This post was originally published on this site
President Joe Biden on Monday afternoon is due to sign into law a bipartisan infrastructure bill, delivering long-awaited spending on roads, bridges, broadband, electric-vehicle chargers, ports and other areas.
Biden is scheduled put his signature on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act around 3 p.m. Eastern and give a speech on the package, with Vice President Kamala Harris also making remarks.
The measure has an overall price tag of about $1 trillion, with around $550 billion in new public-works spending above what already was expected in future federal investments. Its spending includes $110 billion for roads, bridges and major projects; $66 billion for passenger and freight rail; $65 billion for broadband; and $7.5 billion for charging stations for electric vehicles.
See: Here’s what’s in the bipartisan infrastructure bill — and how it’s paid for
Also: How the infrastructure bill’s $65 billion in broadband spending will be doled out
Hopes for more infrastructure spending often have been dashed in recent years, turning “Infrastructure Week” into a joke in Washington, but the country’s politicians finally delivered this fall. In the spring, U.S. infrastructure had received an average grade of C minus in a 2021 report card released by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The infrastructure bill passed the Democratic-controlled Senate in a 69-30 vote on Aug. 10, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell among the 19 Republicans who supported the measure. It cleared the Democratic-run House of Representatives on Nov. 5 in a 228-206 vote, with 13 House Republicans backing it.
Infrastructure stocks, as tracked by the Global X U.S. Infrastructure Development ETF
PAVE,
have gained 36% this year, topping the broad S&P 500 equity index’s
SPX,
advance of 25%.
Following the push on traditional infrastructure, Biden and his fellow Democrats now are renewing their focus on advancing their party’s $1.75 trillion social-spending and climate package, known as the Build Back Better plan.
