Mexico Trucker Online

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The former top lawyer from the federal agency responsible for trucking safety says the recent backlash against a pilot program that will allow trucks from Mexico to gain greater access to highways in the United States is unwarranted. On Thursday the Bush administration brought its case to a federal appeals court, arguing that to do otherwise could strain diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Attorney Brigham McCown is the former general counsel for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration who helped negotiate and design the new program while serving as a senior Bush Administration official at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C.

The FMCSA program will allow up to 100 registered truck carriers from Mexico to travel beyond the current restricted U.S. border zone. The Teamsters Union has asked a federal appeals court to keep the program from going forward.

“The last-minute attempts to block the program are just the desperate efforts of a few people who want to protect their own turf,” McCown says. “We’ve been over this for two decades. What they fail to tell you is that trucks from Mexico that were grandfathered before a moratorium in the 1980s travel down our roads — without incident — every day, and have done so for years.“

Government lawyers said that the trucks enrolled in the program meet U.S. regulations and that the program is a necessary part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler said, “Participating Mexican carriers must comply with all legal requirements governing operations of domestically owned carriers, and in some cases stricter requirements.”

The court documents Bush Administration lawyers said some 4.5 million of those short trips across the U.S.-Mexico border are made each year.

“With respect to those operations, Mexican carriers are maintaining a regulatory compliance record that meets or exceeds that of United States carriers,” the government said in its filing.

In its papers, the government also said “the critical bilateral relationship between the United States and Mexico would be placed under considerable strain by further delay in the demonstration project, which is an important interim step toward fulfilling U.S. obligations under NAFTA.”

McCown concluded, “What these people are saying is that 10 million professional drivers and a half million U.S. companies will be overwhelmed by a few hundred trucks from Mexico. More important is the fact that for the first time ever, Mexico must open its markets to U.S. trucks. My money is on the American truckers.”

NAFTA stipulates all roadways in the U.S., Mexico and Canada to be opened to carriers from all the three countries. The disparity lies in the fact that Canadian trucking firms have full access to U.S. roads, while Mexican trucks can travel about 20 miles into the country and then only at certain border crossings, such as San Diego and El Paso.