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Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday morning said she still is planning to have the U.S. House of Representatives vote later in the day on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, even as her progressive Democratic colleagues appeared set to block this key part of President Joe Biden’s agenda.
“We’re on a path to win the vote. I don’t want to even consider any options other than that,” the California Democrat told reporters at her weekly briefing.
Progressive House Democrats look on track to oppose the infrastructure
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bill, already passed by the Senate, unless the party’s $3.5 trillion package targeting “human infrastructure” moves ahead in tandem. Meanwhile, moderate Democratic senators remain skeptical of the larger measure’s price tag.
“At the end, that’s when you really have to weigh in. You cannot tire, you cannot concede. This is the fun part,” Pelosi said.
She said she viewed the $3.5 trillion package as a “culmination” of her service in Congress “because it was about the children,” and she stressed that it will get enacted.
“We will have a reconciliation bill. That is for sure,” she said.
But she noted that it’s tough to convince progressives to support the smaller bill, which is sometimes called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, or BIF.
“It’s impossible, though, to persuade people to vote for the BIF, without the reassurances that the reconciliation bill will occur,” Pelosi said.
On Wednesday, Pelosi had suggested the House may not vote Thursday as planned on the infrastructure bill, as she and her fellow Democrats struggle to reach agreements on their other spending proposals. She also signaled on Wednesday that there needs to be agreed-upon legislative text for the $3.5 trillion package in order for there to be support among progressives for the smaller measure.
A month ago, Pelosi had set this past Monday as the target date for a vote on the infrastructure package, but then in recent days she pushed back her deadline to this Thursday. She had pledged a vote by the past Monday to a group of moderate House Democrats to get their support for a procedural vote for the bigger package.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill, known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed the Senate in a 69-30 vote on Aug. 10, but it still needs to move through the House and get signed into law by Biden.
In addition to wrestling with their big plans for public works and social programs, Democratic-run Washington is dealing with a Thursday deadline to fund the government in order to avoid a partial shutdown, as well as debt-limit drama.
Read more: Congress set to act to prevent government shutdown as debt-limit brawl continues
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were trading mostly lower on Thursday.
