Late Friday night, the House passed a big piece of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda — the infrastructure modernization bill. This is a historic achievement. For many, many years, the running joke in Washington D.C. was "this week is infrastructure week" — everyone from both political parties talked about the urgency of modernizing our infrastructure, but nobody ever got it done.

That joke ends now. Thanks to the leadership of President Biden and Democratic majorities in the Senate and House — WE DID IT.

America has fallen way behind when it comes to repairing, upgrading, and expanding the infrastructure backbone of our country. With this initiative that will finally change. We will upgrade our roads, bridges, and ports; expand our public transit network and ensure that every American has access to safe drinking water — all while creating millions of good-paying union jobs.

And that’s not all. We will boost our efforts to build a clean energy economy by helping build out a coast-to-coast network for electric vehicle charging AND grow supply chains for solar panels, wind farms, batteries, and electric vehicles for use at home and export abroad. We will ensure that every household has access to affordable and high-speed internet.

There is a lot to be proud of in this bill. We are making a vital investment in America and Americans — creating jobs and setting the stage for future economic success. I’m very proud to have helped shape this bill and include many key provisions to help Marylanders.

Next up, we must pass the other key component of the Build Back Better agenda: our investment in people power, which will expand educational and job opportunities, reduce the costs of everything from child care to prescription drugs, and cut taxes for middle income families — all paid for by eliminating tax loopholes for big corporations and the very wealthy.

This is the kind of transformational change that voters came out to support one year ago this week.

Thank you for being part of this important progress!

Chris