Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) struck a notably collaborative posture toward the Trump administration Friday, saying he was eager to work with Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy on rebuilding two bridges in the state and was looking at private financing that he had rejected when he came into office.
The two met in Washington the day before to discuss rebuilding both the American Legion Bridge and the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which came after months of escalating tensions between Maryland leaders and the White House over the Key Bridge project and its $5.2 billion price tag.
Estimated construction costs for the Key Bridge have more than doubled in the nearly two years since the span was struck by a container ship and collapsed, killing six people, and President Donald Trump, Duffy, state Republicans and some in the building trade industry have been critical of the mounting costs.
While speaking with reporters Friday, Moore said that he and Duffy discussed ways to lower the cost and speed up the timeline for the Key Bridge rebuild — reiterating his commitment to reopening the span before he leaves office. Moore attributed the steep price tag to enhanced, federally mandated safety features and more expensive construction materials due to Trump administration policies, which, he said, he discussed with Duffy at their meeting.
“There are some things, like materials, that we are going to be having conversations with the secretary about,” Moore said, pointing to Trump’s tariffs on steel as a contributor to increasing construction cost. “Frankly, these are things that the federal government has more authority on than state government.”
Duffy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Moore’s statement.
During their discussion, the Moore and Duffy also agreed to the concept of a public-private partnership to rebuild the American Legion Bridge spanning the Potomac River into Virginia, which transportation officials say is near the end of its useful life and has become a major commuter traffic choke point.
“We all agree that building great, big, things shouldn’t be impossible in America,” Duffy and Moore said in a joint statement released after the Thursday meeting. “Our teams will continue to hash out the final details to ensure both critical bridge projects are completed quickly and affordably.”
The idea of using a public-private partnership, known as a P3, to rebuild the American Legion Bridge is a shift for the governor, who has previously argued the 60-year-old span should be replaced with public dollars. But Maryland has applied repeatedly for a federal grant to replace the bridge unsuccessfully, and Moore has acknowledged the state doesn’t have the money to shoulder the cost on its own.
Moore says his opposition was never to the concept of a public-private collaboration, only the execution.
“I’m not against P3s,” Moore said Friday. “I’m against dumb P3s.”
Virginia has been trying to get Maryland to rebuild and expand the American Legion Bridge with tolled express lanes, which now cover the Virginia side of the Beltway all the way up to the bridge.
“We agreed about the need to speed up the reconstruction and leverage innovative approaches … that will ensure Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. commuters can soon experience some much needed traffic relief from the most congested corridor in America,” Moore and Duffy said in their statement.
Former governor Larry Hogan (R) supported a public-private collaboration but failed to get a contract signed before leaving office in 2023.
Moore and Duffy said they also discussed cost sharing for the Key Bridge. At the time of the collapse, then-President Joe Biden pledged that the federal government would cover the full cost of rebuilding the span, and Congress later codified that commitment into law.
That remains the plan, both officials said. But Moore emphasized on Friday that it was important to him that the federal government acknowledge Maryland also has “significant skin in the game in this right now” — including insurance money, up-front investment using state funds, and a pending lawsuit against the operator and owner of the Dali container ship that lost power and crashed into the Key Bridge on March 26, 2024.
But Trump has threatened to withhold funding, including during an online spat with Moore last fall over threats from the White House to send National Guard troops to Baltimore. “I gave Wes Moore a lot of money to fix his demolished bridge,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I will now have to rethink that decision???”
Duffy first hinted at the potential for more costly construction in late August, when he told reportersthat the state’s estimates weren’t “anywhere near accurate” and could be “double plus.” In September, he asked Moore for a meeting to discuss federal oversight of the project’s spending, to which Moore agreed.
Then in November, Maryland Transportation Authority officials announced a new cost estimate of between $4.3 billion and $5.2 billion and pushed the reopening date two years to 2030 — setting off a fresh wave of overspending concerns.
The initial $1.9 billion figure was quickly assembled in the immediate aftermath of the collapse to access emergency relief funding from the federal government, according to state transportation officials. At the time, they said, that figure was in line with cost estimates for projects of a similar scale and complexity. Moore and state officials now say they have a much clearer sense of the true costs for the massive project, including labor, safety mandates and construction materials.
But critics of the much higher estimate have said they believe there are ways to cut costs.
The Maryland Transportation Builders and Materials Association has questioned the preference for union labor on the project, which they said could be contributing to the increasing cost because much of the state’s “heavy-highway workforce” is not unionized. Association members said in an interview that they worry unionized workers from outside the state will need to be brought in to Maryland to do the work, leading to per diem rate payments and a loss of business for Maryland construction companies and workers.
Though the state did not require project labor agreements — known as a PLAs — for the Key Bridge rebuild, the contractor that officials selected, Kiewit, voluntarily prioritized union workers.
Brad Tanner, a spokesperson for the transportation authority, said the state supported Kiewit’s decision. Moore said that the increase in price “has nothing to do with the PLAs.”
Beyond concerns over cost, Duffy has criticized the state’s commitment to award a certain percentage of the Key Bridge construction contracts to minority-owned businesses — a key pillar of the Moore administration’s agenda to close the racial wealth gap.
In his September letter, Duffy told Moore that “any reliance on race- or sex-conscious factors” as the state awarded contracts could “introduce significant legal vulnerabilities.”
Kiewit has since removed references to the state’s minority business pledge from its Key Bridge project information webpage.
Kiewit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tanner, the transportation authority spokesperson, said that Maryland was barred from monitoring compliance or counting participation of minority or disadvantaged businesses in state contract work after an October order from the U.S. Transportation Department that curbed such programs.
In his remarks to reporters, Moore said he and Duffy discussed the subject of minority-owned business contracts.
“We expressed and he acknowledged that we are following federal guidelines,” Moore said. “We are not doing anything that is not completely aligned with federal guidelines and federal regulations.”
The post Moore and Duffy commit to lower costs for Key Bridge rebuild together appeared first on Washington Post.
