WASHINGTON (WV News) — It’s “frustrating” to see the physical infrastructure bill she helped develop languishing in the House of Representatives while Democrats debate a social spending bill, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Thursday during a virtual press conference.
Capito, who was among the initial principal architects of what became the nearly $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, said the bill has been before the House for more than a month.
“The bipartisan infrastructure package is something I voted for. I started the negotiations with President Biden,” Capito said. “Nineteen Republicans voted that out of the Senate, and it has been sitting over in the House since the summer. It’s very frustrating for me, because I think we could have already been starting on projects that we desperately need in this country.”
Democrats have said they won’t vote on the bill until they have passed the so-called “human infrastructure” bill containing much of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, Capito said.
“It’s tied to this social infrastructure package that is now supposedly at about $1.75 trillion,” she said Thursday afternoon. “These are trillions of dollars. We have $29 trillion of debt; this is another $1.75 trillion on new social programs and a lot of green energy incentives.”
Moments before the start of Capito’s press conference, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced her intention to hold a vote on the social spending bill later in the day.
“We will see how that goes,” Capito said. “I don’t imagine she would put the bill up until she is absolutely so close to getting the votes that she’s within one or two votes, and even that’s a risky strategy. If she fails, this is the president’s marquee program, and she’ll be failing the country if this bill doesn’t pass.”
She is unsure of the timeline for progressing the physical infrastructure bill, Capito.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen there,” she said. “That’s a negotiation that’s strictly partisan. There’s no inclusion of us as Republicans as to whether we think these programs are good ideas or not. All of the taxes and reckless spending that goes along with this are just mind-boggling in my opinion. So I think that will come later. I don’t think that will come today or this week.”
At the beginning of August, Capito said West Virginia was in line to receive a substantial amount of funding from the package.
“This is a far-reaching modernization of our transportation sector with huge amounts of money for West Virginia — over $3.5 billion over five years for West Virginia for our roads,” she said.
Additionally, the state would be able to compete for funding from the $12.5 billion Bridge Investment Program for “economically significant” bridges.
“According to national reports, we know that we have some bridges that are in very poor condition that we need to maintain and fix,” Capito said. “We’re going to be able to do that.”
The overall price tag for the physical infrastructure is around $1.2 trillion, but only around $570 billion is new federal spending, Capito said.
“To cover that shortfall, the gas tax, something that we all pay into when we fill our cars up, that is a significant part of the pay for here,” she said. “We’re also going to be repurposing some COVID dollars that are unused, whether it’s in the unemployment space or it’s in other areas of COVID-relief packages that we’ve passed that are no longer relevant or can no longer be used.”
The economic growth expected to result from new infrastructure construction also will help offset costs, Capito said.
“I think over half of it will be paid for,” she said. “I think it’s important to realize that the economic growth and jobs that will result from this is worth it to make sure that we expand our economic base over the next several years.”