Francis Scott Key Bridge
Floor Speech
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking the gentlewoman from Texas for her opening remarks of this Special Order hour dedicated to make sure that we underscore the sense of tragedy, the sense of loss, and the sense of damage that has occurred as a result of the bridge collapse in Baltimore. I thank her again for sitting in and standing in. Your remarks were very well received. We appreciate it.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today shortly to welcome other Members again who will be coming over to be a part of this Special Order. I want to call everyone's attention to the fact that somewhere around 1:30 a.m. on March 26, the Dali, a large 985-foot cargo ship weighing 95,000 tons when empty, collided, as we all know now, tragically with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
The Dali's collision with the Key Bridge caused its fatal collapse into the Patapsco River and has forced the Port of Baltimore to suspend vessel traffic until further notice. All of the shipping lanes, with the exception of the ones that the Coast Guard was just recently able to open, have been closed, and we don't expect that to change until sometime around the end of May, if we are fortunate.
Aside from that, I think it is always important to recognize that it was not the collapse of the bridge alone that troubled us, but it is also the loss of human life. Our hearts continue to go out to the families who lost their loved ones on that bridge on that fateful evening.
This unimaginable disaster claimed the lives, as we know now, of six men: Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, Miguel Luna, Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, Jose Mynor Lopez, and Carlos Hernandez.
Those stories and those lives have yet to be fully understood or told, but those men, most of whom had been in this country 16 or 17 years, working in most instances two jobs, married with children and raising families, paying taxes, and doing what a lot of people would not want to do at 1:30 in the morning that high up on a bridge, filling potholes.
We, in the State of Maryland, continue to mourn them, as do people all over the country, and we know that they were, indeed, as I said, husbands, somebody's father, somebody's brother. Their passing serves as a solemn reminder to cherish our own lives and the lives of those that we really deeply care about. These men gave their heart, they gave their sweat, and ultimately gave their souls.
They leave behind six grieving families and loved ones that will never see them again. So those families can never get enough of our condolences and our prayers and our sympathies. I thank the largest Latino and immigrant organization in the Mid-Atlantic, CASA de Maryland, its Executive Director Gustavo Torres, and all of those who worked so hard to support those grieving families the day of the collapse and every day since then, both financially and emotionally. I ask that we continue to lift them in prayer in a time of great tragedy that all Americans, regardless of where they are, to some extent feel, understand, and grieve for.
I would be remiss if I did not thank President Joe Biden, who called the Governor and myself and other members of the delegation that morning to express his profound regret and his unflinching and unwavering support, to find a way to make things whole again, to rebuild that bridge, and to allow those shipping lanes of commerce to be open.
President Biden, since the beginning of this, has not wavered in his support of replacing that bridge, and not just for the sake of replacing a bridge, and to open, as I said before, the channels of commerce, but to also find a way to give hope to all of the many people who are affected, the thousands of longshoremen, thousands of dock workers that do odd jobs, all of those in the communities of Turner Station and Dundalk, Maryland, who are right at the mouth of the bridge, as well as all those small businesses and businessowners, the truck drivers and others--everyone affected when all commerce came to a halt.
I thank President Biden. We have appreciated the simple eloquence of his example in this tragedy. We pledge to work with him and with the appropriate members of the Appropriations Committee here in the Congress.
In addition to the President, I thank Secretary Buttigieg, who also reached out early that morning as the sun rose and who was one of the first boots on the ground by noon.
Secretary Buttigieg was initially responsible in making sure that the cleanup funds, the initial dollars, got appropriated and let right away. They were sent and are being used now in cleanup of the massive amount of debris, which I am going to talk about, which is almost unthinkable when you consider a bridge of that size.
Administrator Guzman and the SBA, we thank you and we thank all those SBA officials who came over and who started working with small businesses who are severely impacted by this, as was the case with Acting Secretary Su of the Department of Labor.
Now, one of the things that we believe is very important, and I think it is important to mention right now, is that the United States Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers immediately stood up a command team on the scene, immediately began working with Governor Wes Moore of Maryland, who, by the way, has done an excellent job in marshaling all of the State's resources. That command team, made up of the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, the State police, the FBI, and so many others that were involved from the start of this, really has made a difference in terms of the progress that has been made thus far.
The Maryland Department of the Environment and the Transportation Authority also were very much a part of what took place.
Mr. Speaker, this unified command, as I indicated, were some of the first boots on the ground, and they have responded to these crises day in and day out with diligence and with precision. Their work around the clock, 24/7, does not go unnoticed by our city, our State, or our Nation. We owe much dedication to those servicemen and servicewomen who, even at this hour as I speak, are still very much involved, as they had been in trying to find a way to open those channels.
There are 51 divers in the water right now, going through the wreckage and trying to assess the danger in very dangerous, dark, and murky circumstances.
We still have three individuals who have not yet been recovered, and so the work of those divers is particularly important so that these families might be able to bring closure to all that is going on.
I mentioned Governor Wes Moore. I want to speak more about him and his team and the members of the Maryland delegation who have worked in lockstep with one another to get us to this point.
My thanks to both Senators in the other body, Senators Cardin and Van Hollen; the entire House delegation, Congressman Hoyer, Congressman Ruppersberger Congressman Raskin, who you will hear from in just a minute, Congressman Sarbanes, Congressman Andy Harris, Congressman Trone, Congressman Glenn Ivey, and myself.
I would like, if I might, before I talk more about the State's effort and what we are really dealing with when we think about this collapse, it is more than just concrete and bricks and steel falling into the ocean. It has disrupted supply chains across this Nation that we hope to reopen and reestablish.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) whose district is miles from where this happened but who has been with us every step of the way.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his interest, his work, and his dedication to this mission that is before all of us, to rebuild this bridge and open the lanes of commerce once again so that our Nation's economy is not affected in ways that would cause us unwanted and unnecessary harm.
Pelosi), the Speaker Emerita of the United States House of Representatives. She is a native of Baltimore, the daughter of a mayor and the daughter of a congressperson, but a daughter of the city.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker Emerita both for her leadership in the greater San Francisco area and also for her love for the city of Baltimore. Both cities are very, very fortunate to have her. I can only say thanks to Speaker Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, for his leadership on this, and for his steadfastness as we all try to work together to move beyond this American disaster and to create in its place a new bridge, new lanes of commerce, and new opportunities economically for people who relied so much on that port and, by the way, on every port in this country.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his words, and I thank him also for his service to this body for almost two decades. We wish him well as he goes forward. One thing we are all sure about is that his heart remains in Baltimore.
He has always worked diligently on behalf of issues affecting the bay.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his comments and to underscore what I said earlier and what was said by several other people, that this disaster is not a partisan disaster. It affects all of us in this country regardless of our political label. I commend the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris) for his steadfastness on this.
I am going to take a few minutes to talk about several other Members on both sides of the aisle who have, through their example, demonstrated the best way to go about dealing with a disaster like that, and that is to do it in lockstep together.
He is the former majority leader, and he is, for those who don't know, the dean of the Maryland delegation.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland, the former majority leader of the United States House of Representatives, for his comments, his friendship, and also for the effort he has put forward as a part of what we call Team Maryland, again, a bipartisan effort to correct this tragedy.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
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Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I want to do a couple of things here. Number one, I thank Speaker Johnson for the conversation that we had shortly after this bridge collapsed and for his full understanding of the impact on the Nation and why this is so very important that we, again, allow commerce to flow through that port.
I thank Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries, our minority leader, for their understanding on this issue, particularly Leader Jeffries, who went above and beyond a commitment personally to try to get this thing done and to make sure that we did it together.
I would be remiss if I did not thank Tom Cole, the new chair of the Appropriations Committee, who spoke with me just 2 days after this happened and who understands completely the economic impact that this poses for our Nation as well as to Members on both sides of the aisle as we try to find a way to make sure that we move forward.
Mr. Speaker, let me be redundant and underscore the fact that this is one of the Nation's top ports. It is the largest estuary that it sits over, meaning the Chesapeake Bay and the Patapsco River, but the port itself is a significant contributor to our economy, and it is the number one port in terms of roll-on and roll-off of new automobiles. It is a great exporter of titanium, sugar, coal, and a number of other imports, as well as exports.
I will also say it has been a pleasure working with our Governor; Mayor Brandon Scott of Baltimore; County Executive Johnnie O of Baltimore County; Bill Ferguson, the president of the senate in Maryland; and Adrienne Jones, the speaker of the house, who have pushed through emergency legislation to help us to assist all of the dock workers and small businesses that are affected and helping us to move toward some sort of resolution of this issue.
I began my remarks by saying that we must not ever forget the human souls, the lives lost that day. Again, as we think about this well into the future, I hope that all of us remember that this was a bridge, but this was more than just a bridge. It became a graveyard also.
So because of the suffering that these families have endured, I would ask everyone all over the Nation to join us in understanding that this is not a partisan issue, that we must find a way together to get through this, that we must protect our Nation's supply chains and all of the risk that it poses for consumers in our society, and we can do it together.
There will be a process to determine the funding mechanisms and the funding ratios. That will all be a part of some of what the Appropriations Committee will do, I am sure, but more than anything else, this becomes a milestone. I hope that we look at it as a problem that occurred that was solved by the work, potential, and input of everybody who cared, no matter where, in fact, they were or are.
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