WASHINGTON — The bipartisan infrastructure talks appeared on the cusp of a breakdown Monday, with Republicans and Democrats in conflict over what the other side had promised and former President Donald Trump urging Republicans not to make a deal.
The White House and Senate Democrats negotiating the deal, which includes $579 billion in new spending, sent Republicans a global offer Sunday night aimed at finishing unresolved items such as highways and bridges, water funding, broadband, Davis-Bacon Act standards, transit, unspent COVID-19 dollars and an infrastructure bank, according to a Democrat source close to the talks
The source said the global offer accepted a Republican offer on highways under the condition that Republicans acceded to Democratic demands on transit.
But Republican negotiators said the offer reopened many issues they believed had been resolved, according to a GOP source to the talks.
The Democratic source also said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, one of the negotiators, “reneged” on an agreement to fully fund the Senate water bill and dedicate an additional $15 billion to address lead pipe water contamination issues. “Romney reneged on (the) deal and proposed something completely unworkable,” the source said.
“This is laughably false,” Romney’s office replied. “As the White House’s own website shows, the deal on water was for $55 billion in new spending. After days of radio silence, (Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer) now wants $70 billion. This is a direct violation of the bipartisan agreement.”
The exchange occurred more than a month after the bipartisan group of negotiators and the White House announced a deal. Since then, the group has tried to iron out outstanding issues, with transit remaining one of the most contentious to resolve and broadband, once believed to be resolved, popping up over and over again.
A procedural vote last week to advance the legislative vehicle for the agreement, scheduled over GOP negotiators’ objections, was defeated. Some Republican negotiators at the time said they believed they’d be able to announce a deal as soon as Monday.
Schumer pushed the procedural vote in part because he has set a deadline of passing the bipartisan bill and beginning the process for Democrats’ $3.5 trillion social spending package before the Senate’s August recess.
Trump, meanwhile, threw a verbal hand grenade into the negotiations early Monday, issuing a statement saying Senate Republicans were being “absolutely savaged by Democrats on the so-called ‘bipartisan’ infrastructure bill.”
“Mitch McConnell and his small group of RINOs wants nothing more than to get a deal done at any cost to prove that he can work with the Radical Left Democrats,” he said. “It is so important to him that he is agreeing to almost anything. Don’t do the infrastructure deal, wait until after we get proper election results in 2022 or otherwise, and regain a strong negotiating stance. Republicans, don’t let the Radical Left play you for weak fools and losers!”
Republicans, meanwhile, circulated a list of agreements they believed Democrats had broken on the bipartisan agreement, including one to keep Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements in existing programs but not add them to new ones. A source said Democrats want to add prevailing wages in broadband, cybersecurity, school buses and ferries.
