Senate passes bipartisan infrastructure bill

The $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act cleared the Senate on Tuesday after months of negotiations. It heads to the House next for another round of debates and votes before President Joe Biden can sign it.

What was the vote breakdown? Nineteen Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined all 50 Democrats to pass the bipartisan deal on Tuesday with a 69-30 vote. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., missed the vote to be with his wife as she undergoes cancer treatments, South Dakota Public Radio reported. The bill adds $550 billion in new funding over the next five years. The overall act is significantly smaller than Biden’s original proposal of $2.3 trillion. But the Senate on Wednesday morning passed a budget resolution on a party-line 50-49 vote that provides a framework for an additional $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard discuss the infrastructure debates on The World and Everything in It podcast.

Editor’s note: WORLD has updated this report since its initial posting.