New top story from Time: U.S. Senate Votes to Start Work on a $1 Trillion National Infrastructure Plan

https://ift.tt/3iZ16ur

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Wednesday night to begin work on a nearly $1 trillion national infrastructure plan after President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators reached agreement on major provisions of the package that is a key part of his presidential agenda.

Biden welcomed the accord as one that would show America can “do big things” — with the most significant long-term investments in nearly a century, he said, on par with building the transcontinental railroad or the Interstate highway system.

“This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function,” Biden said in a statement. “We will once again transform America and propel us into the future.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The rare bipartisan showing, on 67-32 vote, signaled the interest among senators in starting the process to consider the infrastructure package. But it’s unclear if enough Republicans will eventually join Democrats to support final passage. The procedural step Wednesday night is expected to launch lengthy consideration.

Lead GOP negotiator Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio announced the bipartisan group’s agreement earlier at the Capitol, flanked by four other Republican senators who have been in weeks of talks with Democrats and the White House on the package.

That group has worked with the White House to salvage the deal, a first part of Biden’s big infrastructure agenda. Swelling to more than 700 pages, the bill includes $550 billion in new spending for public works projects.

In all, 17 Republican senators joined the Democrats on Wednesday in voting to launch the debate, but most remained skeptical. The GOP senators were given a thick binder of briefing materials during a private lunch, but they asked many questions and wanted more details.

According to a 57-page GOP summary obtained by The Associated Press, the five-year spending package would be paid for by tapping $205 billion in unspent COVID-19 relief aid and $53 billion in unemployment insurance aid some states have halted. It also relies on economic growth to bring in $56 billion, and other measures.

The outcome will set the stage for the next debate over Biden’s much more ambitious $3.5 trillion spending package, a strictly partisan pursuit of far-reaching programs and services including child care, tax breaks and health care that touch almost every corner of American life. Republicans strongly oppose that bill, and may try to stop both.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer opened the Senate announcing a possible evening vote, nudging talks along. It takes 60 votes in the evenly split 50-50 Senate to proceed for consideration and ultimately pass the bill, meaning support from both parties.

Giving that a boost, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell announced late Wednesday he would vote to proceed, though whether he will support the final bill remains uncertain. The Republican negotiators met with McConnell earlier Wednesday and Portman said the leader “all along has been encouraging our efforts.”

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a lead Democratic negotiator who talks often with Republicans, said she also spoke with Biden Wednesday and he was “very excited” to have an agreement.

Democrats, who have slim control of the House and Senate, face a timeline to act on what would be some of the most substantial pieces of legislation in years.

Filling in the details has become a month-long exercise ever since a bipartisan group of senators struck an agreement with Biden in June over the broad framework.

The new spending in the package dropped from about $600 billion to $550 billion, senators said, as money was eliminated for a public-private infrastructure bank and was reduced in other categories, including transit.

The package still includes $110 billion for highways, $65 billion for broadband and $73 billion to modernize the nation’s electric grid, according a White House fact sheet.

Additionally, there’s $25 billion for airports, $55 billion for waterworks and more than $50 billion to bolster infrastructure against cyberattacks and climate change. There’s also $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations.

Paying for the package has been a slog throughout the talks after Democrats rejected a plan to bring in funds by hiking the gas tax drivers pay at the pump and Republicans dashed an effort to boost the IRS to go after tax scofflaws.

Along with repurposing the COVID-19 relief and unemployment aid, other revenue would come from the sale of broadcast spectrum, reinstating fees that chemical companies used to pay for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites and drawing $49 billion from reversing a Trump-era pharmaceutical rebate, among other sources.

The final deal could run into political trouble if it doesn’t pass muster as fully paid for when the Congressional Budget Office assesses the details. But Portman said the package will be “more than paid for.”

House Democrats have their own transportation bill, which includes much more spending to address rail transit, electric vehicles and other strategies to counter climate change.

The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., called the Senate’s bipartisan measure complete “crap,” during a private meeting Tuesday according to two Democrats who attended the session and spoke on condition of anonymity to describe it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not commit to supporting the package until she sees the details, but said Wednesday she’s “rooting for it.”

Pelosi said, “I very much want it to pass.”

A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC found 8 in 10 Americans favor some increased infrastructure spending.

Senators in the bipartisan group have been huddling privately for months. The group includes 10 core negotiators, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, but has swelled at times to 22.

Transit funding has remained a stubborn dispute, as most Republican senators come from rural states where highways dominate and public transit is scarce, while Democrats view transit as a priority for cities and a key to easing congesting and fighting climate change. Democrats don’t want to see the formula dip below its typical formula of about 80% for highways and 20% for transit.

Expanding access to broadband. which has become ever more vital for households during the coronavirus pandemic, sparked a new debate. Republicans pushed back against imposing regulations on internet service providers in a program that helps low-income people pay for service.

Sinema said transit and broadband were the remaining issues being finished up Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Democrats are readying the broader $3.5 trillion package that is being considered under budget rules that allow passage with 51 senators in the split Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break a tie. It would be paid for by increasing the corporate tax rate and the tax rate on Americans earning more than $400,000 a year.

___

Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Josh Boak in Washington and Tali Arbel in New York contributed to this report.

Comments

FOX NEWS: Father who was given months to live speaks out on thyroid cancer misconceptions A father who was told he had six months to a year to live when he got gravely ill from medullary thyroid cancer in 2019 has surpassed his doctor’s prediction, and he hopes others become “purveyors of positivity” after hearing his story.

Father who was given months to live speaks out on thyroid cancer misconceptions A father who was told he had six months to a year to live when he got gravely ill from medullary thyroid cancer in 2019 has surpassed his doctor’s prediction, and he hopes others become “purveyors of positivity” after hearing his story. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/2XlinXm

New top story from Time: How Spirited Away Changed Animation Forever

https://ift.tt/3xVoGP5 Twenty years ago, on July 20, 2001, a film that would become one of the most celebrated animated movies of all time hit theaters in Japan. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, titled Spirited Away in English, would leave an indelible mark on animation in the 21st century. The movie arrived at a time when animation was widely perceived as a genre solely for children, and when cultural differences often became barriers to the global distribution of animated works. Spirited Away shattered preconceived notions about the art form and also proved that, as a film created in Japanese with elements of Japanese folklore central to its core, it could resonate deeply with audiences around the world. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The story follows an ordinary 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, as she arrives at a deserted theme park that turns out to be a realm of gods and spirits. After an overeating incident ...

A Green Light for Muni Customers

A Green Light for Muni Customers By Stephen Chun Have you ever been on a Muni vehicle and realized that if the light had only stayed green for just a few more seconds you wouldn’t have been trapped at a red light? SFMTA’s Connected Corridor Pilot approached this problem with a new state of the art solution. Most signals in San Francisco do not have sensors to detect vehicles at an intersection. However, through a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, our project team was able to test an advanced technology for signal timing based on who is present at an intersection. In this way, transit platform and traffic signal sensor data can be used to activate signal timing adjustments, responding to traffic conditions in real time. These adjustments provide more opportunities for transit vehicles to make it through intersections on a green light. The project team turned on the adaptive signal timing program during several days in Jul...

New top story from Time: Deaths and Blackouts Have Hit the U.S. Northwest Due to the Unprecedented Heat Wave

https://ift.tt/2UgzckI SPOKANE, Wash. — The unprecedented Northwest U.S. heat wave that slammed Seattle and Portland, Oregon, moved inland Tuesday — prompting a electrical utility in Spokane, Washington, to resume rolling blackouts amid heavy power demand. Officials said a dozen deaths in Washington and Oregon may be tied to the intense heat that began late last week. The dangerous weather that gave Seattle and Portland consecutive days of record high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celcius) was expected to ease in those cities. But inland Spokane saw temperatures spike. The National Weather Service said the mercury reached 109 F (42.2 C) in Spokane— the highest temperature ever recorded there. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] About 9,300 Avista Utilities customers in Spokane lost power on Monday and the company said more planned blackouts began on Tuesday afternoon in the city of about 220,000 people. “We try to limit outages to one hour per...

New top story from Time: The ‘Badass Chief of Staff’ of Turkey’s Opposition Faces Years in Jail After Challenging Erdogan’s Power. She’s Not Backing Down

https://ift.tt/2ZKUTZP Snow brings back memories for Dr. Canan Kaftancioglu. Of recess snowball fights in the Black Sea village where she grew up, of warming her hands at her elementary school’s stove before class — and of discovering a poem by Turkish writer Ataol Behramoglu, a favorite of a beloved uncle who would bring left-wing newspapers to her childhood home and discuss the articles inside. “It is about how the snow brings equality between people,” Kaftancioglu says of the poem. “In the snow, we build a new, more equal world.” The Turkish politician is speaking through an interpreter at her friends’ apartment in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, seated in an armchair with a beige and brown-spotted dog curled up beside her. In a matter of days or weeks but likely not months, Kaftancioglu expects she will be taken to jail. For now, she’d rather focus on her work: the poverty rate is increasing, and people in her city are suffering. Kaftancioglu represents something unfamil...

New top story from Time: A Conversation with Filmmaker Adam Curtis on Power, Technology and How Ideas Get Into People’s Heads

https://ift.tt/2NQRzcY The British filmmaker Adam Curtis may work for the BBC, a bastion of the British elite, but over a decades-long career, he has cemented himself as a cult favorite. He is best known as the pioneer of a radical and unique style of filmmaking, combining reels of unseen archive footage, evocative music, and winding narratives to tell sweeping stories of 20th and 21st century history that challenge the conventional wisdom. “I’ve never thought of myself as a documentary maker,” he says. “I’m a journalist.” On Feb. 11, Curtis dropped his latest epic: Can’t Get You Out of My Head , an eight hour history of individualism, split up over six episodes. Subtitled “An emotional history of the modern world,” the goal of the series, Curtis says, was to unpack how we came to live in a society designed around the individual, but where people increasingly feel anxious and uncertain. It’s a big question, and Curtis attempts to answer it by taking us on a winding journ...

New top story from Time: How Are Activists Managing Dissension Within the ‘Defund the Police’ Movement?

https://ift.tt/3qRRGDU In June 2020, the Minneapolis city council announced plans to disband its police department following the killing of George Floyd . The council’s decision came after days of protesting and unrest in the city—and across the country —related to Floyd’s death and calls for larger-scale accountability from law enforcement. Central in many of these calls-for-action was a phrase soon to go global: “defund the police.” Eight months later, however, and the city’s police department has not been dissolved, though a lot has happened in the interim; Minneapolis’ struggle to implement meaningful reforms serves as a microcosm of how the “defund the police” movement has impacted the country. Council members who initially supported the idea have walked back their positions. In August the city charter delayed the council’s proposal to disband the police pending further review, only to reject the proposal entirely in November. ( Instead, there have been some rollback...

US NSA Jake Sullivan dials Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, reaffirms commitment for strong, enduring relations https://ift.tt/3agErFM

America’s new National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in his first call with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on Wednesday reaffirmed the commitment of President Joe Biden to a strong and enduring bilateral strategic partnership based on shared commitment to democracy, the White House said.

New top story from Time: What Learned About Ourselves In the First Year of the Pandemic

https://ift.tt/3dTjNPp A version of this article appeared in this week’s It’s Not Just You newsletter . SUBSCRIBE HERE to have an It’s Not Just You essay delivered to your inbox every Sunday. March is the anteroom of months. It’s both the end of last year’s winter and the beginning of the new year’s spring. It’s half slush, half-quixotic hope. I had my first baby in March–a child that arrived nine days late, already a solid little being with startling almond eyes and the appetite of a toddler. I had no idea what I was doing; we two just hunkered down and tried to figure each other out. I still flounder at the start of every March, for different reasons every year, staggering out of February a soggy, angsty creature whose clothes don’t fit. But somehow, I slip-slide toward the end of the month, and things start to make sense. Maybe the vernal equinox is what helps get us back on track every spring. It’s that moment, usually, on the 20th or 21st of March, wh...

New top story from Time: The Split in How Americans Think About Our Collective Past Is Real—But There’s a Way Out of the ‘History Wars’

https://ift.tt/3gOBoti What are Americans supposed to know about the history of their country? Whose stories should be taught in classrooms, whose should be omitted and who decides? Such questions inform recent education bills like Louisiana’s HB564 and Iowa’s HF802 , which prohibit the teaching of “divisive concepts” and are just two of the latest entrants in an often-contentious dialogue reaching back to the founding of the Republic itself. But while there’s been a steady stream of opinions from politicians, pundits and professors about where to find “Historical Truth,” it’s always been hard to know how exactly the American public would answer these questions. Our recent national survey of people’s understandings and uses of the past, the full results of which will be published this summer, gives voice to the unheard masses. A collaboration between the American Historical Association and Fairleigh Dickinson University , and funded by the National Endowment for the Hu...

My precise view

Search This Blog