WASHINGTON (AP) —
President Joe Biden signed his $1 trillion infrastructure deal into law Monday
on the White House lawn, hailing it as an example of what bipartisanship can
achieve.
The president hopes to use the law to build back his popularity and says it
will deliver jobs, clean water, high-speed internet and a clean energy future.
Support for Biden has taken a hit amid rising inflation and the inability to
fully shake the public health and economic risks from COVID-19.
A smattering of Republican lawmakers were on hand for what might be one the
last celebratory displays of bipartisanship ahead of the 2022 midterm
elections.
“My message to the American people is this: America is moving again and your
life is going to change for the better,” Biden said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed his $1 trillion infrastructure
deal into law Monday on the White House lawn, with a smattering of Republican
lawmakers on hand for what could be one of the last shows of bipartisanship
ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
The president hopes to use the law to build back his popularity, which has
taken a hit amid rising inflation and the inability to fully shake the public
health and economic risks from COVID-19.
“My message to the American people is this: America is moving again and your
life is going to change for the better,” Biden said.
With the bipartisan deal, the president had to choose between his promise of
fostering national unity and a commitment to transformative change. The final
measure whittled down much of his initial vision to invest in roads, bridges,
water systems, broadband, ports, electric vehicles and the power grid. Yet the
administration hopes to sell the new law as a success that bridged partisan
divides and will elevate the country with clean drinking water, high-speed
internet and a shift away from fossil fuels.
“Too often in Washington – the reason we don’t get things done is because we
insist on getting everything we want,” Biden said in his prepared remarks.
“With this law, we focused on getting things done. I ran for president because
the only way to move our country forward is through compromise and consensus.”
Biden will get outside Washington to sell the plan more broadly in coming days.
He intends go to New Hampshire on Tuesday to visit a bridge on the state’s “red
list” for repair, and he will go to Detroit on Wednesday for a stop at General
Motors’ electric vehicle assembly plant, while other officials also fan out
across the country. The president went to the Port of Baltimore last week to
highlight how the supply chain investments from the law could limit inflation
and strengthen supply chains, a key concern of voters who are dealing with
higher prices.
“We see this as is an opportunity because we know that the president’s agenda
is quite popular,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday before the
signing. The outreach to voters can move “beyond the legislative process to
talk about how this is going to help them. And we’re hoping that’s going to
have an impact.”
Biden held off on signing the hard-fought infrastructure deal after it passed
on Nov. 5 until legislators would be back from a congressional recess and could
join in a splashy bipartisan event. On Sunday night before the signing, the
White House announced Mitch Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor, would help
manage and coordinate the implementation of the infrastructure spending.
The gathering Monday on the White House lawn was uniquely celebratory with an
upbeat brass band and peppy speeches, a contrast to the drama and tensions when
the fate of the package was in doubt for several months. The speakers lauded
the measure for creating jobs, combating inflation and responding to the needs
of voters.
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who helped negotiate the package,
celebrated Biden’s willingness to jettison much of his initial proposal to help
bring GOP lawmakers on board. Portman even credited former President Donald
Trump for raising awareness about infrastructure, even though the loser of the
2020 election voiced intense opposition to the ultimate agreement.
“The approach from the center out should be the norm, not the exception,”
Portman said.
The signing included governors and mayors of both parties and labor and
business leaders. In addition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer, the guest list included Republicans such as Louisiana
Sen. Bill Cassidy, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, New York Rep. Tom Reed, Alaska
Rep. Don Young and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
In order to achieve a bipartisan deal, the president had to cut back his
initial ambition to spend $2.3 trillion on infrastructure by more than half.
The bill that becomes law on Monday in reality includes about $550 billion in
new spending over 10 years, since some of the expenditures in the package were
already planned.
The agreement ultimately got support from 19 Senate Republicans, including
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. Thirteen House Republicans also voted for
the infrastructure bill. An angry Trump issued a statement attacking “Old Crow”
McConnell and other Republicans for cooperating on “a terrible Democrat
Socialist Infrastructure Plan.”
McConnell says the country “desperately needs” the new infrastructure money,
but he skipped Monday’s signing ceremony, telling WHAS radio in Louisville,
Kentucky, that he has “other things” to do.
Historians, economists and engineers interviewed by The Associated Press
welcomed Biden’s efforts. But they stressed that $1 trillion was not nearly
enough to overcome the government’s failure for decades to maintain and upgrade
the country’s infrastructure. The politics essentially forced a trade-off in
terms of potential impact not just on the climate but on the ability to outpace
the rest of the world this century and remain the dominant economic power.
“We’ve got to be sober here about what our infrastructure gap is in terms of a
level of investment and go into this eyes wide open, that this is not going to
solve our infrastructure problems across the nation,” said David Van Slyke,
dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse
University.
Biden also tried unsuccessfully to tie the infrastructure package to passage of
a broader package of $1.85 trillion in proposed spending on families, health
care and a shift to renewable energy that could help address climate change.
That measure has yet to gain sufficient support from the narrow Democratic
majorities in the Senate and House.
Biden continues to work to appease Democratic skeptics of the broader package
such as Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, while also holding on to the most
liberal branches of his party. Pelosi said in remarks at the Monday bill
signing that the separate package will pass “hopefully this week.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz expressed concern during a Fox News interview Sunday that
Republican support for the infrastructure law could ultimately lead Democrats
to rally and back the second package
“They gave Joe Biden a political win,” Cruz said of his fellow Republicans. “He
will now go across the country touting, look at this big bipartisan win. And
that additional momentum, unfortunately, makes it more likely that they whip
their Democrats into shape and pass some multitrillion-dollar spending bill on
top of this that will include...
The haggling over infrastructure has shown that Biden can still bring together
Democrats and Republicans, even as tensions continue to mount over the Jan. 6
assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump who falsely believe
that Biden was not legitimately elected president. Yet the result is a product
that might not meet the existential threat of climate change or the
transformative legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose portrait hangs in
Biden’s Oval Office.
“Yes, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a big deal,” said Peter
Norton, a history professor in the University of Virginia’s engineering
department. “But the bill is not transformational, because most of it is more
of the same.”
Norton compared the limited action on climate change to the start of World War
II, when Roosevelt and Congress reoriented the entire U.S. economy after the
attack on Pearl Harbor. Within two months, there was a ban on auto production.
Dealerships had no new cars to sell for four years as factories focused on
weapons and war materiel. To conserve fuel consumption, a national speed limit
of 35 mph was introduced.
“The emergency we face today warrants a comparable emergency response,” Norton
said.
There are multiple ways of analyzing the size and scope of the infrastructure
bill. White House aides anchored their research to the historical benchmark of
building the interstate highway system from 1957 to 1966. By that metric, Biden
can rightly claim that the additional $550 billion in infrastructure spending
would be more than double the cost of the highway system when adjusted by
inflation.