Sen. Mark Warner:
Well, I think it was very significant.
I think it showed, again, that Joe Biden knows how Congress works. His White House team was involved with the 10 of us who were really engaged on a daily basis for the last couple of weeks. And both sides had to give up certain things they wanted.
But the product we have, $576 billion of new federal spending on infrastructure, is a record investment. And we’re not just talking about roads and bridges. We’re talking about broadband. We’re talking about resiliency for coastal communities from rising sea level. We’re talking about making our grid a lot smarter.
We’re even — we’re even including investments for electric vehicle charging stations, electric buses. And, frankly, the whole bus industry is going to go electric. Are they going to be made — just think about all the school buses. Are they going to be made in China, or are they going to be made here?
We have taken a major down payment on all of these items. And I would just point out very quickly that this is not — this is a big deal, but I would point out, just two weeks ago, the Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, put together a $250 billion bill to deal with China and take on issues like semiconductors.
And I will remind your viewers that I came back on your show back in November and December, when this same, for the most part, bipartisan group came up with the last COVID package.
So, I agree there’s a lot of places we’re pretty dysfunctional, but, at least on this item, I think we have made great progress.
