U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Delivers Remarks at the Port of Baltimore Reopening Press Conference
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, alongside Maryland Governor Wes Moore, White House Senior Advisor Tom Perez, and local officials, gathered at the Dundalk Marine Terminal within the Port of Baltimore to commemorate its complete reopening. This milestone comes less than 12 weeks after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
According to USDOT, what happened that early morning of March 26th was horrific. What happened next was inspiring. And it is what happened next and every day since that day that has allowed us to come together and mark and celebrate the fact that, as of today, as of this week, the channel is open, the ships are moving, the terminals are operating, and this great American port is full steam ahead.
President Biden made clear from that first day in those early hours that the Federal government would do everything that we could to support the city, the county, the state, to get the Port of Baltimore back open and to get that bridge rebuilt.
And what followed was an embrace of the people of Baltimore by the whole Administration, and really by the whole country, to get this port back open in less than 100 days.
Our Department of Transportation was proud, to play our role in that teamwork. From the coordination and convening of key players to mitigate the impact of the shock to our national supply chains.
To the $60 million release of emergency relief funding—a down payment on the work ahead. And the regular consulting we are doing with Secretary Wiedefeld and his outstanding MDOT team on their early work to rebuild that bridge.
We revised a grant that was in the works to rush funds to Tradepoint Atlantic, a nearby terminal, so they could quickly increase the amount of cargo that they could take in and help them effectively double their capacity to help handle the auto imports and exports while the port was closed.
