Government Affairs Brief

Following overwhelming bipartisan approval in late April of a $35 billion measure to clean up the nation’s water systems, and the unanimous Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approval on May 26 of a $311 billion highway bill, President Biden hopes to carry that spirit of cooperation to his ambitious multitrillion-dollar infrastructure package. Unfortunately for him, moments of cooperation in deeply divided Washington can be fleeting. 

The Colonial Pipeline outage came amid a wave of new cyberattacks, with several more sophisticated and far-reaching than ever before. Over the past year, roughly 2,400 ransomware attacks have hit corporate, local and federal offices.  

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Sean Casten (D-IL) on April 15 introduced the “Climate Risk Disclosure Act” to mandate that publicly traded companies disclose climate-related metrics under the supervision of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is currently working on a similar administrative mandate that is expected to be released soon.  The legislation is intended to codify the new SEC rule and protect it against legal challenges or a future Republican-controlled SEC effort to overturn it. 

After signing the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill into law on March 11, President Joe Biden quickly turned his attention to moving a massive infrastructure package through Congress, outlining a $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan called the “Build Back Better Recovery Plan” In Pittsburgh March 31.   

Following an election on November 3 that defied nearly every norm and many expectations, Democrats won unified control of the federal government after two January 6 U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia were called in their favor.