MORGANTOWN — After two appearances with the GOP senators this week to criticize elements of Build Back Better, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito spoke with West Virginia press members Thursday about D.C. goings-on.
She reiterated her opposition to BBB’s childcare and pre-K provisions, which reportedly will double costs for middle class families and essentially wipe out access to faith-based care – used by 53% of U.S. families – by prohibiting access to subsidies and funding for facility improvements.
There’s an opportunity for a bipartisan agreement on childcare, she said, but it has to be accessible and affordable and inclusive – allowing for faith-based care.
Capito said it appears Build Back Better is stalled for the remainder of this year and won’t be back until after the New Year.
Looking back on some achievements this year, she cited passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the military – technology, equipment, service member raises. President Biden’s budget came in a bit lower than what Congress wanted, she said, and they were able to achieve bipartisan support to fund it $25 billion above’s Biden’s figure.
The act, she said in response to a question, includes $3 million to examine domestic production of critical minerals – including rare earth elements. That market belongs almost exclusively to China right now, she said. “This could be big for us economically but also for our own homeland security and the Department of Defense.”
The National Energy Technology Laboratory, with a Morgantown site, and WVU are leading research in this area, she said, and both could benefit from the grants that will flow from the funding.
In other accomplishments, she noted the bipartisan infrastructure bill – for which she played a leading role – and the VA hospital camera bill – which she and Sen. Joe Manchin sponsored on the Senate side, and which Rep. David McKinley sponsored on the House side and which was ultimately signed into law.
Capito took a question about the supply chain problem and touched on a few possible solutions.
One, she said, would be to reopen the domestic energy resources Biden has closed off: pipelines, gas and oil production, drilling on permitted federal sites. That would help with transportation fuel and home heating costs.
We need to return to more domestic manufacturing, she said, and try to rebuild the workforce and fill the shortages caused by the pandemic. The effort to get people back to work by cutting off the supplemental unemployment payments hasn’t worked and some kind of incentive needs to be found.
Looking to next year, she said, there’s bipartisan interest in tackling high prescription drug prices and addressing the ongoing opioid crisis, which was worsened by the pandemic and by the influx of fentanyl at the leaky southern border.
On opioids, she said, they need to refocus on stopping the flow along with expanding treatment and research.