The White House is preparing to unveil its long-awaited $1 trillion infrastructure plan soon after President Donald Trump signs the GOP tax overhaul, hoping to begin 2018 with another big legislative win — but its approach is already drawing resistance from Democrats who are in no mood to cooperate.

The plan set for release in January is expected to call for as much as $200 billion in federal spending over the next decade, with the rest coming from private investment, state or local funding and cuts to other federal programs. An administration official added new details this week, telling POLITICO that a wide variety of projects — from bridges to broadband — would have to compete for federal assistance, while showing they're prepared to put their own money on the table.


The "primary" factor for cities and states wanting help from Washington would be how much revenue they are willing to raise, from taxes, fees or other sources, the official said.

White House officials have said they plan to release their plan as a lengthy statement of "principles" sometime before Trump delivers his State of the Union address Jan. 30. It would be up to Congress to convert it into legislation — and it's unknown how quickly that will happen as lawmakers wrestle with other priorities like a spending bill, potential changes to safety net programs or perhaps another whack at repealing Obamacare.

None of the package's details so far are music to the ears of Democrats, who have pitched their own proposal for $1 trillion in new federal infrastructure money and who have said they won’t support a plan stuffed with budget cuts and environmental rule rollbacks. An infrastructure package would need 60 votes in the Senate, making Democrats the key to its success, even before Alabama Sen.-elect Doug Jones' upset victory Tuesday.

Many questions remain, but Democrats say they've already heard enough about the still-unreleased plan to be skeptical.

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"I don’t know what the path is," said Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee. "I think we’re lost in the wilderness."

DeFazio observed that the administration has been “rolling out concepts for a year,” and ticked off some of the ways its proposal has morphed since Trump took office. Those include the administration's flirtation with so-called public-private partnerships, in which private entities would use tolls or other revenue to recoup the costs of projects — a concept that Trump told lawmakers in September he had soured on.

"They’ve gone from a trillion dollars to $200 billion that would be done with [public-private partnerships], and then Trump doesn’t like [public-private partnerships], so it’s $200 billion that [White House aide D.J. Gribbin] said last week would be cut from other domestic spending," DeFazio said.

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, the Senate Commerce Committee's top Democrat, scoffed at the thought that states and localities would raise their own taxes or enter into public-private partnerships to pay for infrastructure needs, including those already covered by the cash-strapped Highway Trust Fund.

"They're not going to do that to repair the Interstates. They're not going to do that to repair the 50,000 bridges that are structurally unsound," Nelson said. "They're not going to do that for the expansion of sewer and water systems and broadband."

Even a top Republican infrastructure advocate, House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster, has had questions about the idea of expecting states and local governments to pick up at least some of the tab.

“Well, I gotta see exactly what they mean by it," the Pennsylvania Republican said last week. "Some of it sounds a little bit like devolution. And I’ve not talked to a single governor that wants the federal government not to have a role. It’s a national transportation system."

Shuster later met with Trump in the White House on Monday to discuss the plan. He has declined repeatedly to elaborate on what was discussed, beyond a short statement declaring the meeting "productive."

The administration is well aware it needs Democrats on board to get its infrastructure push formalized into legislation and then passed by Congress, the White House official told POLITICO this week.

“I think we are very cognizant of the fact that this bill is not going to be under reconciliation and we’ll need 60 votes in the Senate, so it needs to be a bipartisan effort," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a plan that has yet to be unveiled.

But he said Democratic governors and mayors — without naming them — have given positive feedback "on components of the plan," particularly regarding its focus on doling out dollars to state and local governments who can raise some of the money needed for infrastructure projects on their own.

The plan is engineered to give those levels of government a greater say in how infrastructure decisions are made, the official said. "That plays not surprisingly well to them," he added.

Asked whether states want more control over infrastructure decisions, Nelson responded: "I'm sure they do." But he added, "They don't have the money."

The White House has said the $200 billion federal share of the package would be split into four buckets: funding for states and localities that promise to take on more of the financial burden of infrastructure building and upkeep; block grants for rural areas; existing federal loan programs; and money for "transformational" projects "that will truly change the face of our country."

Potential uses for the money include transportation needs such as highways, bridges, railroads, airports and transit, including potentially the $30 billion "Gateway" rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan that is a major priority of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But a range of other types of projects may also qualify, including upgrades to veterans hospitals and expansions of rural broadband service.

The administration has not made it clear exactly where it would find even $200 billion for the federal share of the package, beyond saying it would come from cuts from other places in the federal government. Democrats had expressed interest over the years in getting the cash from corporations' "repatriated" overseas earnings as part of an overhaul of the tax code — but that opportunity is vanishing with the GOP's tax bill, which doesn't steer any of that money to infrastructure.

The administration official said White House aides have met with several Democratic members and aides on infrastructure, including leadership. But one Democrat who has been a champion of using repatriated dollars for infrastructure said that outreach doesn’t appear to be widespread.

“They haven’t really talked to any Democrats as best I can tell," said Maryland Rep. John Delaney, who is retiring to pursue a 2020 presidential bid. "And it seems like their plan is based on regulatory relief — some of which may make sense, I bet a bunch of it doesn’t — and if you really want to do infrastructure on any kind of meaningful scale, it has to have some funding associated with it from the federal government. And if they want to fund that by cutting other programs that we think are important, no Democrat is going to support it."

Delaney has long railed against the Trump administration for failing to tie infrastructure to the tax code overhaul barreling through Congress, arguing that would have been the best — and most realistic — shot at infusing a large chunk of federal money into infrastructure.

Administration officials likely have their work cut out for them in wooing congressional Democrats after a long year of partisan bickering over nominations, health care and taxes — especially given the monthslong wait for a plan that was originally promised within the first 100 days of Trump's presidency.

"In terms of what they're going to share with us, it's always 'next month,'" said Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, the Environment and Public Works Committee's top Democrat. "And I'm just looking forward to when 'next month' actually arrives."