The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

The price tag for the Francis Scott Key disaster

Ukraine-skeptical Republicans are about to get an earful about ‘REPO’

How AI is changing the government’s approach to cybersecurity

Mayorkas impeachment articles (finally) coming to Senate

THE TOP

The price tag for the Francis Scott Key disaster

Happy Friday morning.

Washington is in the very early stages of its response to the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster in Baltimore. There are a lot of conversations going on — between the Biden administration and Capitol Hill, between Capitol Hill and Annapolis and between the Biden administration and state and local officials in Maryland.

Absolutely nothing has been decided upon thus far. This is a point we cannot underline enough. Not even all the victims of the disaster have been recovered at this point.

But we’ve spoken with the players involved in this effort. And the broad outlines of what will need to be done are becoming clear.

Let’s start here: The effort to rebuild the bridge will be very pricey — several billion dollars, according to estimates we’ve heard from Annapolis, the Hill and the White House. Several sources estimated that the administration is going to ask Congress for more than $1 billion to respond to the crisis. Again, this assessment is still in the earliest stages and nothing has been decided upon yet.

The Department of Transportation made $60 million from the Federal Highway Administration’s “‘quick release’ Emergency Relief (ER) funds” available to Maryland officials on Thursday.

But Baltimore has a lot of needs right now, as we pointed out in the Midday edition Thursday. The Dali is still in the Patapsco River, clogging up the shipping channel for the Port of Baltimore. Once the Dali — nearly 1,000 feet long and weighing more than 150,000 tons when fully loaded — is gone from the site, salvage workers can begin removing bridge debris from the blocked channel.

But moving the Dali may take days or even weeks, several sources cautioned. Experts are trying to make sure the Dali doesn’t sink or capsize, potentially adding to the disaster.

The Port of Baltimore is going to be hit hard economically. Sources told us that the payroll for the roughly 8,000 workers at the port is more than $2 million per day. If the port is shuttered for several months, as is likely, that could be upwards of $100 million in economic losses.

So the package that the Biden administration eventually asks Congress for may want to address this. The Maryland legislature is looking into this issue as well.

What you’ll hear a lot of in the coming days is that the closure of the Baltimore port isn’t just a Maryland problem — it’s a national problem. Red states will get hit too. Huge amounts of coal, wood, construction machinery, steel and aluminum flow in and out of the port. Baltimore is critical for car imports, furniture and home appliances too. The longer the port is offline, the bigger the problem will be.

The full Maryland delegation — including Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) — vowed to work together to seek federal funding to deal with the disaster:

Also, remember that President Joe Biden submitted a domestic supplemental spending request in October and Congress never acted on it. Whatever the Biden administration submits to Congress this time around may include some of these priorities.

This could include the Affordable Connectivity Program. The ACP, which provides discounted wireless internet for low-income families and households, is winding down as funding runs out. There’s a hunger on Capitol Hill to renew the program, but there hasn’t been a vehicle on which it could ride. The House Problem Solvers Caucus backed a bill which extended the ACP in a statement Thursday. So this has some legs.

In short, this is going to become a must-pass bill and everyone’s going to want to get their pet projects in it. You may see Republicans demanding something on energy or border security in this package.

— Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

WASHINGTON X THE WORLD

Ukraine-skeptical Republicans are about to get an earful about ‘REPO’

Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team know they may need to get creative in order to have any hope of getting a Ukraine aid package to President Joe Biden’s desk — and possibly saving Johnson’s job.

With House Republicans largely opposing new aid for Kyiv — especially if new border-security provisions don’t ride alongside it — GOP leaders have been searching for ways to sell an aid package to the Ukraine skeptics in their party. At the very least, party leaders want to minimize the blowback they’ll inevitably face from hardline conservatives.

A centerpiece of that effort is likely to be the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act — or REPO, for short.

The legislation cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee nearly unanimously in January, and it’s a key component of Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s (R-Pa.) bipartisan, slimmed-down foreign aid and border security package.

But what does it actually do?

The bill gives Biden the authority to confiscate frozen Russian assets and use them to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts. All previous U.S. aid packages for Ukraine have included economic and humanitarian assistance for Kyiv, in addition to the military portion. So in theory, the REPO Act would lessen the financial burden on U.S. taxpayers.

“We believe that it would probably get us some more votes [in the House],” Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), who co-authored the REPO Act with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), told us.

Seizing a nation’s central bank assets in this manner would be unprecedented. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the only “no” vote in the Foreign Relations Committee, said it would be an act of “economic war” against Russia. Other opponents worry about setting a precedent of violating sovereign immunity, and that it could prompt a tit-for-tat with Moscow.

So it wasn’t easy to get the Biden administration — and even European nations — on board with this plan when Risch and Whitehouse first unveiled it. But the Biden administration now supports it, as do many European governments, which have also moved to freeze Russian assets. The overwhelming majority of those Russian assets are held in Europe, in fact.

All told, a multinational effort on this could yield tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine, which has suffered incalculable damages at the hands of the Russian military. Lawmakers believe the United States should take the lead here, prompting other countries to follow suit.

“The thing just makes sense,” Risch added. “Regardless of how you feel about Ukraine, it’s hard to argue against this bill. It really is.”

Trump’s “loan” idea: House Republicans are also talking about a plan floated by former President Donald Trump — structuring U.S. aid to Kyiv as a forgivable loan with favorable terms and no set date for repayment.

The initial 2022 U.S. aid program for Ukraine included a “Lend-Lease” portion similar to what the United States did for England and other allies in World War II. This program expired last year.

This new plan, however, is more of a gimmick intended to help Republicans message the issue to their base. First, the vast majority of any new aid package would be spent in the United States anyway. Second, calling it a “loan” doesn’t really change anything about how the money is disbursed.

Not all Republicans are on board with this idea, however. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been publicly urging Johnson to bring up the Senate-passed foreign aid package, has categorically dismissed the proposal. Each time he’s been asked about it, McConnell has noted that the best and quickest way to deliver badly needed aid to Ukraine is for Johnson to put the Senate bill on the floor for a vote.

Democrats and pro-Ukraine Republicans tell us they’re comfortable with whatever formula Johnson comes up with to get the requisite votes — as long as it doesn’t include poison pills. But if Johnson can’t pass his own plan, it’s safe to expect that McConnell and others will double down on their calls for the House to pass the Senate package.

— Andrew Desiderio

AI IMPACT

How AI is changing the government’s approach to cybersecurity

ICYMI: The proliferation of artificial intelligence has the U.S. government concerned about its implications for cybersecurity and national defense.

Earlier this week, we released the first segment in our series, The AI Impact, which dives into how technology is revolutionizing the way the government, private industry and nonprofits conduct business. We explore how federal policymakers and Congress are approaching a regulatory framework that balances the risks associated with AI while supporting innovation.

With new segments delivered every other week over the next two months, we’ll dig further into the impact of AI across other sectors with insightful interviews and previews of what’s in the pipeline for AI policy down the line. Read more about AI and cybersecurity here. Don’t forget to listen to the accompanying podcast.

The AI Impact series is presented by Google.

THE SENATE

Mayorkas impeachment articles (finally) coming to Senate

Speaker Mike Johnson will formally send the impeachment articles against Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on April 10, nearly two months after House Republicans voted to impeach the Homeland Security secretary.

The long-delayed move, outlined by Johnson in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday, will kick off a trial process that could very well wrap up within a day or two if Democrats have their way.

Democratic senators are likely to offer a motion to dismiss the trial at the outset, and some Republicans have expressed interest in such a move. This would only require a simple majority, so Democrats can bypass the trial entirely if they stick together.

In his letter to Schumer, Johnson called on the New York Democrat to allow a full-fledged impeachment trial for Mayorkas, which could take weeks. Schumer hasn’t publicly said how he’d handle a motion to dismiss the trial, even as he has slammed the impeachment effort as a “sham” and an “embarrassment” intended to “appease” former President Donald Trump.

Here’s what Johnson told Schumer:

Schumer’s office responded by reiterating that once the House managers present the articles, senators will be sworn in as jurors the following day. At that point, senators can offer motions. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the president pro tempore of the Senate, will oversee the proceedings.

Senate conservatives have called on GOP leaders to work to ensure that a full trial can occur. With a Senate Republican leadership scramble taking place right now, this could impact the response inside the GOP Conference.

Of course, if all 51 Democrats vote to dismiss the trial, it won’t matter what Republicans do. And as you’ll likely recall, plenty of GOP senators have cast doubt on the House’s rationale for impeaching Mayorkas.

House Republicans delayed the formal transmission of the impeachment articles as Congress was barreling from one government funding deadline to another. With federal agencies now funded through September, the impeachment trial process is now slated to begin just two days after senators return to Washington from the two-week recess.

— Andrew Desiderio

THE CAMPAIGN

News: Future Forum PAC, a group dedicated to electing young Democrats, is endorsing Jessica Morse, Will Rollins, Tony Vargas and Michelle Vallejo in four red-to-blue House seats. Morse is challenging Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), Rollins is running against Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Vargas is looking to unseat Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Vallejo is in a rematch against Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas).

Also: Just six years ago, Patrick Morrissey ran in a primary against former Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) and Don Blankenship for the right to take on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Morrissey’s opponents pummeled him for his past work as a lobbyist. Well, fast-forward to now and Morrissey is running for governor against a large field. And Chris Miller, the son of Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.), is hitting Morrissey again for being a lobbyist! This ad is running statewide.

— Max Cohen and Jake Sherman

MOMENTS

CLIPS