CHARLESTON — Republicans, led by U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, presented President Joe Biden on Thursday with a counteroffer to the White House’s compromise on his massive infrastructure package.

Capito, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, held a press conference Thursday morning on Capitol Hill with senators Pat Toomey, R-Pa., John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

The new counteroffer for the Republican Roadmap infrastructure proposal increased the price tag from $568 billion to $928 billion spread out over eight years.

“We believe that this counteroffer delivers on what President Biden told us … and that is to try to reach somewhere near a trillion dollars over an eight-year period of time that would include our baselines in spending,” Capito said. “We have achieved that goal with this counteroffer.”

The updated package includes $506 billion for roads, bridges, and other major highways projects, including $4 billion for electric vehicle infrastructure, $800 million for reconnecting communities, and $14 billion for resilience. The $506 billion represents a $91 billion increase over baseline spending.

Other spending includes $98 billion on public transit systems, $72 billion for water infrastructure (a $48 billion increase in baseline spending), $65 billion for broadband infrastructure, $56 billion for airports (including a one-time spend of $25 billion), $46 billion for passenger and freight rail (a $22 billion increase over baseline spending), $22 billion for ports and waterways, $22 billion for western water storage, $21 billion for safety improvements, and $20 billion for infrastructure financing.

“We’ve done something that has stayed true to what our beliefs are when we very first started this endeavor, and that is sticking to core physical infrastructure,” Capito said. “We have stayed within the boundaries of our original plan. I think that’s what the American people think of when they think of infrastructure and that’s certainly what we do too.”

The Republican Roadmap counter offer is still nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars apart from the latest counteroffer from the Biden administration. The White House presented a scaled-down version of the American Jobs Plan over the weekend, reducing the price tag from $2.3 trillion to $1.7 trillion. Speaking with reporters Thursday afternoon, Capito said Biden called after Republicans released details of their counteroffer.

“After we had our press conference and released our plan to the White House, the President himself called me on the phone, expressing a desire to continue the negotiations and hopefully meet maybe next week at the White House to be able to move this quicker,” Capito said. “I’m very encouraged, but i know we still have a ways to go.”

To lower the price, White House negotiators took out parts of the original American Jobs Plan dealing with manufacturing research and development and supply chain investments into other bills pending before Congress, reducing the plan’s broadband funding to match Republican proposals, and reducing the amount of funding for roads, bridges, and other major projects from $158 billion to $120 billion.

Sticking points between the White House and Senate Republicans revolve around defining infrastructure, as well as how to pay for the infrastructure improvements. The American Jobs Plan includes spending on social programs, such as investments in home healthcare, and expanding public housing.

“Our homes can serve as a bridge to greater opportunities and a better life,” said Marcia Fudge, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, during a stop in Missouri on Wednesday. “The American Jobs Plan is a historic, once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure–including our housing infrastructure … To pass an infrastructure plan that fails to expand affordable housing and to revitalize our communities would be akin to building a road that leads to nowhere.”

The Biden administration also wants to roll back former president Donald Trump’s tax cuts, increasing corporate tax rates to cover the cost of the American Jobs Plan, as well as providing more resources for the IRS to collect back taxes owed to the government. Republicans want to pay for infrastructure improvements with user fees, assessing user fees on drivers of electric vehicles, and clawing back unspent COVID-19 relief dollars.

The White House places a goal of Memorial Day for negotiations to wrap up on an infrastructure agreement with Senate Republicans. According to Politico, officials in the Biden administration are willing to keep negotiating past Memorial Day if need be, though it’s unclear how long those negotiations would continue. Capito said a deal is still the end-goal.

“Senate Republicans continue to negotiate in good faith,” Capito said. “We’ve had a lot of good dialogue with the White House. We’re trying to get to that common goal of reaching a bipartisan infrastructure agreement that we talked about in the Oval Office with the president several weeks ago and I talked with him even previous to that.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.