The House meets at 10 a.m. for legislative business and will take up three major appropriations bills, H.R. 4505 – Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2022; H.R. 4373– Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for 2022, H.R. 4346 – Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for 2022. The House may also consider 15 bills under suspension of the Rules.
The Senate convenes at 10:30 a.m. and will take up the nomination Gwynne A. Wilcox to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board and the nomination of David M. Prouty to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board.
Both Republican and Democratic Senate lunches turned into venting sessions Tuesday afternoon, as senators used the parties’ private meetings to complain about the bipartisan infrastructure negotiations. Many senators are losing patience with the bipartisan infrastructure talks, and their grievances underscore the difficulties negotiators have in sealing a final product. With unrest in the ranks and negotiators still exuding optimism, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) is not setting a hard deadline for the bipartisan infrastructure negotiations to conclude. He said he will keep the Senate in session until it finishes its work on Biden’s top priority even if that means cancelling recess. The two biggest issues are now public transit and a new dispute flared over the regulation of broadband access. Transit funding has remained a stubborn dispute, as Republican senators are wary of formalizing what has been a typical formula for the Highway Trust Fund allotting around 80% for highways and 20% for transit. Expanding access to broadband, which has become 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. Democrats were also insisting on a prevailing-wage requirement, not just for existing public works programs but also for building new roads, bridges, broadband and other infrastructure, but it’s not clear that will make the final package. President Joe Biden met Tuesday morning at the White House with Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, one of the Democratic leaders of the bipartisan talks, to discuss both the current bill and the next one.
President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak about the importance of American manufacturing at Mack Trucks Lehigh Valley Operations this afternoon outside Allentown, Pennsylvania. The President has proposed strengthening the federal government’s Buy American rules in an attempt to boost American manufacturing. The new proposal would require that goods purchased with taxpayer money contain 75% of US-made content, up from the current 55%, according to a fact sheet provided by the White House. The proposal would support the development and expansion of domestic supply chains for critical products by setting new price preferences and increase transparency and accountability in the Buy American rules, according to the White House.
Adam S. Olsen, Washington, D.C.
