WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate will vote on Wednesday on whether to move forward on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal after negotiators reached agreement on the major components of the package that is a key priority of President Joe Biden, lawmakers said.<\/p>\n
The bipartisan agreement here, which follows months of talks between Senate Democrats and Republicans, is expected to gain strong support from lawmakers from both parties.<\/p>\n
The Senate\u2019s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, said on Twitter Wednesday he \u201cwill vote to proceed to the bipartisan infrastructure bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats intend the bill — which includes funding for roads, bridges, broadband and other physical infrastructure — to be the first of a pair of packages, followed by a sweeping $3.5 trillion \u201chuman infrastructure\u201d package that faces staunch Republican opposition and some dissent among moderate Democrats.<\/p>\n
Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Senator Rob Portman, the two lead Senate negotiators, announced Wednesday\u2019s agreement separately to reporters.<\/p>\n
Republicans blocked a similar move last week, saying details were not nailed down. In the latest bill, details on transit and broadband were still being finalized but lawmakers said legislative text would be completed soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to have a deal,\u201d Sinema said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got most of the text done, so we\u2019ll be releasing it and then we\u2019ll update it as we get those last pieces finalized.\u201d<\/p> The agreement includes $110 billion for roads,$73 billion for power grid spending, $66 billion for railways, $65 billion to expand broadband access, $55 billion for clean drinking water, $50 billion for environmental resiliency, $39 billion for public transit, and $25 billion in airports, the White House said.<\/p>\n Addressing a concern over funding among Republican lawmakers including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Portman said the package is \u201cmore than paid for\u201d and added: \u201cWe look forward to moving ahead and having a healthy debate.\u201d<\/p>\n Officials said the package would be financed through a combination of measures. The largest was redirecting $205 billion in COVID-19 relief funds. Another was recouping $50 billion in fraudulently paid unemployment benefits during the pandemic, and getting states to return unused federal unemployment funds, raising another $50 billion.[L1N2P42U3]<\/p>\n Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said he was investigating whether COVID-19 spending on hospital and nursing home providers is being tapped, with hospital admissions from the highly contagious Delta variant on the rise. \u201cI\u2019m gathering facts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The bipartisan bill is a key component of Biden\u2019s larger domestic policy agenda. Democratic leaders plan to address the remainder with a sweeping $3.5 trillion budget \u201creconciliation\u201d package. Republicans have vowed to oppose that effort, and Sinema appeared lukewarm about it in remarks to a newspaper in her state on Wednesday. That prompted criticism from a prominent progressive House Democrat.<\/p>\n Sinema told the Arizona Republic she supports starting the process for the larger deal but does not back spending $3.5 trillion, which is expected to include funding for social measures and fighting climate change. Her hesitancy could create problems for party leaders who need every Democratic vote for it in the evenly divided Senate.<\/p>\n Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive House Democrat, blasted Sinema for opposing the larger bill and implied that could hurt the bipartisan infrastructure bill\u2019s chances in the House, where Democrats have a thin majority and progressives are passionate about the larger bill.<\/p>\n \u201cGood luck tanking your own party\u2019s investment on childcare, climate action, and infrastructure while presuming you\u2019ll survive a 3 vote House margin – especially after choosing to exclude members of color from negotiations and calling that a \u2018bipartisan accomplishment,\u2019\u201d Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n The bipartisan bill will propose $550 billion in new spending, a White House fact sheet said, down from $579 billion in a framework the negotiators sketched out several weeks ago.<\/p>\n It scraps previous plans to spend $20 billion to create an infrastructure financing authority, sources in both parties said. It had been intended to attract investment through private-public partnerships, but Republicans opposed Democratic demands designed to lift worker wages by attaching requirements that contractors pay prevailing wages, typically higher levels secured by unions.<\/p>\nBIDEN\u2019S AGENDA<\/h2>\n