- Sen. Mitt Romney is among Republicans pushing for a delay in voting on infrastructure.
- Informal talks could continue if the Senate votes Wednesday against debating it on the floor.
- Sen. Chuck Schumer set up the vote because the legislative calendar is getting crowded.
WASHINGTON – The odds a bipartisan infrastructure bill will move forward Wednesday appear grim as Senate Republican negotiators said they wouldn't vote to debate the measure because the details haven't been finalized.
“We can’t support cloture for something we haven’t accomplished yet,” said Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the lead negotiator for Republicans. “We haven’t come to agreement on key issues.”
The negotiators are crucial to moving the bill along. Nearly a dozen Senate Republicans, including Portman, struck a deal with President Joe Biden in June on the infrastructure plan. Since the 50 Democratic senators need at least 10 Republicans to support the bill to clear a parliamentary hurdle for debate,losing the support of just a few could stall the bill.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, another negotiator, said he would vote against beginning debate Wednesday on the bill and said the group will send Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a letter asking to postpone the vote to Monday. Romney said three-quarters of the disputed issues had been resolved in the past two days.
"I would expect that by the end of the week, we'll have them all resolved," Romney said. “We’ll be ready Monday. We won’t have the full text, of course, but we’ll have a detailed outline."
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“I hope we won't have a motion to proceed on Wednesday,” said another negotiator, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “I hope it will be put off.”
The Senate vote will be a test of whether any of President Joe Biden's ambitious and expensive economic proposals can become law. The bipartisan package would offer hundreds of billions of dollars for roads, bridges, railways and broadband.
Informal talks could continue if the Senate votes Wednesday against debating it on the floor. But because of the crush of other legislation dealing with routine spending, voting rights and a policing overhaul, a Senate rejection of infrastructure could thwart one of the most auspicious prospects for bipartisan cooperation this year.
Schumer set the vote after a month of bipartisan talks because other legislation is crowding the schedule. He said the bill could still be debated for 30 hours and amended on the floor. Despite Republican opposition, Schumer said he would hold the vote Wednesday.
“The Senate Democrats are keeping their foot on the gas pedal," Schumer said. "It’s not an attempt to jam anyone, it’s just a vote on whether senators are ready to begin debating the issue."
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The most contentious aspects of negotiations involve how to pay for the legislation at a time of outsized spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. One option was to boost IRS enforcement of tax collections, but that hasn't been resolved.
Congress approved $3.3 trillion in response to the coronavirus pandemic during the Trump administration last year and $1.9 trillion under Biden in March. Biden's spending proposals led to comparisons to the New Deal under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other Republicans insisted on having legislative text before voting on the bipartisan bill. He said no time would be lost if the bill is blocked Wednesday because Schumer could bring it up again when the text is ready.
“The economy does not need this taxing and spending spree," McConnell said.
"It really is a parody," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "If my constituents think I was voting on a bill that hadn't been written yet and I didn't know how much it would cost, they would probably try to recall me."
Democrats contended that repairing and expanding crumbling infrastructure is too important to postpone. Democratic negotiators described working late into the night to resolve dozens of disputes – talks that have not concluded.
"I feel better today than I did last night," said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., after negotiations ran Monday until midnight.
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Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said Monday that Republicans opposing the debate for lack of legislative text would be "a problem," but Schumer's strategy to force a vote is common and shouldn't kill the bill.
"Hopefully, people will be smarter than that," Tester said.
If the legislation reaches the Senate, lawmakers would have 30 hours to debate and amend the bill. Schumer said that if no consensus was reached on the legislation Thursday, he would add other legislation through four major amendments.
The four additional pieces of legislation, which were each approved in committee in bipartisan votes, involve water projects, highways, railways and energy.
"I understand that both sides are working very hard to turn the bipartisan infrastructure framework into final legislation, and they will continue to have more time to debate, amend and perfect the bill once the Senate votes to take up this crucial issue,” Schumer said. “But they have been working on this bipartisan framework for more than a month already, and it’s time to begin the debate.”
The debate is likely to become more rancorous over $3.5 trillion legislation that Schumer said the Senate will consider during the July work period, which he warned might extend into August.
Senate Democrats proposed to spend that money on Biden’s economic priorities dealing with caregivers and education. Republicans contend Democrats want to spend irresponsibly while inflation is growing.
“There is no reason we can’t get the ball rolling this week on both elements of the Senate’s infrastructure agenda,” Schumer said.
The $3.5 trillion package is much more contentious because Democrats are pursuing a strategy for approving it potentially without any Republican votes, using a legislative maneuver called reconciliation.
The package that Senate Democrats negotiated with the White House would include Biden priorities such as a Medicare expansion to cover dental, vision and hearing benefits; child care subsidies; home health care development programs and two years of federally subsidized community college.
Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., aims to move the legislation under reconciliation, which would allow a simple majority of the 100-member Senate to approve it, rather than needing to clear a 60-vote hurdle to avoid a Republican filibuster. Democrats and Republicans each have 50 votes, and Vice President Kamala Harris holds the tiebreaking vote.
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Some Democrats in the evenly divided Senate asked for details before committing to support it.
“That's a challenge,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a swing vote, said Thursday. “I’ll take a challenge. I’ll work as hard as I can.”
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