Washington agrees to infrastructure framework, House votes on big tech future

Jessica Smith joins Myles Udland, Brian Sozzi, and Julie Hyman to break down the latest infrastructure bill negotiations in Washington as an agreement on the framework for a package might've been reached, and the house committee is approving legislation to curb market dominance of tech giants.

Video Transcript

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JULIE HYMAN: And members of Congress continue to try to work on an infrastructure plan once again. There is a tentative framework that some members of Congress are expected to meet with President Biden about and present to him. So we could see maybe some further progress. All right, Jessica Smith is in Washington and covering this for us so. What's the latest, Jess?

JESSICA SMITH: Well, Julie, the senators seem a little more confident about this framework than they did about the one we heard a couple of weeks ago. White House officials have been meeting with a group of 10 senators, Republicans and Democrats. And today they are going to meet at the White House at 11:45. They say that they do have a framework on an infrastructure deal, though some details still need to be worked out.

We'll see what the president thinks about it, as he hears from these senators today. They have not publicly unveiled this package yet. But we're expecting it to be $1.2 trillion, with about $600 billion in new spending. The question is how this group is going to pay for it. That has been a big sticking point throughout these negotiations. Republicans don't want to raise taxes. Democrats don't want to use user fees.

A piece of it could be heightened IRS enforcement. That could be a way to raise more revenue. But it's still unclear.

They also have to sell this framework to the rest of Congress. At this point it's these 10 moderate senators. So it's not clear if there's going to be enough support outside of that group to actually send this to the president's desk. And Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer told reporters yesterday they want to do both the bipartisan deal and a reconciliation package with some of President Biden's other priorities, the American Jobs Plan, the American Families Plan, things like the human economy, the human infrastructure is what they're calling it, things like universal pre-K, free community college, those types of ideas.

They say that they can't do one without the other. So they are hoping to get a vote on a bipartisan infrastructure deal, that physical infrastructure potentially in July, and then also, that same month, take the first step toward reconciliation, and hopefully setting up-- they say setting up that reconciliation bill for sometime this fall. But again, we'll have to keep you updated on what comes of this meeting today, happening at 11:45.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, and in the meantime, there was also some movement on the tech regulation front. Again, we've had these sorts of discussions before, but there is a House committee that is looking at these issues.

And in this case, I believe there's not just one bill that's being considered. There are a number of them.

JESSICA SMITH: Right, there are six bills. It's a package of legislation that this committee came up with after that 18 month long investigation into the big tech companies. The committee passed five of them yesterday. They're going to pick up again at 11 o'clock today to consider the final bill.

These bills would apply to companies that have a $600 billion market cap, or 50 million monthly users. The bills that they passed yesterday would do a few things. It would make it easier for people to transfer their data from one service to another. It would give antitrust enforcers more resources, raise fees on the biggest mergers, and help state attorneys general in antitrust cases.

It would also keep tech companies from acquiring potential rivals to eliminate competition. Another bill would keep companies from favoring their own products on their platform. And then the bill that they'll take up today would keep dominant platforms from owning businesses that could present a conflict of interest or that could lead them to favor their own services and discriminate against competitors. Amazon could be forced to sell off pieces of its business if that bill were to become law. But the bill still would have to make it through the full House. It's not clear how they'll do in the Senate.

So there's still a long way to go, though this has been progress for advocates for cracking down on big tech. Again, that next vote should start-- this next debate should start in just about an hour and a half. So we'll keep you updated on that one as well.

And timing is still pretty unclear of when the full house will take this up, and if it'll get enough support among Republicans, and some Democrats who have expressed concerns as well.

JULIE HYMAN: Right, and this is something that the Congress has been talking about for years now. So we'll see if there's a little bit more movement. Thank you, Jess, appreciate it.