A bipartisan push for U.S. infrastructure

After talks between President Joe Biden and Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito collapsed this month, a major investment in the nation's infrastructure seemed doomed, much as in previous years, when the perfect deal always seemed to elude leaders' grasp.

Now a bipartisan coalition of senators has worked to piece together a deal that could succeed where previous efforts failed. Already, it is coming under fire from all sides. Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota has complained that there is too much in the bill related to climate change. Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., say there's not enough. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont says he opposes it because it's not big enough and doesn't raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for it.

But the general unhappiness on all sides could well prove a point in the deal's favor. It is clear that this proposal is the result of serious compromises — the kind that hurt to make. We commend the 10 senators involved — five Republicans, including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, and five Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia — for digging deep to find common ground in an environment that could hardly be more polarized.

After initially proposing a $2.7 trillion plan over eight years, Biden lopped off $1 trillion in an effort to reach agreement in talks with Republican Senate lead negotiator Capito. But talks collapsed, in part over varying definitions of what constitutes infrastructure. Capito pushed for a more traditional roads and bridges approach, while Biden took the more expansive view. When those talks collapsed, the Senate coalition plan for $1.2 trillion over eight years emerged.

A similar bipartisan effort has emerged on the House side, where the Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans that includes Minnesota Reps. Dean Phillips, a Democrat, and Pete Stauber, a Republican, has been working on a $1.2 trillion plan that would fund highways, roads, bridges, waterways, airports, veterans housing and broadband.

That is barely half what the president proposed in April in his American Jobs Plan. But it would spend $1.2 trillion on infrastructure in the next eight years. Here in the Midwest, that still counts as serious money. It would represent a major infusion that could at long last yield upgraded roads, bridges and transit, a modernized electrical grid, and the prospect of a nationwide wireless communications grid.

It is enough to wipe out a backlog of bridge repairs that the American Society of Civil Engineers recently put at $125 billion. (That does not include roads or dams.) It would also cover the $100 billion Biden estimates is needed to update the power grid. He would stretch those dollars further by offering tax credits to builders for clean energy projects. That's a smart way to make taxpayers' money go farther and engage private industry, where there is an eagerness to pivot away from fossil fuels to green projects.

The point is, there is real progress that can be made on needed projects that would move this country forward, providing jobs and securing our future.

There is too much solid bipartisan work being done here to let it go to waste. And this country desperately needs to show that different factions can still bridge their differences, be productive and do the hard work of governing.

We urge leaders on both sides to build the voting coalitions needed to put this over the top and recommend that Biden signal strongly that he welcomes these new efforts.