[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] President Joe Biden took an aerial tour on Friday of the collapsed Baltimore bridge that is blocking a key East Coast shipping lane, and he pledged federal help in rebuilding the span, an idea some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have resisted.A cargo ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, sending it splashing into the harbor and killing six people. Work to clear the wreckage and restore traffic through the Mid-Atlantic state's shipping channel is ongoing.
Biden later met the families of the six people killed in the accident. The victims were all immigrants from Mexico and Central America, who were fixing potholes on the road surface of the bridge when it collapsed.
| Legal immigrants or illegal immigrants? It matters, no matter how much the Daily Mail reporter and the Biden administration try to elide the difference. |
The White House's Office of Management & Budget (OMB), in a letter to Congress on Friday, asked the federal government to cover the bridge replacement, which federal officials say could cost at least $2 billion.
Some Republican hardliners in the U.S. House of Representatives oppose using new federal dollars to fund the bridge's reconstruction. Such a request could probably pass the Senate, controlled by Biden's fellow Democrats, but may run into trouble in the narrowly divided House.
The House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of roughly three dozen hardline Republicans who can wield outsized influence over House Speaker Mike Johnson, on Friday issued a series of demands in exchange for their cooperation.
The Freedom Caucus, whose members helped oust Johnson's predecessor last year, said Congress should seek "maximum liability" from foreign shipping companies.
It also demanded that any aid be fully offset with spending cuts and that the Endangered Species Act and other regulations are waived to avoid delays.