Funding Baltimore's Key Bridge rebuild a concern for some federal lawmakers, as NTSB chair breaks down Dali malfunctions

BALTIMORE -- NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy testified before a House committee Tuesday about the NTSB's investigation into the Dali ship crash. The accident caused Baltimore's Key Bridge to collapse on March 26.

The NTSB released its preliminary report on Tuesday, which revealed that the ship experienced four blackouts before the crash - among many other details. 

Two of those blackouts happened on March 25, the day before the crash. Homendy says those outages were related to routine maintenance at the port.  The second two outages were related to the "unexpected tripping of circuit breakers on the accident voyage." 

In Tuesday's hearing before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Homendy said that the blackouts that occurred the day before the collision may have impacted operations the day of the crash.  

"While recovering from the second blackout, the crew switched to a different transformer instead of breakers — from those that had been in use for several months."

Funding the Key Bridge rebuild

Since the collapse, there have been many discussions surrounding who will pay for the Francis Scott Key Bridge to be rebuilt.  Those conversations began immediately after the collapse with President Biden, announcing his intent to push the federal government to fund the rebuild.

In early May, the broker handling the Key Bridge insurance policy announced that the state of Maryland would receive a $350 million payout from the structure's insurer, Chubb.

Referencing a 2013 bridge collapse, U.S. Representative Rick Larsen of Washington, D.C., said on Tuesday that the government should not wait for insurance to recover the costs because it could take years to actually see that money.

"The Skagit River Bridge collapse in 2013 cost a total of $19 million for the insurer, and took us ten years to recover $19 million.  We should not be thinking of waiting to recover costs from insurance, the insurer, or the carrier in order to pay for it."

This is also some push back on money being spent in Baltimore on the Key Bridge recovery efforts. Republican Congressman Daniel Webster said the funding used to support recovery efforts in Baltimore took away from crucial improvement projects in Florida. 

"Nearly one million dollars was reappropriated from Florida and projects in Florida without any request or input from professional delegations, the state, or the people,"  Webster said. "While the recovery effort in Baltimore is important, this reappropriation of funds represents a blatant disregard for Florida and desperate needed improvements to our water, resources, and infrastructure."