On Thursday a bipartisan group of 10 senators—five Democrats and five Republicans—reached agreement with President Biden on the American Jobs Plan, also referred to as the infrastructure plan. White House National Climate Advisor and former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy joined AgriTalk Host Chip Flory to discuss the bipartisan plan.
McCarthy told Flory the agreement was the result of a lot of hard work between Republicans and Democrats.
“In the end, they came to a reasonable understanding that we need America to invest in ourselves again,” McCarthy said. “And that’s really what this is all about. It’s American families ... it’s about workers. It’s about our economic future and winning that future.”
Calling them investments of historic proportions, McCarthy outlined some of the plan’s investments that include roads, bridges and infrastructure.
“We are talking about the largest investments in clean transportation and clean water in broadband access for everybody—including our rural communities. It also includes investments in clean power and remediating past legacy pollution, and really building resilience into all of our ports, our airports and our roads and our bridges,” she says. “These are very much kitchen table issues that I think every American will recognize as something that we need to do for ourselves. And I’m very excited about it.”
When Flory asked what the plan would mean for biofuels, McCarthy said biofuels are still on the table, pointing to opportunities for a significant influx of biofuels into aviation.
“We know how important it is to have biofuels and other options as we move forward to look at clean energy and clean transportation,” McCarthy says. “And we are not going to diminish our investments in those. And in fact, this package includes investments in those very areas.”
The package includes $579 billion in new spending.
“When you look at unspent emergency relief funds that are being added to this pot, as well as closing some of the tax gaps, and some of the offsets, we’re actually talking about as high as $1.2 trillion dollars that are going to be directed in new monies and existing money to make sure that we give America the shot in the arm it needs,” she says. “I think this is going to be something that that Congress itself will jump on board with. And I know there’s more work to be done. But man, it’s a good signal when you can have Republicans and Democrats standing with a president in front of the White House shaking hands and smiling again. It’s worth a thousand words.”
When asked what she liked about the agreement, McCarthy said she thought it would move the country forward on clean transportation and on building resilient infrastructure that meets the test of time.
“It’s going to actually be focused on significant investments and communities that have been left behind. It’s going to push forward on manufacturing jobs that we really need,” she says. “It will create clean energy jobs but also invest in the transition that we need for workers who were working in the coal sector and now have been transferred. There’s significant money to put them back to work right away. There’s a new infrastructure bank that’s going to leverage private sector dollars.”
What McCarthy doesn’t like in the plan? “I don’t like that it’s not done yet,” she says.
There’s a lot of work to do yet to get a bipartisan bill to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
Listen to the full interview here:
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