Domain Registration

Schumer defends tight infrastructure deadline as GOP threatens to tank key vote

  • July 20, 2021

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday rejected Republican calls to slow down the process of moving a bipartisan infrastructure plan through his chamber.

Instead, the New York Democrat heaped more pressure on senators to reach a final agreement on the legislation, and said he had no plans to delay Wednesday’s up or down vote to proceed with debate on the plan.

Schumer argued that the procedural vote Wednesday to advance a House transportation bill that will comprise part of the ultimate infrastructure package was not a final deadline to finish the harder pieces of legislation, but merely a starting point to begin formally debating what the bill should contain.

“It is not a cynical ploy. It is not a fish-or-cut-bait moment. It is not an attempt to jam anyone,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday morning.

“It’s only a signal that the Senate is ready to get the process started — something the Senate has routinely done on other bipartisan bills this year,” the majority leader said.

Once the shell bill is approved, Schumer said, he would insert the bipartisan infrastructure language into it on Thursday if a deal had been reached by then.

If a deal is not been reached by Thursday, but the shell bill ends up passing the 60-vote threshold, Schumer said he would insert language from several smaller bills that have already been approved either by Senate committees or by the full Senate: A water bill, a highway bill, a rail and transit bill, and an energy bill.

Schumer filed the original motion to proceed with the House bill on Monday evening, he said, with the intention of swapping in the text of the Senate infrastructure legislation once it is written.

The vote Wednesday will simply initiate a debate that Schumer said could take several more weeks — “No more, no less.”

“We’ve waited a month. It’s time to move forward,” he said, referring to the June 24 announcement at the White House by President Joe Biden that the group of nearly two dozen bipartisan senators had struck a deal.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/20/schumer-defends-tight-infrastructure-deadline-as-gop-threatens-to-tank-key-vote.html

Related News

Search

Get best offer

Booking.com
%d bloggers like this: