Political reaction to findings is intense

After months of pummeling by critics, Gov. Tim Pawlenty all but declared vindication Tuesday in the long-running debate over the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

Noting that the federal report pointed to a design flaw and not poor maintenance, Pawlenty said his opponents should "quit using the bridge, quit exploiting the bridge tragedy to advance their political agendas."

But, in a sign of the coming brawl when the Legislature reconvenes next month, DFL leaders said that Pawlenty was jumping to conclusions.

"The NTSB investigation is not yet complete," House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher said Tuesday. "It would be helpful if [Pawlenty] would follow his own advice and not add his own speculation on the cause of the 35W bridge collapse."

Pawlenty and DFLers came together briefly after the bridge fell on Aug. 1, cooperating to coordinate state, federal and city salvage and rescue efforts and setting aside the often-bitter partisanship that has marked their relationship.

But the rapprochement did not last, and on Tuesday both sides showed the rawness of emotion that the tragedy has provoked.

Pawlenty said on Tuesday that within hours of the collapse, a "political leader" whom he would not name had called him and threatened retribution and that since then opponents had made repeated and inaccurate "linkages" of the bridge collapse to his earlier vetoes of transportation legislation.

Role of rust disputed

Within hours of the report's release, former Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, demanded that DFLers apologize to Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, who also serves as Minnesota's transportation commissioner.

"It is clear that MNDOT did everything humanly possible to maintain our bridges," Day said. He accused Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Murphy, who has called repeatedly for Molnau's resignation as commissioner, of "prematurely and recklessly blaming her."

But Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, was unrepentant Tuesday, saying that Pawlenty was overreaching and that the report drew no definitive conclusions about the reasons for the collapse.

"If a half-inch gusset plate kept that bridge up for 40 years, why not another 40?" Murphy said. "Could it be because rust ate it away? Because the trips over the bridge went from 25,000 to 140,000? The parameters changed, and MNDOT should have been going back, making sure all the gussets, I-beams and plates could handle 140,000 trips a day."

The NTSB's safety recommendation noted that "although inspections of the bridge identified and tracked some areas of tracking and corrosion, at this point in the investigation there is no indication that any of those areas played a significant role in the collapse of the bridge."

That set off U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., who heads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Oberstar said that such a dismissal of the possible role of rust and corrosion was "inappropriate and uncharacteristic of a board chairman. That [the design flaw] may be the proximate cause, but there are contributing factors in every accident."

Waiting for final report

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said his briefing with NTSB officials Tuesday morning had yielded a very different perception from Pawlenty's.

"The NTSB was very clear with me," said Rybak, a DFLer. "I asked three times, and they said they were not yet making a judgment on maintenance and construction issues. They said this was one factor and they had not ruled out other contributing factors."

The state Senate has hired its own counsel to conduct an investigation into the bridge collapse and expects a preliminary report in March. The final NTSB report is due within six months.