Rebuilding Baltimore bridge

Republicans bristle at rising costs for rebuilding Baltimore bridge

A POLITICO report shows the price tag is ballooning and the target completion date is slipping.

By Chris Marquette and Pavan Acharya

Some Republican lawmakers are becoming unsettled about surging cost estimates to replace the Francis Scott Key in Baltimore, for which the federal government has agreed to pay 100 percent of the repair costs.

POLITICO reporting shows that the price tag for rebuilding has ballooned from an initial $1.9 billion to more than $5 billion. The projected completion date has also been pushed out from 2028 to 2030, according to a person with direct knowledge of the estimates, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) Thursday said she is “open to looking at” scaling back the federal government’s statutory obligation to pay 100 percent of rebuilding costs (minus anything recovered from insurance claims or court judgments).

Capito noted that when she read POLITICO’s reporting about the skyrocketing cost of the rebuild, she thought “I was right. There’s no constraints” on the spending because, she suggested, the state knows they don’t have to come up with the money.

“I can almost guarantee you it would not be over $5 billion if Maryland had to pay 10 percent of that,” Capito said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but on Aug. 29, David Turner, senior adviser to Moore, said “preliminary cost and schedule estimates ... were based on rough order of magnitude calculations” and that Congress was informed about that uncertainty before they enacted into law a guarantee to pay for the full costs.

“The yet unknown impact of the Trump Administration’s tariff and economic policies has injected additional uncertainty into the process, as the cost of raw materials and labor remains constantly in flux,” Turner added.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) called POLITICO’s report on cost estimates “very disquieting.” She also noted that Moore had “assured” her in a previous meeting that the $1.9 billion they’d initially requested from Congress, along with money recovered from insurance, would be enough. “So this is a dramatic change in what the governor told me just last year,” she added.

House Transportation Committee Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.), said earlier this the week that he would be interested in exploring legislation to change the cost share but that it’s unclear what the path forward on that would be.

There are hurdles to paring back the federal cost share. While it could get through the House, it’s unlikely a measure to do that would get the requisite 60 votes in the Senate.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), said Thursday he would consider seeing if other fiscal conservatives would be interested in pursuing a bill to pare back the federal cost share.

He added that he will “talk to some fiscal hawks and see who might want to step in.” Maryland, Burlison said, “should have skin in the game.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday also wrote to Moore, a Democrat, wanting to talk about the bridge’s rising cost estimates and signaled plans for increased oversight of the effort.

In a letter to Moore, Duffy wrote asking to talk to the governor about “the latest estimates of the overall cost and schedule for completion” to “provide oversight to ensure the funds are used appropriately.” In a press release accompanying the letter, Duffy cited his concerns about POLITICO reporting that the cost estimates for rebuilding have ballooned from an initial $1.9 billion to more than $5 billion.