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House and Senate leaders say they will draft emergency legislation to help workers at the Port of Baltimore following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City), in a post on social media Wednesday, said he and other lawmakers representing the port will sponsor emergency income replacement legislation.
In a meeting with reporters later in the day, Ferguson and Del. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City) outlined the broad concepts of what they called the Protecting Opportunities and Regional Trade Act — Port Act.
“Fundamentally, it’s about protecting the economic engine that we have in the city of Baltimore, but it really is about American resiliency,” Ferguson said. “First and foremost, it’s making sure that income replacement is possible for workers who are going to be displaced because the port is shut down. One of the first times almost anybody can remember in its history, both the public port and the private port, the door is locked.”
Broadly, the bill focuses on three areas:
First, income replacement for about 15,000 workers directly affected by the closure of the port.
Second, the bill would offer some form of aid to port-related ancillary businesses and independent contractors.
Finally, the bill would set aside funding “to make sure that that business doesn’t move to another port permanently,” Ferguson said.
“I think the bigger picture here is we want to make sure as we are getting ready to leave here that we’re protecting these workers, and also lifting up the port,” Clippinger said. “It’s a gut punch to the city to have nearly 20,000 employees in multiple different jobs, not just the people loaded and off-loading on the ships, it’s [also] the people who are in those secondary and tertiary businesses who rely on the goods coming in and out of the port that are going to be impacted as well.”
Details of the bill are still being worked out. The bill could be introduced as early as Friday.
The General Assembly is scheduled to end its 90-day session April 8 at midnight.
Ferguson said the bill would authorize the governor to establish the programs. Details would be fleshed out in regulations.
Money for the proposed programs would come from the state’s rainy day fund. Ferguson called the roughly $2 billion balance “historic.”
Ferguson said the act would ensure “that funds are available through the rainy-day fund for what is raining and pouring. I think no one can imagine the Key Bridge being in the water right now. This is as rainy as it gets.”
How much would be available from the state’s rainy day fund was not immediately known.
“I think we’re working through the details. Now we want to make sure that it’s a reasonable amount,” said Ferguson. “Obviously, there are limits to everything but…we’ve got to be urgent, and we have to make sure that as we work through the details it’s sufficient to propel the industry and the individual people at work.”
Both Ferguson and Clippinger expressed hope that the federal government would reimburse the state for expenses related to the closure.
“Our hope is that the feds act quickly and urgently,” said Ferguson. “Certainly, the remarks from President Biden were very hopeful as well from [U.S. Transportation] Secretary [Pete] Buttigieg. I think we can’t afford to wait for it. But we will anticipate the possibility that federal funding and recovery funds might be able to backfill some of this.”
The proposal comes a day after a catastrophic accident closed the Patapsco River and its shipping channel.
On Tuesday, the Key Bridge was struck by the cargo ship Dali as it left the port around 1:30 a.m. The collision caused the 1.6-mile span over the river to collapse.
At least six road construction workers who were working on the bridge at the time of the collision went missing. Two of their bodies were recovered on Wednesday morning and the others are presumed dead. Maryland State Police Superintendent Roland Butler Jr. said Wednesday evening that rescuers will be looking through the underwater debris near the marooned ship and the felled bridge to try to find the additional bodies.
The ship and debris from the bridge now block the width of the river.
The damage has closed a major artery for commuter and commercial traffic and closed the port’s cargo and passenger shipping operations.
Del. Ric Metzgar (R-Baltimore County), who represents the Dundalk and Sparrows Point, said he worried not only about the “$15 million a day” in lost business but about the possibility that shipping companies that use Baltimore will make their temporary arrangements with other ports permanent.
“We need to assure the people at the Port that we’re going to stand by and help them,” he said. “We cannot allow them to go to Norfolk or Philadelphia,” he said. “If they stay there too long they’re going to get complacent.”
Over 15,000 in the Balt region rely on daily operations at Port of Baltimore to put food on the table.
Today, with Del. @LukeClippinger and colleagues representing Port, we are drafting an emergency bill to provide for income replacement for workers impacted by this travesty.
— Bill Ferguson (@SenBillFerg) March 27, 2024
An investigation into the cause of the collision is just beginning.
The timeline for clearing the channel and rebuilding the bridge is unclear.
Hours after the bridge collapse, President Biden promised the federal government would pay for the replacement of the bridge. He and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also vowed to assist the state in resuming operations at the port.
“It’s just too soon to say” exactly how much money or time will be needed to rebuild the bridge or open the port, Buttigieg told reporters Wednesday.
“Rebuilding will not be quick or easy or cheap,” Buttigieg said. “But we will get it done.”
This breaking news story has been updated. William J. Ford and Josh Kurtz contributed to this report.
