By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves opposed the initial infrastructure plan proposed by President Joe Biden.
He’s not happy with the $974 billion dollar compromise package, either.
“No, I’m not to be honest with you,” Graves tells St. Joseph Post in a telephone interview. “There are several problems with that deal. One is all the senators that were negotiating it, none of them are on committees of jurisdiction for this. That creates a problem just in terms of what was negotiated and what comes out.”
Graves, the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, also is concerned about statements made by President Biden, who first said it must be combined with his American Families Plan before backing off and separating the two.
“There’s just a lot of uncertainty coming out on just exactly what it is that’s going to be proposed,” according to Graves.
Biden might have dropped his insistence that the traditional infrastructure bill be link to the American Families Plan, but Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has combined the two. The $2 trillion American Families Plan would provide child care, community college tuition, paid family and medical leave, universal preschool, and other aspects of what Democrats call human infrastructure.
Graves points out Pelosi has stated the compromise legislation won’t move forward in the House unless the Senate passes the American Families Plan which is opposed by Republicans.
“That’s means we are at a stalemate between the House and the Senate,” Graves says. “So, she’s going to have to back off of that or we’re going to end up with the same thing and we’re going to just have to pass an extension on surfaced transportation and continue it as is.”
Graves would like negotiators to focus on extending the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act and broaden talks from there. Graves argues the various transportation trust funds, such as those for highways, aviation, inland waterways, and such, need official reauthorization, rather than remain in their current state of limbo.
“We have to reauthorize those trust funds every so often and sometimes that’s a long-term reauthorization like five years or sometimes it’s a short-term reauthorization, but regardless, we have to go through the reauthorization process or they expire,” Graves says.
Graves doesn’t see the compromise package advancing.
“Right now, I don’t see it going anywhere and I don’t see the House version going anywhere at all.”