Pramila Jayapal: Infrastructure Plan About ‘Transitioning to a Clean, Green Economy’

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said during a virtual town hall Saturday that the infrastructure bill touted by President Joe Biden focuses more on “transitioning to a clean, green economy” than physical infrastructure.

Jayapal spoke at a Washington Insider Network 100 Day Town Hall Saturday about the perceived need to pass Biden’s infrastructure bill. The Washington Democrat referred to the infrastructure as a “jobs bill” that will focus on “both the infrastructure component and the families component.”

“We think those two things should be combined, and we think we’re all about jobs,” she explained. “If you’re going to create jobs in the infrastructure space, you want to make sure that women and men are able to go back and get those jobs and you need to have child care in place, you need to have college in place, you need to have health care in place so people are actually able to get back into the working environment.”

Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, told Breitbart News that less than six percent of the infrastructure bill involves building roads, bridges, and tunnels.

Smith said:

Now, when you look at this infrastructure bill, they’re trying to call it an infrastructure bill, but in fact out the 2.3 trillion dollars, less than six percent is actually going towards roads and bridges, less than two percent is going towards airports, dams, less than five percent goes to broadband. Less than 13 percent is going to infrastructure.

Jayapal said during her town hall that the infrastructure focuses more on transitioning the American economy to a “green economy.”

She said, “So we combine the two and call it a jobs bill because I think we should say what it’s about. It’s actually about infrastructure; it’s about jobs.”

Jayapal added, “It’s about creating millions of green jobs, creating a climate resilience corps, creating jobs that are tied to public transit, making sure that 40 percent of the investments that are made actually go to frontline communities and, electrifying our grid, and transitioning to a clean, green economy.”

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.