“The differences (from year-to-year) were subtle,” UC Riverside School of Public Policy Dean Mark Long told the board Tuesday. “Infrastructure was a little bit more emphasized this year than last. I didn’t come away with any surprise. These surveys are useful information, but I wouldn’t take them as purely what you should do as supervisors.”

Long, as well as two graduate students — Andres Gugig and Esther Mejia — were retained by the county Executive Office to conduct the 2026-27 Community Budget Priorities Survey over the winter. The online polls took place ahead of a series of community workshops held in each of the five supervisorial districts.

The surveys taken during the workshops provided only a very small sampling of opinion, while the online questionnaires received wide participation, with a total 26,543 respondents, according to documents posted to the board’s agenda Tuesday.

It was the second year the county commissioned a countywide survey. The previous one, completed in winter 2025, reflected that the highest level of interest was in public safety.

While the latter slipped into second place this year, it was a marginal difference from public works, which landed a 64% rating among all respondents, compared to 60% for public safety.

The other priorities were healthcare at 53%, human services at 49%, government finance at 23% and “internal services” — the public sector’s inter-agency operations — at 4%.

The survey team said “key words” were the determinants of how to classify respondents’ answers to the online questionnaires. For public works, terms such as “road maintenance” and “pothole repairs” were what amplified understanding of residents’ priorities, according to the team.

“People could write whatever they wanted,” Gugig told the board. “But I think if it was things that affect them on a daily basis, that’s what they wrote about.”

The team said poorly lit and damaged streets, or corridors where flooding is an issue, would push a higher number of responses into the public works category.

The Second District’s residents responded at the highest level, with just under 7,000 respondents to the survey. The district encompasses Canyon Lake, Corona, Eastvale, Jurupa Valley, Lake Elsinore, Temescal Valley and multiple other communities.

The lowest response rate was in the Fifth District, where there were 4,435 respondents. The district includes Banning, Beaumont, Calimesa, Hemet, Moreno Valley and San Jacinto. Most of the survey takers were English speakers, though 599 responses were exclusively in Spanish.

One Fifth District resident and a frequent commentator on county business, Roy Bleckert, told the board the survey results should speak less to what the supervisors should do and more of what they should refrain from doing.

“Practically everything that comes through here, as you grow the government monster bigger, makes the lives of everyone in Riverside County harder,” Bleckert said. “The more you spend, the worse everything becomes. When do you start to drop, like Sweden did, the influence of government and empower the people you serve?”

Another speaker, Veronica Langworthy of the Third District, touched on a similar topic, saying the results reflected how the board can make people’s lives better by reducing government red tape.

“If you can drop fees to adopt animals from county shelters, how about dropping fees for humans?” she said. “It’s impossible for people to house because of the fees from government on property.”

Supervisor Jose Medina said he found the results “helpful as we look at the budget decisions we make and the priorities we set.”

The entire survey can be found at rivco.gov/budget.

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Deshmukh took over last month as general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a sprawling, aging system that pipes water hundreds of miles to 19 million people in Los Angeles, Orange County, the Inland Empire and San Diego.

Roughly 20 percent of Met’s water comes from the dwindling Colorado River, over which negotiators from seven Western states are haggling in a race to strike a new deal before water-sharing rules expire at the end of the year.

Another third of the supply comes from Northern California, where boom-and-bust weather has intensified long-simmering fights over sending water south and Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking to cement pet water projects like the Delta Conveyance Project and Sites Reservoir before he is termed out at the end of the year. The rest comes from local rainfall, groundwater or recycled water.

Deshmukh must figure out how to keep this delicate water puzzle together, all while dealing with the politics of a 38-member board and regional power struggles both inside and outside of California. He spoke with about the balance between affordability and reliability and his early priorities in the wake of leadership tumult at the agency.

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The Republican nominee for president in the upcoming November election took the podium at about 10 a.m. at Trump National Golf Course, which is a course he’s owned for more than 20 years.

Trump talked about the ongoing crisis in Rancho Palos Verdes during the news conference Friday. Many residents have been displaced from their homes, and thousands of others have had electricity shut off as landslides have affected crucial elements of the community’s infrastructure.

“I want to express my support for all of the families affected by the landslides in Rancho Palos Verdes,” Trump said. “Landslides are something to be taken care of … The mountain is moving and it can be stopped, but they need some help from the government.”

Trump’s criticism of the government’s response comes more than a week after California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in the community, giving the city state funding and support from the Office of Emergency Services.

Still, many residents congregated outside the golf course on Friday, hoping to have the chance to show the former president the impact that the landslides is having on their lives.

One resident, identified as Jerry, told KTLA’s Omar Lewis that his daughter was about to move into his new home in the city when Southern California Edison abruptly turned his power off on Labor Day weekend.

“We’re hoping for FEMA money to come in,” he said. “It’s a working class neighborhood. I think the perception is these people have an endless amount of money … You have a lot of older people that have nowhere to turn.”

Jerry said he was not present at the event in support of former President Trump, but rather to get his attention on the issue.

“We’re not going to go out without a fight,” he said. “We’re here to stay.”

While lots of residents were there to advocate for the residents affected by the natural disaster, most in attendance were there in support of Trump, who rarely makes campaign stops in California due to the political demographics of the state.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of Trump supporters were seen outside. One large banner read “Kamala Harris is an idiot,” alongside an American flag.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Tuesday is launching a website to map and track tens of thousands of infrastructure projects and private manufacturing investments, an effort by the administration to show the positive impact of its policies on the U.S. economy to a skeptical public.

The site, Invest.gov, documents roughly 32,000 infrastructure projects and more than $470 billion worth of investments in the production of electric vehicles, batteries, computer chips, biotech, clean energy and other sectors. President Joe Biden is seeking reelection in 2024 by trying to show how his policies are reshaping the U.S. economy to address climate change and compete with rivals such as China.

The president promoted the new website during a meeting Tuesday with his Cabinet, as part of a larger effort to keep public attention on a string of legislative wins during Biden’s first two years, when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. Following $1.9 trillion in pandemic relief, Biden signed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law. He also secured more than $250 billion to invest in computer chip production and scientific research and created new tax incentives for renewable energy sources that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

“You can go down to every city, town, anywhere on the map and find out exactly how much we’ve invested so far, what the investment is for and how it’s going to affect your community,” Biden said of the new website during the meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House.

Natalie Quillian, deputy White House chief of staff, said the site shows that Biden’s agenda is “underway and working.”

“We want people to be able to see what’s happening in their communities,” Quillian said.

U.S. adults have generally given Biden poor reviews on his economic leadership. Just 33% approve of how the president has handled the economy, according to a May survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. High inflation coming out of the pandemic has eroded confidence in Biden’s economic stewardship, overshadowing the 3.7% unemployment rate and more than 13 million jobs added during his presidency.

The rollout of the site comes shortly before the administration engages in additional public outreach with a second round of its “Investing in America” tour. It plans to send out Cabinet secretaries and other officials around the country as part of the two-week July 4 congressional recess. Biden and other top administration officials previously visited parts of the U.S. in March and April in hopes of putting more focus on their policies.

“ ‘Investing in America’ is more than just a slogan,” Biden said Tuesday. “For the first time, America is actually investing in itself, beginning to pay off.”

On the website, users on the site can look at a national map or scroll through projects by state. The site documents private investments of more than $100 million that the administration said its policies helped to spur. It also provides additional economic data and details at the state level, including on how administration policies have increased access to health care coverage and lowered prescription drug prices.

—

Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is taking a key step toward ensuring that federal dollars will support U.S. manufacturing — issuing requirements for how projects funded by the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package source their construction material.

New guidance issued Monday requires that the material purchased — whether it’s for a bridge, a highway, a water pipe or broadband internet — be produced in the U.S. However, the rules also set up a process to waive those requirements in case there are not enough domestic producers or the material costs too much, with the goal of issuing fewer waivers over time as U.S. manufacturing capacity increases.

“There are going to be additional opportunities for good jobs in the manufacturing sector,” said Celeste Drake, director of Made in America at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

President Joe Biden hopes to create more jobs, ease supply chain strains and reduce the reliance on China and other nations with interests that diverge from America’s. With inflation at a 40-year high ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, he’s betting that more domestic production will ultimately reduce price pressures to blunt Republican attacks that his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package initially triggered higher prices.

“From Day One, every action I’ve taken to rebuild our economy has been guided by one principle: Made in America,” Biden said Thursday in Greensboro, North Carolina. “It takes a federal government that doesn’t just give lip service to buying American but actually takes action.”

Biden said that the roughly $700 billion the government devotes annually to procuring goods is supposed to prioritize U.S. suppliers but regulations going back to the 1930s have either been watered down or applied in ways that masked the use of foreign imports.

The administration could not say what percentage of construction material for existing infrastructure projects is U.S.-made, even though the federal government is already spending $350 billion on construction this year. The new guidelines would enable government officials to know how many dollars go to U.S. workers and factories.

Tucked into the bipartisan infrastructure package that became law last November was a requirement that starting on May 14 “none of the funds” allocated to federal agencies for projects may be spent “unless all of the iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used in the project are produced in the United States.” That’s according to Monday’s 17-page guidance.

The guidance includes three standards for these requirements to be waived: if the purchase “would be inconsistent with the public interest”; if the needed materials aren’t produced “in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of a satisfactory quality”; or if U.S. materials increase a project’s cost by more than 25%.

American manufacturers are about 170,000 jobs short of the 12.8 million factory jobs held in 2019, as manufacturing jobs began to decline before the pandemic began. But the U.S. has 6.9 million fewer manufacturing jobs compared with the 1979 peak, a loss caused by outsourcing and automation.

Getting more industrial jobs will likely mean adding more factories and assembly lines — as manufacturers are operating at a 78.7% capacity, which the Federal Reserve notes is above the historical average.

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On March 9th, the House passed an omnibus appropriations package for Fiscal Year 2022 that will bring federal funding directly to California’s 36thDistrict. The package includes $10 million secured by Congressman Raul Ruiz, M.D. (CA-36) to expand access to health care, bring clean water to the Eastern Coachella Valley, and drive economic growth in the 36th District.

“I am thrilled to see the House pass the $10 million in federal funding that I secured to bring new health care resources to Blythe, economic development to San Jacinto, infrastructure improvements to the Pass Area, and clean drinking water access to the Eastern Coachella Valley,” said Dr. Ruiz. “In addition, I’m thrilled to see the House pass funding that’ll launch an Army Corps of Engineers project at the Salton Sea, which will strengthen our all-hands-on-deck approach to this environmental and public health crisis. Once signed into law, this funding will bring incredible value to our communities, grow our local economy, and make a positive difference in the lives of my constituents.”

“Expansion and widening of Pennsylvania Avenue is a critical project for Beaumont and the Pass Area. These improvements will enhance access and help alleviate traffic congestion along I-10,” said Todd Parton, Beaumont City Manager. “This would not be possible without the tireless efforts of Congressman Ruiz. With his assistance, one of the area’s most vital retail centers will continue to flourish while much needed traffic relief is provided to area residents. Additionally, Beaumont will be able to reallocate our local dollars to other critical projects that benefit our community as well as the region.”

“We are excited to learn the House of Representatives will pass an appropriations packaged that includes funding for our water reservoir project. Constructing this water reservoir will secure the continued supply of reliable, clean, and safe drinking water and fire flow protection for our residents,” said Mayor Dale Reynolds of the City of Blythe. “The City appreciates Congressman Ruiz and the House Appropriations Committee for supporting this much needed water infrastructure project for the City of Blythe.”

“Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo would like to thank Congressman Ruiz and the House Appropriations Committee for providing $1M in support of the renovation and expansion of our primary care Health Clinic in Blythe,” said Yvonne Bell, President and CEO of Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo. The new facility will expand much needed access to health care for the low-income and remote community of Blythe. The renovation will allow us to serve more patients with the addition of 11 new exam rooms as well as newly added dental and integrated behavioral health services.”

“We are grateful of Congressman Ruiz’s partnership with CVWD and for his leadership in securing federal funding to support the Eastern Coachella Valley community,” said Coachella Valley Water District Board Vice President Cástulo R. Estrada. “These funds continue to advance CVWD’s priorities and initiatives in communities affected by the lack of water availability. Improvements to our potable system in the Eastern Coachella Valley promotes economic development opportunities that benefit the community and also helps spur the development of quality affordable housing. CVWD will continue to partner with Congressman Ruiz and is dedicated to improving the living conditions of the communities we serve.”

“The Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, a 39 year old nonprofit community development corporation, is pleased to learn of the funding approval of our Community Project grant application through Congressman Dr. Raul Ruiz’s recommendation to the Appropriations Committee,” said Pedro S. G. Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition. “The $500,000 in funding will provide much needed financing for renovations to our headquarters building in Indio, CA. The renovations will allow the agency to remain in Indio and continue its successful mission of improving the living conditions of low-income individuals and families by constructing and operating affordable housing infused with community services programs and other opportunities that enrich, build, and grow their lives. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Congressman Raul Ruiz, M.D., and his team for his support of our organization and the renovation grant application.”

“Loma Linda University Medical Center is delighted our request to establish a Federally Qualified Health Center in Rancho Mirage has been selected by the House Appropriations Committee,” said Dr. Richard Hart, President of Loma Linda University Health. “This new clinic will serve the expanding Medicaid (MediCal) population in this area, providing much needed clinical and preventive care. In partnership with SAC Health, Loma Linda is committed to serving this large population demographic with quality health care services. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Raul Ruiz for his assistance in obtaining this grant.”

“On behalf of the Palo Verde Hospital, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to Congressman Ruiz for the $350,000 award and support in the Palo Verde Hospital’s Integrated Community Health Program-PVHICHP,” said Liz Manjarrez, Outreach Project Administrator of Palo Verde Hospial. “The ICHP will address the lack of services in low-income families that live in Blythe and it’s remote/isolated areas (Ripley, Mesa Verde, and Cibola). This award will provide much needed clinical services; therefore, will close the health care gap by providing remote whole person care such as, diabetes education, managed care in chronic illness, and primary/mental health services.”

“We are deeply grateful to Congressman Ruiz and our Congressional delegation for securing this new funding to move the Corps’ feasibility study of a long-term Salton Sea management plan forward,” said Salton Sea Authority Executive Director Patrick O’Dowd. “The Authority looks forward to advancing that study in partnership with the local communities surrounding the Sea, the Corps and the State of California.”

“With economic development more important than ever, we appreciate Congressman Raul Ruiz’s continued efforts to seek passage of appropriations that will facilitate construction of the 10-acre Soboba Crossroads shopping center in San Jacinto,” said Isaiah Vivanco, Chairman of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians. “The benefits to our local communities, which will include an estimated 100 permanent jobs, enhanced local services, increased tax revenues, support for public services and new opportunities for business growth, will be reaped for many years to come. On behalf of the people of Soboba, I’d like to thank Dr. Ruiz and all others who worked tirelessly to secure funding for this all-important infrastructure project.”

Kelly O’Keeffe | Contributed

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BALTIMORE (AP) — The Biden administration is relying on infrastructure dollars to help fix the clogged ports and blanket the nation with internet access — but a series of initiatives rolled out on Tuesday show that the urgent pace might not be fast enough to address the immediate needs of an economy coping with a supply chain squeeze and a shift to remote work.

President Joe Biden spoke with the CEOs of Wal-Mart, Target, UPS and FedEx on Tuesday about how to relieve the supply chain challenges as ships are still waiting to dock at some of the country’s leading ports. The key problem is that these ports are experiencing record volumes of shipping containers as the economy has recovered from the pandemic.

Biden received updates from the CEOs on how deliveries are being sped up to ensure that store shelves will be well-stocked this holiday season, according to a White House official. Bloomberg News first reported Biden’s conversations with the corporate leaders.

Yet the concrete policy steps being discussed by the administration show that there is no quick fix to supply chain issues that are still hurting smaller businesses and causing consumers to face higher prices. Nor can the administration build out a national broadband network fast enough as more Americans are pivoting toward remote work.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo highlighted at the White House briefing the $65 billion for broadband access in the the $1 trillion infrastructure package that cleared the House on Friday. She said that jobs would be created and poorer Americans would receive “affordable” internet service, though she did not spell out a precise dollar amount on what the monthly bills could be.

The plan involves careful logistics that would take time to implement. Each state would receive at least $100 million to help lay fiberoptic cables and ensure its citizens can access the internet. This process would occur as jobseekers are increasingly requesting remote work where they can work from home on their computers.

“The president wants us to get it right,” Raimondo said. “And if it takes a little longer to lay the groundwork for fiber and broadband, then we’re going to do that.”

Similarly, the administration announced plans on Tuesday to identify and pay for possible upgrades to U.S. ports within the next 90 days — hoping to ultimately tamp down the inflation being caused by ships waiting to dock and a shortage of truck drivers to haul goods.

As the U.S. emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, the economic recovery has been hampered by congested and aging ports. The mix of inflation and the potential for empty store shelves during holiday shopping has created a sense of frustration for many Americans and hurt President Joe Biden and Democrats politically.

Senior administration officials said Tuesday that the Transportation Department would allow port authorities to redirect any leftover money from grant projects to address the supply chain issues. For example, the Georgia Ports Authority will use $8 million to convert its inland facilities for the port of Savannah into container yards, freeing up dock space and speeding the flow of goods to their final destinations.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the forthcoming plans, which come on the heels of the House backing the bipartisan infrastructure package late Friday. The package includes $17 billion to improve coastal and land-based ports that can help to tackle the challenges in the longer term.

Biden’s team is moving straight ahead in promoting the possible benefits from the broader infrastructure package, though they’ve largely shied away from claiming that Americans could see clear and demonstrable changes to their lives before the 2022 midterm elections. The focus, instead, has been on how the spending on roads, bridges and broadband will help the U.S. economy compete against the rest of the world.

The president in remarks to Democratic supporters on Tuesday signaled that he will look to remind voters in the months ahead of the infrastructure win. He noted “the last president” promised to pursue legislation but failed to deliver.

“So it was left to us,” Biden said at the virtual event hosted by the Democratic National Committee. “We got the job done.”

Administration officials said the ports initiatives being announced Tuesday would make the supply chain faster, more efficient and environmentally friendly in the medium to longer term.

Biden will highlight the administration’s efforts by visiting Baltimore’s port on Wednesday. It’s part of a broader effort to show that the administration will tackle the inflation that has left Americans feeling more pessimistic about the economy. Updated figures for the consumer price index will be released Wednesday, with the previous report showing prices were 5.4% higher than a year ago.

The Baltimore trip is designed to highlight the types of investments that the administration believes will help unclog the supply chain. The port in Baltimore is adding container cranes and adding a 50-foot berth where ships can be unloaded. The administration has also approved grants so that the Howard Street Tunnel — a train artery that opened in 1895 — can be expanded to ferry double-stacked containers on railcars.

The Biden administration earlier helped broker an agreement to increase the hours of operation at the Port of Los Angeles, but it’s been difficult to immediately fix this challenge.

Additional steps include launching a $240 million grant program in the next 45 days to modernize ports and marine highways. Within 60 days, the government wants to identify repair projects and opportunities to deepen harbors for larger ships that can be a guide for more than $4 billion in construction by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The government will also look over the next 90 days at which ports of entry should be upgraded and expanded as part of a $3.4 billion investment. It also plans within 90 days to open the first round of more than $475 million in grants for ports made possible through the newly passed infrastructure package.

The Transportation Department intends to publish a playbook for states on freight movement and issue guidance on best practices, so that the value of the infrastructure investments can be maximized. There will also be a request for information by the Transportation Department to improve data collection and sharing to improve the efficiency and transparency of the supply chain.

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Until then, I thought that both the “bipartisan” $1 trillion “infrastructure”, and the “progressive” Democrat $3.5 trillion “reconciliation” packages were just obscenely bloated versions of previous “stimulus” spending we had with Obama and Trump.

Now I know that both bills are far more radical and dangerous. They are sponsored by people who hate America’s large, prosperous, and politically independent middle class. These “woke” Democrats are determined to break us.

The premise of both bills is that by enjoying safe and comfortable lifestyles, we are causing floods, fires, and droughts that are ruining the planet. They say this is because we are burning too much fossil fuel. The goal of both bills is to cut America’s fossil fuel use in half during the next nine years. If these bills become law, the federal government will heavily fine every power company that does not systematically shut down most of its coal, oil, and natural gas power plants by then. It would also pay billions as bribes to companies to build and use new solar panels and wind turbines instead.

The federal government would also pay people, businesses, and schools to buy electric cars, trucks, and buses. It would also pay for more solar panels.

This would permanently end prosperity in America. Solar panels and wind turbines cannot power a modern economy. The electricity they generate is too weak, intermittent, unpredictable, and unreliable. Solar and wind energy is often wasted. It cannot be stored when not needed. It saves little if any fossil fuel. That is because backup generators must always be running to give the grid steady power whenever the wind stops, night falls, or a cloud goes by.

Nuclear power plants are a reliable, cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. They provide 71% of the electricity in France. Of course, neither bill promotes new nuclear power plants.

If both bills pass, power companies will be in an impossible situation. If they keep fossil fuel plants to provide reliable power, they will pay big fines and pass that cost to their customers. Everything we buy will then cost more. If power companies comply and rely on unreliable solar panels and wind turbines, frequent power failures will become normal.

People with electric cars, trucks, and buses will often find it difficult or impossible to charge them. As in the days before railroads and steamships, every long trip will be difficult and uncertain.

Americans will again walk or ride horses or bicycles in the heat, the cold, and the rain. Homes, schools, and businesses will again be cold in the winter and hot in the summer. The comfortable, middle-class American Dream will be gone for all but the rich. Germany and Denmark already have invested heavily in solar panels and wind turbines. They have the highest electric rates in Europe. They avoided disaster only by buying expensive nuclear electricity from France, and natural gas from Russia.

Yet in spite of this, “progressive” Democrats have good reasons to think they will get the support and votes needed to pass these bills.

Their union teachers and professors made the last three generations of students virtually illiterate in basic science. Few Americans today know that climate changed to create an Ice Age 10,000 years ago and that the earth has warmed ever since. They know nothing about how we convert the energy of spinning wheels or sunlight into electricity. They never had science fairs. They never did experiments to see how many solar panels and wind turbines it takes to power a microwave or washing machine. They know nothing of reputable scientists like Michael Shellenberger, author of Apocalypse Never. Shellenberger makes a persuasive case that man-made climate change is “slight and manageable” and that “climate alarmists” do more harm than good.

Democrats carefully designed both massive spending packages to bribe every interest group they need to get elected and re-elected next year. Their combined $4.5 trillion spending plan includes $18 billion for homeowners, $13.5 billion for vehicle charging stations, $5 billion for “free” electric firetrucks and school buses, $27.5 billion for “green” energy “loans” that don’t get paid back. The evillest spending is roughly $6 billion paid to schools, colleges, and “community organizers” for “climate justice” programs.” These are pure propaganda campaigns to promote their fake science and to elect Democrats who support this radical agenda.

Finally, Democrats know that their allies in the media will scare voters into supporting this program. Every day they will falsely report that every hurricane, tornado, heavy rain, drought, and brush fire in America is caused by “climate change.” They will falsely blame anyone who opposes these spending packages as being responsible for every death and loss.

Will conservative Americans wake up and fight back in time to stop this?

Seth Grossman | Columnist

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A lot right now in the U.S. Congress. One way lawmakers propose to pay for the $1 trillion infrastructure bill the Senate approved Tuesday is by imposing tax-reporting requirements for cryptocurrency brokers, the way stockbrokers report their customers’ sales to the IRS. It could open the way for tighter regulation of cryptocurrency — something the Biden administration is moving toward as it also pushes for tax compliance.

The plan could raise about $28 billion in revenue over 10 years, congressional accountants estimate.

The $28 billion could get stretched very quickly. Take bridges, for example. It would cost an estimated $25.6 billion to replace all the bridges in the country that are classified as structurally deficient, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

So, currency you can’t hold in your hand would effectively pay for roads, bridges, water systems, internet broadband access and shoring up the electrical grid, what President Joe Biden called “a generational investment” on par with building the transcontinental railroad in the 1800s or the Interstate highway system in the ’50s. That’s testament to the explosive growth of cryptocurrencies in recent years — an enticing potential revenue source — and the mounting push by some government officials to put new reins around a largely unregulated market.

After weeks of wrangling, the Senate passed the bipartisan infrastructure package in a 69-30 vote. It now moves to the House.

A look at the situation:

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WHAT’S THE STORY WITH CRYPTOCURRENCY?

The market for cryptocurrencies has ballooned to an estimated $1.8 trillion. They’re basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they travel from one holder to the next. Not tied to banks or governments, they allow users to spend or receive money anonymously. That appeals to libertarians, off-the-grid types and risk-taking millennials who believe the financial system is rigged.

But it’s also favored by international criminals, money launderers, drug dealers and ransomware hackers.

The most widely traded cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, now worth around $45,000 each, down from a high in April of about $64,800. It’s notoriously volatile, in some instances spiking or plunging on public pronouncements by Elon Musk, the provocative Tesla Inc. CEO. Some businesses now accept Bitcoin as payment. Other well-known cryptocurrencies include Ethereum, Dogecoin, Ripple and Litecoin. All told, there are thousands. Bitcoin and others can be bought and sold on exchanges with U.S. dollars and other national currencies.

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WHERE DO GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS STAND?

On both sides of the coin.

Some lawmakers see cryptocurrency as a font of technological innovation, especially in the development of blockchain, the digital ledger that records transactions.

Top U.S. regulators, on the other hand, are flashing danger signs. Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by Biden, said last week that investors need more protection in the cryptocurrency market, which he called “rife with fraud, scams and abuse” and “like the Wild West.” While the SEC has won dozens of cases against crypto fraudsters, Gensler said the agency needs more authority from Congress — and more funding — to regulate the market.

The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, is considering developing its own digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar. A so-called digital dollar could enable faster payments among banks, consumers and businesses.

“You’ve got federal agencies not talking on the same page,” says Suzanne Lynch, a professor at Utica College who focuses on financial crime. “It’s so grey right now.”

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WHAT’S THE CONNECTION WITH THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL?

The debate over cryptocurrency landed in the middle of the Senate’s work on the massive infrastructure package. An earlier plan to pay for the legislation, by bolstering IRS enforcement to crack down on tax cheating by individuals and businesses, went down as Republicans objected to expanding the agency’s reach. That would have brought in an estimated $100 billion over 10 years.

Going back to the drawing board on revenue raisers, the plan was hatched for stricter tax-reporting requirements for cryptocurrency brokers. The estimated $28 billion it would generate over a decade is only about a quarter of what the IRS crackdown proposal envisaged. But it’s still the biggest revenue raiser of several in the infrastructure bill.

It raised objections from some senators and unleashed an opposition lobbying blitz from the cryptocurrency industry as well as internet freedom advocacy groups.

The provision defines brokers too broadly, opponents say, potentially stifling innovation by unfairly putting new tax-reporting obligations on software developers and crypto “miners” — users who create coins by lending computing power to verify other users’ transactions and receive coins in exchange. Those people don’t have access to cryptocurrency users’ data the IRS would be collecting, opponents say.

Opponents brought forward amendments to the provision and a compromise emerged. But it failed to muster Senate approval, pushing the debate over cryptocurrency, taxes and brokers to the House.

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WHAT’S THE SITUATION NOW WITH CRYPTOCURRENCY AND TAXES?

Some cryptocurrency brokers already report transactions to the IRS, though most don’t, experts say. Brokers place buy and sell orders for users on the cryptocurrency exchanges.

The exchanges are required to collect personal identifying information from users and report their annual activity to the IRS.

The IRS defines cryptocurrency as “property” similar to stocks or gold. That means you pay capital gains tax when you sell it or cash it in at a profit.

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MARCY GORDON | AP News

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The outcome of the infrastructure bargaining, which for weeks has encountered one snag after another, will impact what could be the crown jewel of his legacy. That would be his hopes for a subsequent $3.5 trillion federal infusion for families’ education and health care costs, a Medicare expansion and efforts to curb climate change.

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will need support from every Democratic moderate and progressive to push the $3.5 trillion bill through the 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. If the infrastructure talks implode, it may be harder for moderates — who rank its projects as their top priority — to back the follow-up $3.5 trillion plan, which is already making them wince because of its price tag and likely tax boosts on the wealthy and corporations.

“I would say that if the bipartisan infrastructure bill falls apart, everything falls apart,” West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, one of his chamber’s most conservative Democrats, warned reporters this week.

That could well prove an overstatement, since moderates like him will face enormous pressure from Biden, Schumer and others to back the $3.5 trillion package, whatever the bipartisan plan’s fate. But it illustrates a balancing act between centrists and progressives that top Democrats must confront.

“If infrastructure collapses, which I hope it does not, you’d have the difficulty of holding some of the Democrats” to back the $3.5 trillion bill, No. 2 House leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Tuesday in a brief interview. Party leaders will be able to lose no more than three Democrats to prevail in the 435-member House.

Both sides in the talks were expressing renewed optimism Tuesday about prospects for a deal, a view they’ve expressed before without producing results. The uncertainty underscored that Democrats were at a promising yet precarious point for their agenda, with stakes that seem too big for them to fail yet failure still possible.

Biden met at the White House on Tuesday with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a leader of moderate Democrats who’ve been laboring to strike an infrastructure deal with GOP senators. The president also used several tweets to prod lawmakers, including one saying, “There are no Democratic roads or Republican bridges — infrastructure impacts us all and I believe we’ve got to come together to find solutions.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden and Sinema “are very much aligned on the path forward” and expressed optimism, but also said the president was “not setting new deadlines” for a deal. Several target dates for reaching an agreement have come and gone, though Schumer wants a Senate vote on a package before sending lawmakers home for an August recess.

Sinema is a centrist who’s alienated some Democrats who consider her unpredictable.

Illustrating that, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., told House Democrats privately Tuesday that the infrastructure accord senators are trying to complete is “crap,” according to two people who attended the session and described it on condition of anonymity. He also said the measure was being crafted by “three Republicans,” pointedly naming Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sinema, they said.

Moderate Democrats have long made an infrastructure deal their top priority. The bipartisanship such an accord would display plus the meat-and-potatoes spending it would bring back home have made that their goal over the separate $3.5 trillion measure for family and environmental programs.

If the infrastructure talks fail, it would deprive moderates of a victory that if reached might leave them more open to making concessions on the $3.5 trillion measure. A collapse could also trigger fresh internal Democratic fighting over how much of the infrastructure spending would be transferred to the huge domestic spending plan, and how that would affect its overall price tag.

Even Republicans are divided over the infrastructure measure and what a failure of the bipartisan talks would mean as both parties eye 2022 elections in which House and Senate control are fully in play.

Some Republicans worry that approval of a bipartisan infrastructure plan would help Democrats pass their $3.5 trillion measure by making moderate Democrats more prone to cooperate with their colleagues on that subsequent, costlier legislation.

They also say supporting the infrastructure measure would let Democrats rope the GOP into sharing the blame if inflation or other economic problems take hold amid massive federal spending programs.

But others say that since Republicans won’t be able to stop Democrats from passing their $3.5 trillion bill, the GOP might as well back an infrastructure agreement. That would let Republicans haul a share of its $1 trillion in popular projects back to their home states.

Democrats plan to use special budget rules that would prevent Republicans from using a filibuster — a delay that takes 60 Senate votes to halt — to derail the $3.5 trillion measure.

These Republicans also say passage of the infrastructure measure would make it harder for Manchin and Sinema — and moderate Democrats facing reelection in swing states, like New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Arizona’s Mark Kelly — to vote for an even larger $3.5 trillion plan.

“I think it puts their members more on the defensive and having to defend very, in my view, indefensible spending and taxing,” said No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota.

ALAN FRAM | AP NEWS

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