[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 101 (Thursday, June 10, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4025-S4026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Economy

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this morning, the Labor Department 
announced that it had observed the largest uptick in prices since the 
depths of the great recession back in 2008, and core inflation has 
reached a nearly three-decade high.
  The latest data reinforced what too many Americans have already been 
experiencing firsthand: The Biden administration's partisan spending 
bill has blunted our Nation's economic recovery with higher prices at 
the gas pump and the grocery store, a tougher time for small businesses 
trying to staff up, and unemployment policies that incentivize too many 
Americans to simply stay on the sidelines.
  Republicans and outside economists warned that the worst of these 
conditions actually could have been avoided, but Democrats chose to go 
it alone. As recently as a few days ago, it appeared that President 
Biden was open to a new, more consultative approach to major 
legislation. He and the leading Republican on a committee of 
jurisdiction were engaged in what appeared to be good-faith, bipartisan 
negotiations on infrastructure spending, but then the President decided 
to walk away.
  Now, at the White House's direction, Democrats in Congress are making 
preparations to muscle through a bloated spending bill on a unilateral, 
partisan basis, and it is becoming clear that the sort of united, 
bipartisan action Ranking Member Capito has made possible within the 
EPW Committee is getting harder and harder to replicate.
  The bipartisanship that has defined infrastructure policy for years 
is becoming the exception to Democrats' new partisan rule. It might 
have something to do with the fact that our Democratic friends have 
taken to using ``infrastructure'' as a code for a growing wish list of 
unrelated liberal spending.
  The Biden administration's first infrastructure plan made that much 
clear from its rollout back in March. Remember, this was a 
multitrillion-dollar bill that proposed to spend more on electric 
vehicles than on actual roads and bridges. It contained so many 
leftwing pet projects that the authors of the Green New Deal boasted 
about just how much of their manifesto's DNA had actually rubbed off.
  Well, the administration's approach clearly influenced a number of 
Democrats right here in the Senate. Last month, on the same day that 
Chairman Carper and Ranking Member Capito were guiding a surface 
transportation bill to a unanimous vote, the Finance Committee was busy 
marking up a partisan plan to pick winners and losers in the market for 
reliable domestic energy.
  Just this week, we watched their go-it-alone approach replicated by 
Democrats over in the House. The Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee had a perfect opportunity to reach consensus on surface 
transportation. Our

[[Page S4026]]

colleagues on the EPW Committee had left a clear roadmap on exactly how 
to cut a consensus deal, but instead, the House chairman forced his 
committee to mark up $547 billion littered--littered--with Green New 
Deal policies.
  Compared to the last multiyear highway bill, it nearly doubles the 
share of resources for mass urban transit projects, while upping the 
road-and-bridge funding Middle America relies on by not nearly as much. 
In contrast to smart permit-streaming steps taken by our colleagues' 
Senate bill, it largely neglects to help the communities and builders 
who spent years wading through Federal redtape before they can even 
break ground.
  The recent history of investment in roads, bridges, waterways, 
airports, and broadband tells us that smart, targeted solutions are 
capable of earning overwhelming support. But until Democrats get 
serious, the road ahead for consensus action on our Nation's 
infrastructure will only get steeper