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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, today joined Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV to discuss the latest on various infrastructure proposals and the Democrats’ plan to hold a vote on a bill that has not been written.

HIGHLIGHTS:

ON DEMOCRATS RUSHING TO VOTE ON A BILL THAT DOESN’T EXIST: “I think it stands in precarious hands right now. If Senator Schumer pushes to have the vote tomorrow to proceed to a bill that has not been written, has not been scored, we don't know what it's going to cost, how it's going to get paid for, I don't see that passing. I just think that there's…too much at stake here. We need to see the details and that's what I'm awaiting myself.”

ON NEED TO PAY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING: “I think that's the difficulty. I think we need to pay for this. The plan I put forward was paid for. I think there's a lot more COVID dollars that are not being used in the specific pots of money that they were originally appropriated for that the White House could be much more willing to give up those dollars, I think that's one area. I do think that they're going to have difficulty convincing everybody that it's fully paid for. There is a theory that if the investment is so large that part of that will pay for itself. I'm not sure that passes the test with everybody, but it will with some. The pay-for issue was always going to be the most difficult and it remains that way but there's still policy issues that I still think are vague, are undefined, that we need to have more specificity. I'm the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee. We passed a bipartisan bill. I'd like to see a lot of the policies on permitting and other things that we were able to get through remain in this package and right now I don't have those assurances.”

ON NEED TO SEE DETAILS OF CORE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: “I do think it does stick to the definition of what a physical infrastructure bill would be. Roads and bridges, broadband is in there, airports, ports, water, rail, those are the kinds of things I think that we're falling behind on that people are for. I think you could get good bipartisan support for, but not until we see exactly what's in the details of this bill… I just want to see what it is and how it interacts with different things, not just in my home state of West Virginia, but policies, such as permitting, like formula highway programs like how are we going to spend the money on broadband, how are we going to get that to the last house. These are the issues that we don't really have the answers to. And, until we see those, I think a lot of people are just sort of hanging back before they make a final decision, which is what you would want them to do before they would automatically be for something until they actually see what that is.”

ON NEED TO REDUCE PERMITTING TIMEFRAME AND PROCESS: “I think what we need to do is not relax the requirements, but at least shorten the timeframe. We have in our bill that we passed out of committee a thing called one federal decision. What is that? That makes sure that one federal agency is driving the permitting procedure rather than having 13, 14 or four or five different agencies having to sign off. That in and of itself will save time and money. We'll also have a dashboard with timelines to see how long these projects can take. If these projects takes seven to 10 years, number one, we're not going to see the economic benefit, but number two people abandoned projects, and number three end up spending so much more money as time moves forward. So permitting is critical here in terms of making sure that the projects get done in a timely fashion.”

ON OUTSTANDING NEGOTIATING ISSUES: “There's still some very sticky issues. I think the House has expressed some dissatisfaction with what they see going on over here and I think that's an enormous problem for the White House and the bipartisan group. I think there's big questions as to whether the $3.5 trillion reckless spending bill that the Democrats are expected to come forward with in a partisan way…how linked are these two bills? I think that's a big question that's never been settled.”

 

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