Consider This from NPR - Biden Admin Sees Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill As A Win

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

After months of bipartisan negotiation, the Senate may finally vote this weekend on a 2,700 page infrastructure bill that includes $1 trillion in spending on things like roads, bridges, public transit, and broadband.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people It's 2,700 pages, about $1 trillion in spending for things like roads and bridges, broadband, the power grid. You know, I tell folks, I know that bipartisanship sounds outdated to many pundits. The deal on this bill came together after months of negotiations led by a bipartisan group of senators. The difficult work of crossing party lines, collaborating, compromising, that's what's expected at home in Arizona. Arizona's Kirsten Sinema, a Democrat, helped steer the bipartisan effort, and she spoke with NPR earlier this week.

Folks are openly debating the policies in our bill. We've been moving forward on amendments, and so far we've been thrilled to receive the support of two thirds of the Senate, which has shown broad and bipartisan support. The thing is, the approach from moderate Democrats like Sinema and West Virginia's Joe Manchin has been criticized by some of their more progressive colleagues. I want to be clear that the investments in the bipartisan bill are not all, you know, candy land. Speaking to CNN, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that some parts of the bill really concern her, like language about toll roads and leasing public infrastructure to private companies. Bipartisan doesn't always mean that it's in the interest of the public good.

It's easy to launch criticisms and political attacks. As folks know, I don't do that. We asked Kirsten Sinema whether she was concerned at all that bipartisan concessions made for this infrastructure bill could risk Democrats losing seats in Congress. Well, what I'm worried about is getting stuff done. I guess what I would say is the proof is in the pudding. If you do the work and deliver results for the people that you represent, they'll continue to send you back to do that job. Consider this, a massive infrastructure bill full of compromises could soon pass in the Senate. We'll look at what was left out and why the Biden administration still frames it as a clear win. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Friday, August 6th. to receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today

or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. There are arrowheads in the walls. I'm Ramteen Arablui. I'm Randabdin Fattah. And we're the hosts of ThruLine, NPR's history podcast. And for our special series this month,

the best of ThruLine. You know, if we carry on as we have been, this is what we might wind up with. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. So 2,700 pages long, nearly $1 trillion in spending. What exactly is in this infrastructure bill? I'd say the biggest investment is about $110 billion for roads and bridges. There's also money for airports, public transit, the power grid, broadband, and some limited environmental protection.

That is NPR congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell. She says that the core of this bill isn't all that surprising. It expands investments in what are mostly considered traditional types of infrastructure. Builds on, you know, the regular highway bill that Congress has been writing and passing for ages. And this is the kind of stuff that has bipartisan support in the Senate. But what was left out were things like broader climate change provisions that a lot of progressives in the House want. This bill also doesn't have paid leave, free college or child care elements that President Biden had initially proposed. So in the end, the bill is primarily an expansion of traditional infrastructure spending.

Even so, tucked inside it are all kinds of items to garner more votes. There are really some niche things that kind of fall well outside of what we'd think of as infrastructure. Like there's a study of whether first responders should use bicycles when responding to disasters. There's also money for research on wildlife and vehicle collisions. There are also regional programs that are clearly intended to satisfy some specific lawmakers. There's extra money for a salmon recovery fund for states on the West Coast to build up salmon populations. Now that's places like Washington and Alaska, two states represented by senators who negotiated this bill. Kelsey Snell spoke with my colleague Mary Louise Kelly.

It does sound like there's some pet projects in there. And I always wonder, how does that work? How do lawmakers justify putting in these super specific, in some cases, self-serving elements into a big bill like this? You know, in many ways, this is just what happened or really used to happen in a representative system like Congress. Many lawmakers think they were elected by constituents to go to Washington to advocate for funding and the protection of the needs of the community they represent. And a lot of what we're seeing here is, you know, lawmakers saying that they're making good on that. Often that means for pushing for studies or fundings for programs that benefit their constituents. You know, in normal legislative times, Congress spent most of their energy deciding how the

federal government should invest money. And I should note that it's investments in a vast country with really diverse needs. Yeah. You're telling us that this is not necessarily nefarious, this pork that shows up. There are bad actors out there and some pretty egregious giveaways on occasion, but this is just the way things typically work when they're writing a big bill like this. So this is just kind of the work that Congress has traditionally done. That was NPR congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell. Now, putting tradeoffs and pet projects aside, the Biden administration is celebrating this bill as a huge win. You know, I think what we were aiming for to be in this bill is still in the bill.

That's Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan. They may not be at the scale of the president's original vision, but we are trending in the right direction to make the historic investments that the president has intended. I spoke with Regan and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg live on Twitter spaces on Thursday. We talked about the infrastructure bill and how it fits in with the administration's overall plans to combat climate change, including a new executive order from Biden to boost electric car sales so that half of all new car sales would be electric by 2030. Okay, let me turn to you, Secretary Buttigieg. According to Reagan, everything that you guys ever dreamed of is in this bill, but just not as much as you wanted. Is that how you would

characterize it? Or is there something that's missing from this bill that you would have liked to seen had you guys been able to be as ambitious as President Biden was going into this? If you look across the transportation categories, obviously, it varies from one line item to the next. But basically, we're coming in around two thirds of what the president originally proposed, which is why we continue to be on an order of magnitude here that is historic, in many ways, era defining. Of course, it's not the last or the only word on provisions that are going to make a big difference for our climate. We're enthusiastic about what emerged here. Well, let's turn now to these new announcements from the president.

We're talking about stricter fuel efficiency and emission standards for cars. It rolls back the previous administration's targets. Some of this is based on a deal that California made with some automakers to voluntarily adopt something like 3.7% annual improvements in fuel economy and emission standards for the next few years. Let me ask you, is that really enough to significantly slow down climate change? Well, I think what we're proposing will be a more stringent approach based on sound science to reduce the emissions at the rate that we need to for vehicles 2023 through 2026. We're building to an 8% standard of improvement. So it doesn't take long before

the math gets convoluted because there's this framework that was driven by California that's basically in effect for the immediate model years here. But we are upping the ambition in a big way. Okay. Well, I want to also talk about the electric vehicle goal here. We're talking about half of all new car sales being electric car sales by 2030. Right now, electric cars are generally more expensive. They're less available. How do you plan to persuade people to buy more expensive cars in just the next few years? Well, first of all, they've got to get less expensive. And part of how you do that is through economies of scale. So by driving the kinds of improvements that these standards encourage, that leads to these vehicles becoming less and less expensive, and I think eventually becoming a clear financial winner. You add to that the fuel savings, where depending on the vehicle, depending on your driving patterns, you're going to be capturing an economic benefit. Another area, of course, is to make them less expensive. That's what the tax credits have done historically, and that's an area for future policy. It will also be up to the makers of these cars to communicate why they are superior and get people to test

drive them. Well, it's not only going to take lots and lots of electric vehicles, we have to lower emissions across the grid to get any meaningful change on climate change. So there's been a lot of criticism, particularly from environmental activists, that this infrastructure bill, if I can pivot back to the bill, that this bill is a little too much status quo, meaning it invests in existing infrastructure, in fossil fuel industries, for example. How fair of a criticism is that, you think, that this bill is more about maintaining the world as it is rather than moving into a truly new one?

You know, I would say that we have to stay focused on the fact that these investments are historic. We have regulatory and statutory authority within all of our agencies to pursue aggressive climate goals. We have the bipartisan infrastructure deal. The budget requested by the president for EPA is over a 20% increase. those resources will also be put towards climate mitigation as well as adaptation. So these are historic investments. When the president pledged to build back better, I would say that he has not backed off of his ambitious climate and air quality and environmental justice agenda. And we're excited to see his leadership in these areas. I want to wrap with one last question, a bit of a philosophical question.

You know, so much of environmentalism in the past decades was about stopping things from getting built, right? Like making sure that construction didn't hurt the environment. But now it feels like we're in this new era where dealing with climate change is actually about building new stuff. And I'm curious, do you think the environmental activist community is making that shift with you and going along with policies and proposals like the ones we've been talking about today to build more stuff? You know, I'll take that and then turn it over to Secretary Buttigieg, but I believe what they're really looking for is a seat at the table. Historically,

the business community and others have always dominated the stakeholder process. So I believe that we can find efficiencies in the system, bringing all people to the table so that we can build and invest in the infrastructure that the president is promoting. Secretary Buttigieg, last words? Yeah, I love this question and I love this thought. I think the way forward is about adding and subtracting. Sometimes that means removing things that caused harm, like a highway that was deliberately routed straight through a black neighborhood in a way that tore it apart. Other times, it means adding something new. The electric vehicles that we're discussing today is a great example of that. It's about the right combination of yeses and

noes that is empowering for people who've been left out in the past and that is positioning America to truly lead the world in what it actually looks like to have a sustainable climate-forward economy. That was Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and EPA Administrator Michael Regan. I spoke with them live on Twitter Spaces. You can follow NPR on Twitter if you'd like to listen in real time during future interviews like that one. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.