GOP lawmaker: We’re past point of doing separate infrastructure bill

Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) said on Thursday that separate legislation addressing infrastructure in the House will likely not be passed in the near future, citing a lack of leadership on the issue.

“We’re already past the point of doing a separate infrastructure bill,” Davis, who is the ranking member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highway and Transit, told The Hill Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack.

The remarks were made at The Hill’s Future of Mobility Summit, which was sponsored by Qualcomm, Uber, the Edison Electric Institute, and the National Parking Association.{mosads}

“If folks were serious about that at the leadership levels, and the White House levels, that would have had to be done by August,” he continued.

President Trump faced major opposition by members of his own party earlier this year when he expressed support for a $2 trillion deal on the matter with Democrats.

Republicans called the deal too ambitious and said they are against any deal that adds to the deficit.

Davis did express optimism about the surface transportation reauthorization measure, which would aid highways, but warned that impeachment could suck the air out of any movement on the issue.

“So as we move into the surface transportation debate, I hope it doesn’t get sidetracked, but history shows us that impeachment will suck the energy and the air out of everything out here in Washington,” he said. “I hope we can sit down and really begin the process of putting the details together of a surface transportation reauthorization.”

Washington was taken by storm this week after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump amid a whistleblower complaint alleging Trump applied political pressure to Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.