After several months of procrastination, Joe Biden’s administration can finally celebrate its first major legislative victory. His bill on infrastructure was finally adopted by Congress.
The infrastructure bill was adopted by the House of Representatives late on the evening of Friday, November 5, 2021 with 228 votes in favor and 206 against. 13 Republicans joined the Democrats while 6 of the majority party parliamentarians rejected the document.
Thanks to this law of 1200 billion dollars, the Americans will be able to repair road infrastructures with an envelope of 110 billion. $ 66 billion has been allocated to rail networks, which represents the largest investment in American rail networks for more than 50 years. $ 55 billion has also been allocated to supply water and replace plumbing pipes. The electronic networks sector has benefited from an envelope of 60 billion to be used for the modernization of the electrical networks and the access to the Internet at high speed.
The environmental sector also benefited from the sum of $ 57.5 billion. Of this amount, $ 7.5 billion should be used in the fight against pollution and the creation of a national network of electric vehicle charging stations, while $ 50 billion is allocated to the fight against the effects of global warming, in particular droughts, forest fires and major storms.
The infrastructure bill was passed in the Senate about three months ago with an absolute majority of 69 votes including 19 Republicans. But this document must have suffered a bit in the office of the Speaker of the Lower House, Nancy Pelosi, due to the fact that the progressive wing of Joe Biden’s party refused to comment on it.
The representatives of this grouping wanted to find the approval of the two centrist senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsen Sinema on Joe Biden’s bill called “Build Back Better”. But these two parliamentarians had preferred to raise the stakes. Despite the fact that all of their requests were approved, The Build Back Better bill contains social programs, research and development, and immigration among others.
If this bill succeeds in passing as proposed by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, several million illegal immigrants will be given the green card and the possibility of becoming American citizens.