Senate Leaders Spar on Amendment Timeline
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sparred Tuesday about the pace the chamber will take in considering the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, filed as a substitute amendment to shell bill HR-3684. Senate…
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Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is leading efforts to amend the infrastructure package’s $65 billion broadband title to address anti-digital redlining and consumer protection provisions some Republicans consider a potential back door to rate regulation (see 2108020061). Senate Democrats and Republicans are working to set up “additional votes” on amendments to the measure, but the chamber needs to “work efficiently to set up those votes,” Schumer told reporters. The “longer it takes to finish” consideration of HR-3684, “the longer we’ll be here” since the Senate “will complete both” the infrastructure bill and a separate resolution to set up a supplemental budget reconciliation package “before we leave for the August recess.” McConnell told reporters he favors “trying to get an outcome” on HR-3684, but the “best way to pass this infrastructure bill is to not try to file cloture today” and speed the process. “This is an extremely important bipartisan bill” and “to try to truncate” the amendments process “on something of this magnitude, I think is a mistake,” he said. If Schumer attempts to file cloture Tuesday to end amendments consideration, McConnell will urge Republicans to filibuster. Senators voted 95-1 Monday in favor of an amendment from Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., to attach language from the Telecommunications Skilled Workforce Act (S-163 and see 2102020072). Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, touted on the Senate floor her work with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., to reach a deal on the package’s broadband language. She hoped the Senate will vote on an amendment from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that would “give more flexibility to states to invest in broadband using some of the” money they received from previous COVID-19 aid bills. Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; and Angus King, I-Maine, cited the infrastructure package’s inclusion of $42.5 billion for an NTIA-administered Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment grants program, mirroring a proposal in their S-2071.