Pelosi’s new deadline to pass the bipartisan bill is directly tied to the new deadline to extend the Highway Trust Fund, a point she reiterated last week. But can’t Congress just pass another short-term extension, like the one they just did? Sure, but at least 10 Senate Republicans would have to agree to overcome a filibuster. According to CQ, the only reason Republicans agreed to the last extension was that no new spending was necessary to keep the trust fund afloat for 30 days, but after Oct. 31, “the Highway Trust fund would need another cash infusion to keep funding authorized programs.”

Unless the trust fund’s cash flow surpasses expectations in the next few days, it may be flat broke by the end of the month. Senate Republicans could refuse to approve fresh spending to bail the fund out, especially since their leader, Mitch McConnell, can accurately point out that Democrats have an alternate solution — House passage of the infrastructure bill that he and 18 other Senate Republicans have already supported.

Another new factor is the supply chain crisis. Last week, Biden sought to reassure Americans that his team is working with port operators and retailers to address bottlenecks that have been keeping goods off of store shelves. In doing so, Biden drew a connection between long-term supply chain needs to the stalled infrastructure bill, saying, “We need to improve our capacity to make things here in America while also moving finished products across the country and around the world” and noting the infrastructure bill invests “billions of dollars for ports, highways, rail systems that sorely need upgrading — and would bring products faster and more efficiently from the factories, to the store, to your house.”