On Wednesday, July 28, the group of senators working on bipartisan infrastructure legislation announced they had reached agreement on a $1.2 trillion package containing funding for roads, bridges, broadband and public transit, among other things. Since then, the full Senate has taken two procedural steps to advance the legislative vehicle that will carry the package. Senate Democratic leaders are aiming to pass the measure before leaving for the August state work period.
As of this writing, final legislative text has not been released. However, a draft form of the package has been circulating among lawmakers. This alert summarizes topline funding for various priorities in that draft bill, provides a section-by-section summary of the pay-fors and other select provisions, and provides a timeline for next steps.
Topline Overview
The infrastructure deal proposes $550 billion in new spending over five years and contains several offsets. A topline overview is below:
|
Infrastructure Projects
|
Amount in Billions (B) Above Baseline
|
|
Roads, Bridges and Major Projects
|
$110 B
|
|
Power and Grid
|
$73 B
|
|
Passenger and Freight Rail
|
$66 B
|
|
Broadband
|
$65 B
|
|
Water Infrastructure
|
$55 B
|
|
Resilience and Climate Change
|
$50 B
|
|
Public Transit
|
$39 B
|
|
Airports
|
$25 B
|
|
Ports and Waterways
|
$17 B
|
|
Safety
|
$11 B
|
|
Electric Vehicles (EV)
|
$7.5 B
|
|
EV and Low-Carbon School Buses and Ferries
|
$7.5 B
|
|
Environmental Remediation
|
$22 B
|
|
Spending Pay-fors
|
Amount
|
|
Repurposing unused COVID-19 relief funding
|
$205 B
|
|
Proceeds from C-band spectrum auction
|
$67 B
|
|
Economic growth, assuming a 33% return on investment from long-term infrastructure projects
|
$56 B
|
|
Delaying Medicare Part D rebate rule
|
$49 B
|
|
States returning unused enhanced federal UI supplement
|
$53 B
|
|
Applying information reporting requirements to cryptocurrency
|
$28 B
|
|
Extending fees on GSEs
|
$21 B
|
|
Sales of future spectrum auctions
|
$20 B
|
|
Reinstating Superfund fees
|
$13 B
|
|
Mandatory sequester
|
$8.7 B
|
|
Extending customs user fees
|
$6 B
|
|
Sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
|
$6 B
|
|
Savings from reducing Medicare spending on discarded medications from large, single-use drug vials
|
$3 B
|
|
Extending available interest rate smoothing options for defined benefit pension plans
|
$2.9 B
|
|
Funding from recouping fraudulently-paid benefits from enhanced federal UI supplement
|
Awaiting CBO Letter
|
Click here for additional information regarding process and timeline as well as a section by section analysis of the bill.