The White House on Wednesday confirmed to Newsmax something that has been increasingly assumed on Capitol Hill as well as in the construction industry: A major infrastructure bill, a key Trump promise in the 2016 campaign, is highly unlikely to emerge from Congress this year.
"We're going to continue looking at ways to improve the nation's infrastructure, but in terms of a specific piece of legislation, I'm not aware that that will happen by the end of the year," press secretary Sarah Sanders told Newsmax.
Sanders' comment came less than two months after President Donald Trump himself admitted he did not think "you're going to get Democratic support very much" for his hoped-for infrastructure bill.
"But we're going to get this infrastructure going," he promised.
Since February, the administration has tried to jump-start an infrastructure bill on Capitol Hill with little results. Lawmakers seemed much more interested in immigration and tax legislation than infrastructure.
In June 2017, the White House began a series of four endeavors to generate support for an infrastructure bill. Dubbed "Infrastructure Weeks," the efforts fizzled since the administration did not have a specific legislative package to send to Congress.
During the second "Infrastructure Week" in August of last year, a presidential speech on infrastructure was completely overshadowed by the clash between white supremacists and protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Congressional staffers and transportation lobbyists have said there are some advances for infrastructure in other pieces of legislation. For example, the omnibus appropriations bill enacted several weeks ago included $20 billion in new infrastructure spending spread across several programs.
In addition, reauthorizatons of existing infrastructure programs, specifically Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, which includes airport construction, and the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), which provides U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water projects, will be considered in regular order.
But an infrastructure bill, they all agree, will not be considered in Congress.
So, apparently, does the White House.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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