Mexico Trucker Online

Star-Telegram
To hear Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., tell it, Congress is in a tizzy because the Bush administration has not halted the pilot program that allows some Mexican trucking companies to send their big rigs deep into the United States. Many of those trucks, of course, follow interstate highways into and through Tarrant County.

Dorgan has sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, calling the program under which 11 Mexican companies have been given permits to drive 56 trucks beyond the border “both arrogant and wrong!”

His outrage comes because Congress passed, and President Bush has signed, a transportation funding bill that rules out spending money to “establish” such a program. The administration counters that the current program, which could allow for as many as 500 trucks from 100 Mexican companies into the U.S., was established in September, long before Congress acted. The administration promises not to establish any new programs, but it plans to continue this one.

Of course, the real reason why Dorgan and others in Congress are upset is that the union that represents U.S. truckers is upset. Teamsters see the Mexican trucks as a threat to their livelihood.

It’s not like this is a new fight. It’s been dragging on in one way or another since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement called for cross-border freight hauling. For all these years, the Teamsters have been able to delay implementation of this part of NAFTA.

And it’s not like there were no Mexican trucks on U.S. highways even before the current program was implemented. A few Mexican companies have been allowed to cross the border for some time.

The primary argument is that the Mexican trucks might not be safe, but the pilot program also has included assigning more than 500 inspectors to enforce safety, vehicle and driver standards.

Finally, it must be assumed that members of Congress chose the wording of the transportation funding bill carefully. If they really wanted to forbid spending money on the cross-border program, surely our lawmakers would have blocked operation, not just the establishment, of such a plan.

The Teamsters are fighting the program in court. That’s a good place to resolve this issue.
Read the stupidity of the comments to this excellent article here!

UPDATE

It seems more and more mainstream newspapers are questioning the misinformation being thrown around about this program and beginning to look into it in depth and arriving at the same conclusions we have from the beginning.

The Houston Chronicle is the latest to do so