The House Transportation Committee chairman said Wednesday there will be no infrastructure package in the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, breaking from a campaign pledge that Trump made repeatedly last year.
A massive infrastructure initiative was a big talking point for the President-elect, but Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pennsylvania, said not to expect plan details any time soon. Right now he says the focus will be figuring out how to pay for the trillion-dollar price tag.
“We’re going to start to work on it, but first of all, you’ve got to figure out the pay for it, which will come, I believe, in the first 100 days. Then in the next second 100 days is when we’ll put together a big infrastructure package,” he said.
Shuster’s comments were first reported by The Hill.
Trump often said he’d push for a $1 trillion plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure over a 10-year period, though he provided little details on what that plan would look like.
However, in a speech he gave in October outlining his “First 100 Days” agenda, Trump listed it as a priority and his campaign outlined it as his No. 3 legislative priority, calling it the “American Energy & Infrastructure Act.”
The measure would aim to leverage public-private partnership and private investments through tax incentives, according to the campaign at the time.
Trump also vowed to nix financial commitments to the United Nations for climate change programs and spend that money on water and environmental infrastructure instead.