The Infrastructure Plan: What’s In and What’s Out

The Senate’s infrastructure bill is undeniably large: It calls for new federal spending of about $550 billion (as part of a $1 trillion bill that also renews existing transportation spending). The new spending is roughly equivalent to the cost of the Interstate Highway System, after adjusting for inflation.

But the bipartisan deal is less than a quarter the size of the $2.6 trillion plan that President Biden proposed in March, which included $2.2 trillion in spending and around $400 billion in tax credits. It’s also significantly smaller than the counteroffer the White House proposed in May, which scaled back spending by $500 billion, and it leaves out many of the Democrats’ biggest ambitions.

Democrats have also put forward a $3.5 trillion budget proposal that they intend to pass later this year through a process known as budget reconciliation, which requires fewer votes. On Monday, they presented a budget resolution — an initial step that outlines spending limits on the budget that they will vote on in fall.

This budget is expected to contain many of the pieces that were left out of the bipartisan infrastructure agreement — including investments in housing and education; child care and Medicare expansions; research and development; manufacturing; climate research; and clean energy. But moderate and progressive Democrats currently disagree on what will be included, and lawmakers may end up scaling back policies from those initially proposed.

There were six major areas in Mr. Biden’s original infrastructure proposal: transportation, utilities, pollution, innovation, in-home care and buildings. Almost all these areas were scaled back or eliminated in the bipartisan plan, with one exception: pollution cleanup.

What got left out

Three major areas of President Biden’s original proposal were not included in the bipartisan deal: buildings, in-home care and innovation. The bipartisan plan also left out $363 billion in clean energy tax credits.

Some of what the bipartisan plan leaves out:

In-home care: This focused on raising wages for workers who provide health care for older adults and people with disabilities. They are predominantly women of color and are among the lowest-paid workers, the White House said.

Buildings: This included funding public housing — an area that would “disproportionately benefit women, people of color and people with disabilities,” according to the White House. It also included investing in child care centers and community colleges; modernizing public schools; and upgrading federal hospitals and buildings.

Innovation: This included investing in U.S.-based manufacturing; funding research on climate change and energy; and providing research grants to historically Black colleges and universities.

What shrank

Transportation funding fell by $263 billion compared with the original proposal. The largest change was in the area of electric vehicle adoption, which shrank by $142 billion, or 90 percent.

Another area with a large drop in funding: reconnecting communities that have been separated by or disconnected from major highways and bridges. Funding for reconnecting these communities — typically communities of color — fell to $1 billion from $24 billion.

Utilities funding fell by $466 billion, including a $363 billion cut in clean energy tax credits. The budget for water infrastructure (which includes the president’s plan to replace all of the nation’s lead pipes) was cut in half, to $55 billion from $111 billion.

What got bigger or stayed the same

The new plan adds funding toward pollution remediation and Western water infrastructure. Funding for airports was essentially unchanged, as was funding for climate resiliency, which involves upgrading the nation’s infrastructure to better withstand the effects of climate change such as intensifying wildfires, hurricanes and flooding.

The bipartisan agreement

Overall, the bipartisan plan focuses spending on transportation, utilities and pollution cleanup; pulls back spending on clean energy and electric vehicle adoption; and eliminates spending on innovation, buildings and in-home care.

Proponents of the bipartisan plan say it focuses on “core infrastructure,” while critics point out that it leaves out major components that would address climate change, health care and racial inequity.