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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says lawmakers could vote on infrastructure next week as they reach agreement on reconciliation

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats were nearing an agreement on its infrastructure package.

  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday said Democrats were “pretty much” there on an agreement on its reconciliation bill.
  • The bill is a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s agenda and was introduced with a $3.5 trillion price tag.
  • But progressive and centrist Democrats have squabbled over particulars in the bill, also delaying a vote on an infrastructure bill already passed in the Senate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, on Sunday said she expects an agreement on the bipartisan infrastructure bill sometime next week as lawmakers near an agreement on the reconciliation bill.

Pelosi, who made the comments during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said Democrats were nearing consensus on how to proceed with the reconciliation bill, the 10-year spending plan that is the cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The infrastructure bill passed the Senate in August, but House leadership has held off on passing the bill and sending it to Biden until an agreement between progressive and centrist Democrats could be made on the reconciliation package, which at its introduction by Biden had a $3.5 trillion price tag and included major investments in education, child care, climate change, and other progressive priorities.

Pelosi said 90% of the reconciliation bill had been written and agreed upon, adding that lawmakers were “pretty much there” on an agreement.

At the beginning of the month, Pelosi pushed the deadline for lawmakers to agree on the infrastructure bill to October 31, saying it was “about time” the House passed the bill after progressives stalled its passage, claiming they wouldn’t vote in its favor unless it passed alongside the reconciliation bill.

Centrist Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have pushed back on key provisions of the reconciliation bill, also leading to the delays.

“This date is fraught with meaning because October 31 is the day the highway trust fund authorization expires,” Pelosi said Sunday. “And if that expires, we have to get billions of dollars someplace to continue that. The best way to do that is to pass the bill.”

“We just have some of the last decisions to be made,” Pelosi said Sunday. “It is less than what was projected to begin with but it is still bigger than anything we have ever done in terms of addressing the needs of America’s working families.”

Pelosi said Biden would host Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, also a Democrat, in Delaware to iron out the last remaining “particulars” of the reconciliation bill.

“I’m optimistic that we can do that,” she said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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