A Maryland Senate committee advanced legislation on Tuesday to pay Port of Baltimore workers until the docks reopen following last week's collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.The sponsors of the Maryland Protecting Opportunities and Regional Trade (PORT) Act (Senate Bill 1188/House Bill 1526) said the key is to give the governor flexibility to tap the Rainy Day Fund to fund programs that will be established by the Maryland Departments of Labor and Commerce to ease the financial burden on employees and businesses.This is considered emergency legislation, which means it takes effect upon receiving the governor's signature. The bill is moving quickly after the Senate Finance Committee voted unanimously to advance the bill to the Senate floor.Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-District 46, told committee members on Tuesday afternoon that the port is not completely closed, but it is currently operating at a severely reduced capacity.Ferguson, one of the sponsors of the bill, emphasized that thousands of port employees and port-related businesses remain impacted by the closed shipping channel, and he urged colleagues to pass legislation to help the workers and businesses make ends meet. "What we are trying to do with SB 1188 is provide some modicum of protection and relief for the individuals and small businesses in the port industries that rely on every day, the full operation of the Port of Baltimore," Ferguson said.The Senate president said the bill focuses on three specific areas that include paying the wages of port workers, providing subsidies to small businesses to keep and continue to pay their workers and providing incentives to keep businesses from permanently moving their operations to another port."I think the summary here is you don't know how much it's missed until it's gone," Ferguson said. "There are opportunities for us to help defray the cost temporarily with the agreement that when the channel is reopened that they come back to the Port of Baltimore."The governor requested the bill be amended with changes that include establishing a fallen transportation workers scholarship fund for the families of the workers killed on state roads, suspending the unemployment insurance work requirement and increasing the state bonding authority of the Maryland Transportation Authority to rebuild the bridge. The full Senate could take up the legislation as early as Wednesday.