommonly bipartisan; the yes votes included Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and 18 other Republicans.

On August 1, the US Senate approved the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, outlining $550 billion in new spending for roads, bridges, public transportation, electric vehicle charging stations, and other physical infrastructure.

The bill, according to the White House, will generate over two million employment oportunities for American yearly, with projects lasting a decade.

Furthermore, the bill allocates $39 billion to improvements in public transit and $66 billion to modernize and expand passenger and freight transport.

The infrastructure bill includes an additional $65 billion for broadband, $73 billion for power infrastructure, and $21 billion for environmental clean-up, providing opportunities for small businesses in local communities to thrive.

“But the measure now faces a potentially rocky and time-consuming path in the House, where the US speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the nearly 100-member Progressive Caucus, have said they will not vote on it unless and until the Senate passes a separate, even more, ambitious $3.5 trillion social policy bill this fall”, according to The New York Times.

Pelosi has repeatedly said she will not take it up until the Senate clears the reconciliation bill.

The infrastructure plan outlines Biden’s desired first year of investment in his American Jobs Plan, which aims to fund enhancements to roads, bridges, public transit, and more with a total of $2.3 trillion over eight years.