The bill would force Dalí’s owners to pay up to $854 million for the Key Bridge collapse.

The container ship Dali was pulled into the main channel after leaving the Seagirt Marine Terminal en route to Norfolk Monday morning, 90 days after the ship struck a support pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing a catastrophic collapse. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/TNS)

BALTIMORE (Tribune News Service) — A new bill in Congress would change an 1851 shipping law to force the owners of the Dali to pay up.

U.S. Congressmen John Garamendi, a Democrat from California, and Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, introduced the Justice for Victims of Foreign Shipping Accidents Act on Tuesday.

The bill would retroactively increase liability rates for damages caused by foreign vessels starting March 25, the day before the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, according to a news release from Garamendi’s office. The full text of the bill was not yet available Wednesday evening.

In the days after the bridge collapse, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., a Singapore-based owner of the cargo ship, invoked the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, a maritime law that allows shipping companies to seek to limit their liability to the value of a ship’s wreckage after a mishap, asking a federal court in Maryland to cap the damages it would pay at $43 million, based on the ship’s $90 million valuation. The law was enacted to protect the nascent U.S. shipping industry from claims for events such as piracy or storms that owners could not control because the shipowners were liable for the value of the ship and its freight bill.

The bill would force the company to pay $854 million in damages, according to the release, as it proposes increasing the liability rate to ten times the value of the vessel and its cargo, less costs, recognizing that foreign vessels are not subject to the same state and Coast Guard inspections.

“If the foreign owners of the cargo ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore think they can leave American taxpayers with a hard time, I have news for them: You destroyed it, so you bought it,” Garamendi said in a statement.

Grace Ocean Private Ltd. lobbied on Capitol Hill. The ship’s owners hired Blank Rome Government Relations on May 2, according to lobbying records.

Five Blank Rome employees will “monitor and report on legislation related to the Baltimore Harbor Bridge Accident” and also lobby on “proposed changes to the Liability Limitation Act of 1851,” according to the fact sheet. Lobbyists include a former general counsel to the U.S. Maritime Administration, a staff director for the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, and a congressional aide.

Garamendi is a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where the bill was referred with the House Judiciary Committee. He also served two terms as California’s insurance commissioner.

The federal government has pledged to cover the full cost of cleaning up the bridge, but has said it will later try to recover those costs from all responsible parties. Baltimore City and Baltimore County have hired attorneys to sue Grace Ocean and Synergy for their alleged roles in the bridge collapse. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office also said it is hiring additional attorneys to help with the legal proceedings.

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