Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday that he wants the Senate to start voting next Wednesday on a $579 billion infrastructure package. He also wants agreement from Senate Democrats by Wednesday on how to move forward with the $3.5 trillion budget agreement that he, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (D-VT), and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) announced on Tuesday.

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted 221-201 to approve H.R. 3684, the INVEST in America Act, which would provide more than $700 billion over five years for surface transportation programs, climate change mitigation, rural bridges, new safety requirements for all forms of transportation, and a pilot program to test a national vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax.

President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law yesterday, and proclaimed its first day of observance as a federal holiday today. Many federal offices are closed today. Let freedom ring.

The Capitol Hill complex has reached an 85% vaccination rate against COVID-19, which means that vaccinated House members, staff, and visitors no longer need to wear masks in the Capitol or the House office buildings. The House of Representative’s Attending Physician, Brian Monahan, announced the new guidance today. Masks had been encouraged but never required on the Senate side.

President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk yesterday that calls for “consistent, clear, intelligible, comparable, and accurate disclosure of climate-related financial risk” throughout both the private and public sectors. The EO calls for the development within 120 days of a government-wide strategy to measure, assess, mitigate, and disclose climate-related financial risk to federal government programs and assets.

US Trade Representative Katherine C. Tai spent about eight hours before the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways & Means Committee this week, answering questions about the Biden administration’s “worker-centric” trade policy, the status of 301 tariff exemptions (under review), the need to reauthorize the Trade Promotion Authority and the Generalized System of Preferences, and how the administration plans to respond to Chinese forced labor practices and trade abuses.

Reports about the contents of President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan (AFP) have been circulating for weeks, but the President provided details in his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. Among other provisions, the AFP would make a “generation-defining investment in rural America.”

While the novel fintech charter may never actually be granted, the concept ironically may usher in a rash of neobanks under full national charters, like Varo Bank. In a way that may end up creating a more level playing field.

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions held the first of what Chairman Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) said would be multiple hearings yesterday to discuss whether and how fintech companies and other businesses that offer credit should serve customers through nontraditional charters.

It was a busy week in Washington. A really busy week. The President had his first press conference. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Fed testified twice, on opposite sides of Capitol Hill. The Secretary of Transportation spent more than five hours talking to a House committee about infrastructure. Immigrants gathered at the border, North Korea tested some missiles, another COVID vaccine faced approval delays.

If you wake up at 3:47 Eastern Standard Time tomorrow, you can welcome the vernal equinox in person. The NCAA basketball tournament has started, baseball is only two weeks away, and we have (almost) made it through another winter. Congratulations.