Capito looks back at 2021 in U.S. Senate

CHARLESTON — The lack of progress on high profile bills, such as Build Back Better and the Freedom to Vote Act, might be getting all the headlines, but U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito sees a number of successes as 2021 begins to fade into the rear-view mirror.

Capito, R-W.Va., virtually spoke with West Virginia reporters from her Capitol Hill office Thursday afternoon as the U.S. Senate begins to wind down for Christmas recess.

The biggest victory of 2021 for Capito was passage of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF).

While the final negotiations with President Joe Biden were handled by a bipartisan group of senators, including U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the first negotiations took place between the White House and a group of Republican senators led by Capito. Much of those early negotiations made it into the final bill.

The bill passed the Senate in August 69-30 with 19 Republican Senators, including Capito, in favor. After being used as a bargaining chip by progressive Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill passed 228-206 with 13 Republicans, including 1st District Congressman David McKinley, voting for the bill.

“The bipartisan infrastructure package, I think, is a big win for the country and for our state, both for the roads and transportation, water, broadband deployment, airports, and other physical infrastructure,” Capito said.

The BIF package of hard infrastructure projects represents $1.2 trillion over eight years with $550 billion in new infrastructure spending. Traditional infrastructure projects include a multitude of transportation, water and wastewater, clean energy and broadband expansion projects. The bill is paid for with unused COVID-19 relief dollars and additional fees and revenue sources.

West Virginia is expected to receive up to $6 billion from BIF over the next five years for highway and bridge projects, water and wastewater infrastructure, flood resiliency, broadband expansion and abandoned mine land cleanup.

BIF includes two bills that Capito worked on with Republican and Democratic colleagues as ranking GOP member of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee: the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act of 2021 and the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021.

“We had two of the most major pieces of legislation in (BIF),” Capito said. “I think that had a lot to do with our success.”

Capito also praised the passage of the Veterans Camera Reporting Act, which was signed into law by Biden last month. The bill requires installation of video cameras at VA medical centers after a series of murders at the VA hospital in Clarksburg. The bill also was championed by Manchin and McKinley.

“We saw the tragedies in Clarksburg and the issues in Beckley that we’ve had at the VA hospitals,” Capito said. “If we had cameras placed like most healthcare facilities do and hospitals do in the halls and in the elevators and other places, you would be able to see the movements. It would not just be preventative, but it would be helpful in the unfortunate case that there might have to be some actions brought.”

Capito also praised the recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act and the return of congressionally authorized spending, otherwise known as earmarks.

While Capito praised those successes, she was critical of Biden on a number of different issues, including the crisis at the U.S. and Mexican border; the way the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan; and the COVID-19 vaccine mandates for businesses, healthcare workers, and federal contractors now on hold by the federal courts.

Capito was also critical of the time spent on Biden’s Build Back Better social spending bill, whose price tag could be anywhere between $1.75 trillion and $3 trillion over a 10-year period. While hopes were high from some Senate Democrats that the bill could pass by the end of the year, it looks like Senate leaders will punt the bill until after the new year.

“It’s hit a huge brick wall and I think they are getting ready — if they haven’t already today – to pull the plug on it,” Capito said. “They’re selling it as totally paid for, and it won’t add to the deficit, and that’s absolutely found to be untrue by liberal and conservative groups who are economic groups that do the forecasting on this.”

The Build Back Better Act includes funding for multiple social spending programs, including universal pre-Kindergarten; paid family leave; subsidized elder care and child care; affordable housing; expanded healthcare; prescription drug price negotiating through Medicare; and clean energy and climate change mitigation, including incentives to move away from coal-fire electric power and fees for methane emissions.

According to the Associated Press, much of the hang-ups on the bill are coming from Manchin, who has issues with the way the child tax credit within the bill is structured. The bill only requires a simple 51-member majority, making Manchin’s support critical. In a statement, Manchin spokesperson Samantha Runyon said talks continue between Manchin and Biden.

“Senator Manchin and President Biden continue to have productive conversations on the Build Back Better Act and what is best for West Virginians and the American people,” Runyon said.

Talk also continues on the Freedom to Vote Act, a compromise bill developed in part by Manchin, which tries to standardize voting rules across all 50 states and fix campaign finance transparency issues.

Passage of the bill would require bipartisan support to reach 60 votes and overcome a filibuster. Manchin has been working on a rule change but only if Republicans come on board. According to media reports, U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., also won’t support an end-run around the filibuster.

“Senator Manchin continues to work with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to find a bipartisan compromise that will protect the voting rights of every American without infringing on states’ rights,” Runyon said.

Capito has been a vocal opponent of the Freedom to Vote Act and its earlier failed predecessor. Attempts to bring up the bills previously have failed.

“We’ve already defeated that twice,” Capito said. “We had the biggest voter turnout ever in 2020, and we expect that to grow in 2022. What they’re trying to do strategically is they’re trying to use the Voting Rights Act to break the filibuster and Senator Sinema said no. I can honestly tell you as a good friend of Senator Sinema: when she says, no, she means no.”