It turns out that former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan pushed for Baltimore Harbor to serve larger ships and ignored safety issues while in office.
Unfortunately, the story is from Lever News, and not the Baltimore Sun or Washington Post, so I do not know how much traction this will get.
It's important to note here that Larry Hogan never gave a crap about the safety of Baltimore, because his entire political strategy was to demonize black people, like his political idol Ronald Reagan did, and a crucial part of his tactic was to demonize Baltimore City and starve it for resources. (Hence no improvements to the protections for the Key Bridge)
Days after a massive cargo ship collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Larry Hogan called for the federal government to foot the bill for the bridge’s reconstruction. Hogan’s demand follows his efforts as Maryland’s governor to attract such outsized cargo vessels to Baltimore’s port in the first place — despite safety warnings from an insurance giant and transportation experts.
Regardless of those concerns, Hogan’s gubernatorial administration pledged that bringing ever-larger cargo ships to Baltimore would strengthen the economy — and even improve safety.
His administration’s major public-private partnership to attract such mega-ships promised that it “reduces the occurrences of crashes, fatalities, and injuries among transportation users.”
Hogan appointed the head of dredging contractors’ lobbying group to run the port amid the much-celebrated expansion that doled out lucrative dredging and construction contracts.
As the insurance conglomerate Allianz was spotlighting the dangers of large cargo ships, Hogan positioned himself as his state’s highest-profile supporter of the mega-ship industry — at one point declaring that thanks to his administration’s investments, “every year we are seeing larger and larger container ships choosing the Port of Baltimore.”
During the Republican governor’s tenure, mega-ship traffic in Baltimore exploded, transporting record amounts of cargo through the port worth billions of dollars. But as the port expanded with Hogan’s support, experts say the Key Bridge, as it was commonly known, may not have been fortified for the possibility of a collision with such large ships — even though a cargo vessel had already crashed into the bridge a few decades earlier, when ships were smaller.
Hogan, who is now running for one of Maryland’s U.S. Senate seats, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Of course Hogan did not respond to requests for comment.
He wants to keep his role in the disaster on the down low.
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