The Collapsed Bridge to Nowhere: Francis Scott Key and Missing Logic

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Joe Biden is demanding, and pronto, more of our tax money to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

He wants more from us—naturally—but America needs, as its first priority, to investigate and determine if the bridge’s destruction was in fact unintended… or malicious. Much documented evidence is emerging as to the bridge “accident” being in fact, a political, and likely international, cyber-attack. Whether or not this is so, something is off-kilter about the serial infrastructure fails happening all around us. It is time for a much closer look.

As to Biden’s call for more cash, where are the trillion plus dollars obligated by Biden’s crowning achievement, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law? From the Department of Transportation website:

The law authorizes $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending with $550 billion of that figure going toward ‘new’ investments and programs. This bipartisan law strengthens PHMSA’s safety authority and includes many provisions that will help PHMSA fulfill its mission of protecting people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials [emphasis added].

(The PHMSA is the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.)

Now to March 2024, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and hazardous materials:

Ship that hit Baltimore bridge carried tons of hazardous materials: US official

The cargo ship, MV Dali, was carrying 764 tons of hazardous materials when it crashed into the Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, a top US official has said.

Why is Biden demanding, immediately, new money to cover the Baltimore bridge disaster, when insurers have not yet submitted determinations as to eligible underwritten costs to rebuild?

A good bet is more federal fraud. The real answer is Joe Biden’s graft and essential dishonesty. Pete Buttigieg—one of Biden’s most disastrous DEI hires and often-absent overseer of serial transportation disasters by rail, air, and water—echoes, complete with his own petty threats, Biden’s talking points:

‘I hope and expect this, too, will be a bipartisan priority,’ Mr. Buttigieg said on CBS News’s ‘Face the Nation.’ He cited the case of a Minnesota bridge whose $250 million reconstruction plan was approved by Congress in a unanimous vote two days after its collapse in August 2007, and added that ‘the pitch is, your district could be next, and this has historically been bipartisan.’

The Department of Transportation announced on Thursday that it had allocated $60 million in emergency federal highway funding toward rebuilding the bridge. That initial batch of money, which the department called ‘a down payment,’ is unlikely to cover the full cost of construction that experts say could require hundreds of millions of dollars.

The push for additional federal funding reflects officials’ belief that a prolonged disruption to the Port of Baltimore would cause ripple effects across the U.S. economy. The harbor has one of the largest facilities in the nation for wheeled cargo such as cars and trucks, and it serves as a key logistics hub for the auto industry for both imports and exports.

The “expert” estimates of “hundreds of millions” in this NYT piece, interestingly, is far less than the billions estimated now by industry experts; Bloomberg leans on the expertise of Yonah Freemark of the Urban Institute, who puts the approximate price tag of the project at “several billion dollars” (at least), and experts in the insurance industry concur, via Insurance Journal:

Insurance Industry Readies for Historic Losses From Baltimore Bridge Tragedy

It’s very early in the recovery process and already the numbers are large.

Insured losses for the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore could be as much as $2 billion to $4 billion, according to Morningstar.

S&P Global Ratings estimates $3 billion, which would still make this tragedy the largest marine insurance loss ever recorded.

Barclay’s analysts believe damage claims for the bridge alone could reach $1.2 billion, while claims for wrongful deaths and business interruptions could run $350 million to $700 million, according to Bloomberg.

…

‘I do see this claim as having a high likelihood of being one of the largest marine claims on record – rivaling Costa Concordia in 2012 or Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 — almost 35 years ago to the day,” John A. Miklus, president, American Institute of Marine Underwriters (AIMU), told Insurance Journal.

‘While the incident still has to be investigated, we believe it has potential to become a significant insurance claim, particularly in the marine market,’ wrote a Barclay’s analyst cited by Bloomberg.

While Biden insists the crash was nothing more than a “terrible accident,” others, mostly in the alternative media, disagree:

For the last several months, various warnings have been given about cyber warfare directed against maritime targets. These include a congressional hearing, a speech by the FBI director, indictments of Iranian cyber actors, and the Biden Administration issuing a new Executive Order on ‘Safeguarding of Vessels, Harbors, Ports, and Waterfront Facilities of the United States’ on February 21 – just over a month ago.

In other words, the Biden Administration, and its CIA and FBI, saw this coming.

One month ago, according to several news outlets, the U.S. conducted a cyberattack against an Iranian military ship that had been collecting intelligence on cargo vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Then, on March 26, a cargo ship crashes into the Francis Scott Key bridge, after mysteriously losing power, causing the collapse of the bridge, loss of life, and an economic catastrophe costing tens of billions of dollars [emphasis added].

Why was Biden so very quick, before any comprehensive investigation, to deny both nefarious motivations, and negligence? (He also brushed aside issues of other revenue being impacted.) Biden’s immediate reaction that studiously avoided blaming anyone is a stark contrast to the insurance industry’s; stunningly, industry experts mention “potentially culpable parties.” Also from IJ:

While the estimates of losses are running high, Anderson Kill attorney Gold told Insurance Journal he believes it is likely that the potentially culpable parties and their insurance companies will ‘explore the filing of limitation of liability lawsuits’ to cap their exposure given the enormous cost….

Biden would like to kick the insurance can down the road while he makes bad use of this Congress’ infatuation with disastrous and redundant federal spending:

‘It’s my intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge and I expect the Congress to support my effort,’ Biden said, speaking from the White House ahead of a trip to North Carolina.

We must insist that, in supposedly representing Americans already cash-strapped and going without—by terrible inflation, worsening taxes, general administrative incompetence and staggering waste via Biden’s executive decisions and his warped federal bureaucracy—Congress act, sharpish. It must investigate the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse, before giving Biden one more red cent. Let the Democrats wait for it.

Image: Public domain.