President
Joe Biden will visit for the first time the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge outside Baltimore,
Maryland, on April 5, after making the short drive up I-95 from
Washington, D.C. His arrival comes more than a week after the collapse occurred, and it follows his administration’s commitment to provide $60 million in emergency funding to cover the costs of initial mobilization, operations, and debris recovery. “The president has been very, very clear: He wants to make sure that we make the community of Baltimore whole again,”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a media briefing on April 4. “And he has said that the federal government will certainly cover the bridge being built.” Along with rebuilding the bridge, she said the administration’s focus is to ensure the ports are open and assist in the recovery effort to “clean out that area.” During his visit, the president is expected to receive an operational update on response efforts to reopen the Port of Baltimore as swiftly as possible, according to the White House. The president will be joined in Baltimore by Gov. Wes Moore, Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, Mayor Brandon Scott, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. During his visit, President Biden will also be given an aerial tour of the federal and state response efforts. While in the Baltimore area, he is expected to call upon
Congress to provide more federal aid toward assisting the reconstruction. However, several members of Congress have already come out and raised concerns about using taxpayer money to pay for the reconstruction when insurance companies should be the ones fitting the bill. Britannia—the insurer of the 948-foot-long cargo ship, the Dali, that caused the bridge collapse—has said it is “working closely with the vessel’s owner and manager and the relevant U.S. authorities as part of the investigation” into what occurred. The Dali is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and operated by Synergy Marine Group. Both companies are based in
Singapore. The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed when the ship lost power and struck one of the support pillars at 1:30 a.m. on March 26. Six workers tasked with filling potholes on the bridge were killed, two of whose bodies have been recovered. “Our hearts go out to the lives that were lost,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “It’s sad news. And we are with the families who are mourning their lost ones at this time.” President Biden is scheduled to meet with loved ones of those individuals on Friday, according to the White House. “The president obviously is very much looking forward to going to Baltimore, being there for the people of Baltimore,” she said. “You heard him say he’s going to be there for as long as it takes to make sure that we make them whole again.” Meanwhile, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young, urged Congress in a letter dated April 5 to authorize a 100 percent federal cost share for rebuilding the bridge and eliminating any requirement for a state cost share. “This authorization would be consistent with past catastrophic bridge collapses, including in 2007 when the Congress acted in a bipartisan manner within days of the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota,” the letter stated.