Maryland leaders take Key Bridge funding fight to Washington to rally congressional support

WASHINGTON — In the halls of the U.S. Capitol where they’ll have to convince members of Congress to fully fund the Francis Scott Key Bridge cleanup and rebuild, Maryland’s top elected leaders said Tuesday they’re optimistic about their lobbying efforts to pass a cost-covering bill with bipartisan support.

President Joe Biden has pledged for the federal government to foot the bill for the entire response. His administration has already approved Maryland’s request for an initial $60 million as well as access to a roughly $1 billion account holding emergency relief funds.

Congress, though, must give approval to ensure Maryland taxpayers alone aren’t on the hook for 10% of what could easily reach at least several hundred million dollars. Republicans in the far-right Freedom Caucus have threatened that effort, with a statement Friday putting conditions on the money.

“This is a commitment that is normal for this type of a catastrophic loss of a major infrastructure in our country,” U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin said behind a sign reading “Maryland Strong” on the two-week anniversary of the Key Bridge collapsing into the Patapsco River.

Cardin, a Democrat set to retire at the end of the year, has drafted legislation to remove the state cost-sharing requirement that will be formally introduced this week or next.

Underscoring the mostly Democratic Maryland delegation’s push to get the bill through the narrow GOP majority in the House, Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Harris — a Freedom Caucus member who represents the Eastern Shore — stood alongside Cardin and others to say he was committed to a “bipartisan solution.”

He said there is currently “no debate about cost-share” and that “Maryland should not have to bear a part of the cost.”

“Tragedy knows no partisanship. This wasn’t a Republican tragedy. It wasn’t a Democrat tragedy and the solution won’t be a partisan solution,” Harris said.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who attended the meeting and press conference Tuesday at the Capitol, told The Baltimore Sun in an interview Monday he’d been in touch with Harris about speaking with his colleagues in the Freedom Caucus. He said he was also firming up plans to speak with Republican leadership directly and would not hesitate to personally lobby Freedom Caucus members.

“I plan on going anywhere and everywhere to plead our case,” said Moore, whose next trip to the Capitol is slated for Thursday.

The Freedom Caucus statement Friday — on the same day as Biden took an aerial tour of the bridge site and doubled down on his pledge to pay for the response — said officials should seek “maximum liability” from the shipping companies before approving additional funds. The money should also be limited to physically rebuilding the bridge and should be additionally contingent on Biden lifting a pause on liquified natural gas exports, the statement said.

Cardin and others stressed that finalizing any liability claims could take years.

“That process will not delay the immediate moving forward with the replacement of the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” Cardin said. “We will not delay until liability is established. And once the liability is established and funds are received, it will go towards the taxpayers.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who’s become the Biden administration’s most public-facing official on the incident, joined the meeting Tuesday. He said ongoing federal efforts to reopen the port, deal with supply chain implications, plan for bridge rebuilding and manage surface transportation issues are just a few examples of why the emergency relief funds must be available “at a healthy level.”

“It is our expectation that the federal taxpayer will be made whole but we do not want that to get in the way,” Buttigieg said.

Maryland taxpayers, meanwhile, will likely pay for some costs. After the meeting in Washington, Moore and his staff rushed to Annapolis, where the governor signed the Protecting Opportunities and Regional Trade, or PORT, Act that state lawmakers fast-tracked in the final two weeks of the annual session.

The law allows Moore to pull $275 million from state “rainy day” funds for programs providing economic relief to workers and businesses that rely on the partially closed port. It also sets up a scholarship program for the children of the six construction workers who died when the bridge collapsed.

Leaders in the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard, who also briefed the elected officials in Washington, have set a goal to return the Port of Baltimore to regular operations by the end of May and to open a smaller channel by the end of April.