President Joe Biden celebrated the passage of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill Saturday, declaring — just days after an electoral drubbing for his party — that he had made good on two key promises of his campaign: reviving the economy and getting the nation vaccinated.
“Finally! Infrastructure week!” Biden declared with a broad smile from the State Dining Room, making a subtle dig at his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose White House perpetually promised big investments in the nation’s public works but never amassed the focus or votes.
Shortly before midnight Friday, the House gave final approval to the package, the largest single investment of federal resources into infrastructure projects in more than a decade, on a 228-206 vote.
California and Bay Area officials cheered the package’s passage Saturday as it is expected to send tens of billions of dollars toward infrastructure and transportation projects across the Golden State. California-specific funding includes about $25.3 billion for highway programs and $4.2 billion for bridge replacement and repairs over five years, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said Saturday, along with $9.45 billion to improve transportation options.
“President Biden understands the need to build a climate-resilient future, and the infrastructure package passed by Congress builds on California’s unprecedented investments to maintain and modernize the state,” Newsom said in a statement.
But for Biden on Saturday, there was a clear sense of regret that his victory did not come a few days earlier when it might have made a difference in the off-year elections Tuesday in which his party fared poorly, an outcome that he acknowledged reflected public frustration with a democratic process that seemed in perpetual gridlock.
“The American people have made clear one overwhelming thing, I think,” he said, with Vice President Kamala Harris at his side. “All the talk about the elections and what do they mean. They want us to deliver.”
Biden cast the victory — which he achieved with the support of 13 House Republicans, who proved crucial because of key defections from his own party — as critical to putting Americans to work on long-neglected projects. But he also described it as central to his strategy for competing with China, from the money for charging stations for electric vehicles — an investment Beijing made years ago — to bringing broadband internet service to remote and underserved communities.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat whose district includes South Bay cities like San Jose, Sunnyvale and Cupertino, applauded broadband investments for their potential to benefit the Bay Area economy even from outside California’s borders.
“It’ll help Silicon Valley to have the country networked into high-speed internet — it’ll help technology companies in our district, it’ll help remote employees,” Khanna told this news organization. “As a representative from Silicon Valley, that we’ll finally get the entire country hooked up to high-speed internet is very exciting.”
While the state will be responsible for allocating California-specific funds, individual infrastructure projects will also be able to compete for some $140 billion that will be freed up in new federal grant programs, said Alfredo Pedroza, chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission who also serves as a Napa County Supervisor.
In the coming weeks, MTC staff will review a host of local projects for possible grant funding, including high-profile, big-ticket projects such as the four-station BART extension into San Jose and the electrification of Caltrain — but also smaller efforts like intersection improvements in Napa and the extension of the SMART train in Sonoma County.
“In small communities, it’s hard to aggregate 100 million dollars with things like sales tax, voter initiatives … but when you have the opportunity to compete for much more resources, it makes the delivery of these projects a little more realistic,” Pedroza said Saturday.
In Washington, however, the president had hoped this pivotal moment would be accompanied by the simultaneous passing of the even larger social safety net and climate change bill that is the top priority of his party’s progressive wing.
In his final efforts to assemble votes for the infrastructure bill, he had asked skeptical members of his party Friday to trust that he had cut quiet deals that would assure passage of some form of the social policy bill the week of Nov. 15. That is when Congress is scheduled to be back from a weeklong recess.
Asked Saturday whether he had gotten assurances from moderates in the party that they would also vote for the sprawling social policy bill — with its funding for universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, paid family leave, child-care tax credits and extensive climate change programs — Biden refused to give details.
“I’m not going to get into who made what commitments to me — I don’t negotiate in public. But I feel confident.”
To win over votes later this month, Biden added some elements intended to appeal to Democrats in parts of the East Coast and California — including wealthier taxpayers. Changes enacted during the Trump administration made it impossible for taxpayers in those states to deduct from their federal taxable income more than $10,000 paid in state and local taxes. The new deduction, at least as the legislation stands now, would raise that limit to $80,000.
Before the House will take that up, however, moderates are demanding an independent assessment of the bill’s true cost, which will take until at least the middle of the month.
Staff reporter Fiona Kelliher and the The New York Times contributed to this report.
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