DEAR EDITOR:

I read the AP article on the front page of the newspaper and there is no mention of holding the ship and lessee of the ship accountable … only how much the Fed might spend.

This is unacceptable.

Go back to the Norfolk Southern mess in East Palestine, everyone said “NS must make this right” and ultimately, J.D. Vance did a fabulous job of keeping the cost of cleanup focused on NS. The Fed and State were much more involved in making sure it was safe.

Fast forward to the FSK bridge. Biden and Buttigieg are squarely inserting the federal government into the cost of reclamation and rebuilding; wanting “legislation” to cover the cost. Really? The Fed should be holding hearings to make sure there is sufficient insurance to cover the cost of rebuilding this and holding inquiries to make sure of it. In comparison, the companies associated with the Dali have market capitalization more than four times Norfolk Southern, and cumulatively own or manage over 600 ships, these are not small players.

Ohio Senators Vance and Brown put NS CEO Alan Shaw in the hot seat, what about the ship’s owner, managers and charter company, plus their insurance companies? The worst should be legislation to demand immediate repayment for the deployment of federal and state resources to clean it up and a course of action to rebuild it. J.D. Vance was wonderful as a frontman for East Palestine; we need to see enforcement of corporate responsibility again. Buttigieg and Biden agreeing that the Fed and State’s responsibility is to cut red tape. I do realize that the federal waterway, Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers add a level of complexity and federal entanglement into it, but this is the shipper’s problem. Remember, insurance and money can’t really be exhausted in this case, because they have insurance, re-insurance and deep pockets across multiple companies. We also have their ship and can impound others as they come to America.

I would also like to see what the insurance requirements are for a ship to enter a U.S. port given the staggering amount of damage that can occur. Thank God this wasn’t a super tanker with one million barrels of oil on it. Why are we federalizing this instead of focusing on the shipping company, a Democrat mayor? Governor? City? Hmmm, a little different than East Palestine.

Keep my money out of Baltimore Harbor!

DAN CROUSE

Warren