THE US Senate has struck an agreement for a US$1.2 trillion infrastructure bill in what could herald a legislative victory for President Joe Biden, reports the BBC.

"We have a deal," said the presdient after meeting with cross-party group of seantors at the White House.

Calling the deal "a true bipartisan effort", Mr Biden in a separate White House speech said, "There's nothing our nation can't do when we decide to do it together, do it as one nation."

The modified infrastructure bill is smaller than the president's initial proposal of $2 trillion, but retains dramatic levels of spending to cut carbon emissions from transportation, most notably by creating a network of charging stations across the country for battery-powered cars and trucks, according to Forbes.

The bipartisan Infrastructure framework would spend a total of $1.2 trillion over eight years, including $559 billion of new spending, the White House said.

While previously proposed spending to help automakers boost production of electric vehicles (EV) isn't explicitly part of the compromise bill, there is $7.5 billion for public infrastructure to keep them powered up. 

The proposal focusses on building chargers at highway stops in rural and lower-income communities. "The largest investment in EV infrastructure in history, the bipartisan Infrastructure framework will accomplish the President's goal of building 500,000 EV chargers," the White House said. 

The biggest single source of spending is $109 billion for roads, bridges and major construction projects across the US, as well as $25 billion to improve airports. But clean transportation is heavily backed in the modified spending bill, with $49 billion to aid public transit projects, $66 billion earmarked for freight and passenger rail upgrades and $7.5 billion for electric transit and school buses.

Funding for new infrastructure programmes would come from numerous sources including IRS tax collection adjustments, unused unemployment insurance relief funds and unspent funds from emergency Covid relief legislation, 5G broadband spectrum sales and sales of oil from the US petroleum reserve. Neither taxes nor miscellaneous user fees would increase to cover costs of the plan.

"The plan makes transformational and historic investments in clean transportation infrastructure, clean water infrastructure, universal broadband infrastructure, clean power infrastructure, remediation of legacy pollution, and resilience to the changing climate," the White House said.