With Breakthrough on Build Back Better Framework, IFPTE Urges House Members to Pass Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and Build Back Better Act
This week, IFPTE told Members of the House of Representatives “[t]he time to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is now.”
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA), Senate Amendment to H.R.3684., passed the Senate on August 10th and its path in the House has been linked to passage of the Build Back Better Act through the budget reconciliation process. With the Build Back Better Act having lacked the necessary support to pass in the Senate, Congress, the White House, and advocates — including IFPTE — have been working to ensure key components of the Build Back Better Act survive a compromise and both infrastructure bills have a path to passing Congress and being signed into law.
Now, after weeks of negotiations between the White House and leaders and members of the House and Senate on the Build Back Better Act, the White House announced this week a framework that has support to pass in the House and the Senate in a budget reconciliation bill. The House Budget Committee also released corresponding legislative text for the framework.
This breakthrough on the Build Back Better Act is a compromise that removes some priorities that IFPTE supported in the large version of the bill that provided $3.5 trillion over 10 years, but the new scaled-back Build Back Better Act maintains significant provisions that will have positive impacts for IFPTE members and working people throughout America.
The compromise bill also paves the way for the House to pass the IIJA, a bill that provides $550 billion in needed transportation and public works infrastructure and modernizes infrastructure policies. IFPTE’s letter to the Representatives notes the that the IIJA is “not only a chance to address this nation’s $2.59 trillion physical infrastructure maintenance and repair deficit, but it is also a pathway for encouraging high-quality union jobs in the public and private sectors throughout the U.S.”
As affirmed in the letter, IFPTE has been “outspoken in our support of the Build Back Better Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as complementary legislation that meets the needs of working people, supports good-paying union jobs, strengthens our economy’s competitiveness and resiliency, and addresses immediate and future challenges that climate change presents for America and the world.”