The US Senate has passed a sweeping $1tn infrastructure bill that will provide hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade America’s crumbling transport systems in a big victory for President Joe Biden and his Democratic party.
Nineteen Republicans, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, joined all of the Democrats in Congress’s upper chamber to back the bill in a rare display of bipartisanship in a fiercely divided Washington. The Senate, which is split equally between Democrats and Republicans, voted 69-30 in favour of the bill, with one Republican abstaining.
“After years and years of infrastructure week, we are on the cusp of an infrastructure decade that I truly believe will transform America,” Biden said in remarks at the White House after the vote. The president’s comments were seen as a subtle dig at his predecessor, Donald Trump, who failed to push through his own infrastructure package.