Washington:
President Joe Biden on Friday took an aerial tour of the collapsed Baltimore Bridge that blocked a vital East Coast waterway and pledged federal help to rebuild it, but some Republican members of Congress opposed the idea.
On March 26, a cargo ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge and splashed into the harbor, killing six people. Efforts to clear the wreckage and restore traffic to the mid-Atlantic state’s waterway are underway.
Biden flew over the disaster site aboard his Marine One helicopter to get a bird’s eye view. He met with local officials and was briefed on the economic impact at the Port of Baltimore, an important shipping destination for ships unloading cars.
With the collapsed bridge behind him as a backdrop, Biden vowed that “we will not rest” until the bridge is rebuilt and the region returns to normal.
He called on Congress to quickly approve funding for the new bridge.
“I’m here to say, your country has your back, and I mean it,” Biden said. “We’re going to pay the price.”
He also vowed that parties responsible for the bridge collapse would help cover the costs of repairing the damage and “be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Biden later met with the families of the six people killed in the accident. The victims, all immigrants from Mexico and Central America, were repairing potholes on the bridge when it collapsed.
Shortly before the presidential flyover, diving teams recovered the body of a missing highway maintenance worker, 38-year-old Honduran Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval, officials said. Yasir Suazo-Sandoval). Three other bodies remain trapped under underwater debris. The other two had previously been found.
Biden’s meeting with the families of these migrant workers comes as his rival, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, ramps up anti-immigration rhetoric and casts immigrants as dangerous criminals who “poison America’s blood.”
Thousands of port workers have been idled as state and federal officials have warned of the hardship the port closures could bring to regional economies.
The Port of Baltimore ranks No. 1 in the U.S. in the volume of cars, light trucks and farm and construction machinery handled, according to Maryland state data. Most traffic has been suspended since the accident, but some terminal operations outside the affected area have resumed.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) asked the federal government in a letter to Congress on Friday to foot the bill for bridge replacement, which federal officials said would likely cost at least $2 billion.
Some Republican hardliners in the U.S. House of Representatives oppose using new federal funds to fund the bridge’s reconstruction. Such a request would likely pass the Senate, which is controlled by Biden’s fellow Democrats, but could run into trouble in the narrowly divided House.
The House Freedom Caucus, a group of about three dozen hard-line Republicans who wield considerable influence over House Speaker Mike Johnson, laid out a series of demands Friday in exchange for their cooperation.
bridge funding
Hours after the bridge collapsed, Biden said the U.S. government would “pay the full cost of reconstruction,” and his administration last week announced $60 million in emergency relief.
Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote on Friday that the government would pursue all avenues to recoup costs and “ensure that any damages or insurance proceeds collected will reduce costs to the American people.”
White House officials have held talks with Johnson’s office in recent weeks about billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine and Israel and funding for collapsed bridges, according to two officials familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The spending measures each have bipartisan support, officials said, but the White House realizes Johnson must meet the demands of his hardline colleagues, meaning many spending proposals will be bundled together to pass.
Members of the Freedom Caucus, which helped oust Johnson’s predecessor last year, said Congress should seek “maximum accountability” from foreign shipping companies.
It also requires that any aid be fully offset by spending cuts and that the Endangered Species Act and other regulations be waived to avoid delays.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
