The House remains in a committee work week while the Senate met at 10:30 a.m. and resumed consideration of the nomination of Zahid Quraishi to be a U.S. District Court judge for New Jersey. Following that vote, the Senate will vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be a U.S. Circuit Court judge for the D.C. Circuit.
While President Joe Biden is in Europe, the bipartisan negotiations on infrastructure have shifted to a group of roughly 10 senators, split between the two parties, who have been having closed-door meetings this week to try to see if they can break the stalemate. Biden has also been in touch with the group, which includes Republicans Rob Portman, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and Democrats Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, Mark Warner and Jeanne Shaheen. The 58-member bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus has also put together a $1.25 trillion infrastructure spending framework, including $761.8 billion in new spending over eight years, to help salvage faltering bipartisan negotiations. The Problem Solvers plan does not include offsets, however, as those continue to be negotiated in the bicameral talks. Members of the bipartisan Senate group negotiating the fallback infrastructure plan say they will avoid tax increases and user fees, but include climate-related spending, in a bid to get past obstacles that have tripped up progress on a $1 trillion-plus package thus far.
Of note, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is testifying before a House Appropriations Subcommittee at 2 p.m.
President Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday agreed to a revitalized Atlantic Charter in their first meeting. The document, which updates an agreement signed in 1941, seeks to build on common principles to address new challenges, including climate change and cyberattacks. The leaders are planning to sign an updated version of the document that better reflects the 21st-century world. The new Atlantic Charter will be modeled on the historic declaration made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The new charter will outline priorities, values and challenges that include defending democracy, reaffirming the importance of collective security, building a more fair and sustainable global trading system, combating cyberattacks, addressing the climate crisis, protecting biodiversity and bringing an end to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden, visiting England on his first overseas trip as president, later plans to announce the donation of 500 million doses of coronavirus vaccine. With G-7 nations on track on finish administering coronavirus vaccines to their adult populations in the coming months, pressure to share doses with developing nations is mounting. More than 100 former world leaders have urged the G-7 to cover two-thirds of the estimated $66 billion that it will cost to vaccinate low-income countries. A celebrity-backed appeal from UNICEF, meanwhile, asks the G-7 nations to donate 20 percent of their vaccine supplies by no later than August.
Adam S. Olsen, Washington, D.C.
