From Daily Kos
By Joan McCarter, Daily Kos Staff
The Senate finally got around to consideration of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, on Monday afternoon and approved a couple of uncontroversial amendments in Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's effort to move things along. "Let's start voting on amendments," Schumer said in opening Monday's session. "The longer it takes to finish the bill, the longer we will be here." That's an implied threat to August recess, now officially scheduled to start on Aug. 9 -- a goal that is clearly not going to be reached.
Potentially the most complicating issue is Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham's COVID-19 infection, diagnosed Monday. Graham, who is one of the 22 original group of bipartisan senators endorsing the bill, is now in a 10-day quarantine. The big question is whether he infected any of the other senators he was in contact with over the weekend at a gathering on Sen. Joe Manchin's houseboat. That would be "Democrats Mark Kelly of Arizona, Chris Coons of Delaware, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Maria Cantwell of Washington, and Republican John Thune of South Dakota." The party, according to Manchin, was "all outdoors," but since everyone was vaccinated, it was also presumably a maskless party. There most certainly could be further infections either within that group, or in other senators Graham came into contact with after being infected.
Manchin might have been having the party to celebrate the $1 billion grant he slipped into the bill for the Appalachian Regional Commission, a 13-state and federal economic development partnership that coincidentally is run by Manchin's wife, Gayle Conelly Manchin, so she'll be gainfully employed for the foreseeable future. Manchin might be feeling the need to ensure he can continue to live in the manner to which he's become accustomed. The returns on his investment in Enersystems, "one of the most polluting coal power plants in West Virginia" according to Vice, might start to dip below the nearly $500,000 he made last year, drawing his $174,000 salary as a senator. He's pretty much in the catbird seat here, being chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee as well as one of two deciding votes for the Democratic majority. Nothing happens without his and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's consent.
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