Biden set to unveil $2 trillion infrastructure and climate plan

President Joe Biden is set to unveil a roughly $2 trillion jobs proposal focused on infrastructure and the climate crisis in a speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

The President’s next major legislative push, the American Jobs Plan, heavily invests in rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and shifting to greener energy over the next eight years. Biden plans to pay for his proposal by raising corporate taxes and eliminating tax breaks for fossil fuels, which was one of his core campaign promises. The White House says this tax hike would raise more than $2 trillion over the next 15 years.

The proposal includes building or retrofitting more than 2 million homes or housing units, replacing every lead pipe in the country and ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable, reliable and high-speed broadband.

It also calls for investments in manufacturing, transportation, research and development, bolstering caregiving for aging and disabled Americans and building new public schools and upgrading existing buildings.

The White House says the plan would benefit communities of color, rural Americans and others burdened by the nation’s decaying infrastructure.

The plan is the first of a two-part proposal to help the nation’s economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The other is expected to be a set of investments aimed at helping American workers and boosting education.

Biden will announce his sweeping infrastructure plan from a city that carries personal significance. Pittsburgh is the city in which he launched his 2020 bid for the White House.

While this first proposal would be the most likely to earn GOP votes, given its emphasis on traditional infrastructure projects, it’s unlikely to do so because of the tax increases. That means Senate Democrats are looking to potentially use the same onerous budget process they used to pass the Covid-19 economic relief bill with just a simple Democratic majority. But passage is far from certain.

“I think the President views this as an opportunity to boost American competitiveness,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a key player in pushing the legislation, said Monday.

“Safe to say we’re going to be looking at millions of jobs, and maybe, most importantly of all, a chance to restore America’s leadership role, at a time where, right now, we run a very real risk of being left behind because of the cost of disinvestment in our infrastructure,” he said.