Johnson Urges For Federal Support To FSK Bridge Collapse Relief: It Impacts ‘Interstate Commerce’

5 months ago

Last week, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) questioned officials on the federal funding of the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing.

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Transcript

00:00 Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this very important hearing,

00:04 and thank you to the witnesses for appearing, and thank you for the work that you've been doing to

00:09 ameliorate the harm that has been caused by this bridge collapse. And I also want to

00:17 offer my condolences to the families of the six construction workers who were killed

00:27 in this bridge collapse, and I'd like to commend the quick work of the police officers who

00:35 made sure that traffic was stopped and no other people were on the bridge who could have been

00:44 killed as a result of this collapse. And I also want to recognize the collaboration between

00:52 state and federal officials and agencies to address this situation. And I want to get at

01:01 this issue of perhaps there being some people in the country who are not inside the state of

01:09 Maryland who resent having to pay for this bridge reconstruction. Administrator Bott, can you tell

01:21 us how this bridge collapse impacts interstate commerce? Thank you for your condolences and for

01:32 the question, Congressman. I think, you know, I was the Secretary of Transportation in Delaware,

01:38 in Colorado, and I was a deputy in Kentucky, and I think that, you know, what is so critically

01:45 important for our transportation system is that you can drive from New York to Los Angeles across

01:50 a system that is completely uniform, is set to standards, and what is happening, I think we've

01:55 learned through the Port of Baltimore, is that that highway system is tied into ports. It's the

02:01 third busiest port in the country, so there are jobs that are being impacted, there is freight

02:07 movements that are being impacted, there are neighborhoods that are being impacted, and so,

02:11 yeah, this is not just an issue for Maryland, it's an issue for the Northeast Corridor and for

02:16 our national economy. It's actually having an impact on prices for consumer goods, is that

02:23 correct? That is something that, under the leadership of Secretary Buttigieg, we've been

02:28 closely looking at, you know, many of the goods that move through there, so there's a lot of coal

02:33 that moves through that port, there's a lot of automobiles and farm equipment, and so, to the

02:39 extent, now there's a lot of that traffic has been diverted, and I don't want to get outside of the

02:43 Federal Highway lane to other ports, but there is a lot of movements of goods from, say, ships that

02:50 have diverted back to Maryland, and that is adding costs for those, say, vehicles to be finished at

02:56 the plants nearby, so obviously, supply chain is important. Okay, thank you. When is it projected,

03:05 assuming that funding is in place, that the bridge can be rebuilt and reopened?

03:12 Thank you, sir. The projected schedule right now is for a progressive design-build team to be

03:18 selected this summer and for construction to begin next year and run through 2028.

03:23 Thank you, and so it would be 2029 before the bridge would reopen for traffic?

03:31 2028, 2029. It'll be a progressive design-build, so we'll figure out the schedule as we go.

03:38 Thank you. Chairwoman Homendy, with respect to the causation of this cargo vessel losing power

03:49 and that causing it, this vessel, to drift into the bridge, are there any

04:00 concerns, or does the fact that there was no, there seems to be no redundancy in terms of

04:09 the basic power of the vessel, there's no redundancy? You cut it on, you cut it, it gets

04:17 cut off, there's no secondary situation that would kick in. Am I correct on that, and if I am correct,

04:27 what are the implications as we move forward? Yeah, I mean, there's certainly redundancy in

04:33 the electrical system and the circuit breakers. They switched circuit breakers after the power

04:38 outages in port. With respect to the emergency generator, it would not allow for regaining

04:47 propulsion. It really focuses on the critical portions of the vessel, which would be radio,

04:56 communication, lighting. If you had any sort of, if you wanted to regain propulsion through any

05:04 sort of emergency generator, it would literally take a six-story generator on a vessel to do that.

05:13 There is redundancy in, say, cruise ships, but vessels, the DALI is not unlike other vessels.

05:23 I think here is really determining for us what happened with the electrical system on

05:30 the accident voyage, what happened in those two blackouts, which is why we have been working very

05:37 closely with Hyundai, who manufactures the equipment to try to replicate some of the

05:46 electrical problems that were seen that day and continue looking and testing each of the components.

05:56 Thank you. Are you back?

05:58 Mr. Graves.

Johnson Urges For Federal Support To FSK Bridge Collapse Relief: It Impacts ‘Interstate Commerce’

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