UPS Inc. has launched an integrated ground shipping and brokerage service for heavy freight shipments between the United States and Mexico
by Mark Soloman - DC Velocity
UPS Inc. said today it has launched an integrated ground shipping and brokerage service for heavy freight shipments between the United States and Mexico that offers faster door-to-door transit times than currently provided by less-than-truckload (LTL) operations.
The bi-directional service, called “UPS CrossBorder Connect,” will utilize the trucking network that supports the Atlanta-based company’s North American airfreight service and will link with selected Mexican carriers along eight U.S. cities on the Mexican border, UPS said. Five of the cities are in Texas, two are in California, and one in Arizona.
UPS said shippers using the service would get their goods to market within three to four days of pickup. Karen Cole, a UPS spokeswoman, said LTL transit times would vary but added the new service will provide a more expedited delivery option for companies operating in the cross-border trade.
“Our research clearly revealed the gaps in service options that exist for today’s customers,” said Steve Flowers, president of UPS Global Freight Forwarding, in a statement. “With this product, we’ve improved visibility and predictability, as well as reliability on one of the largest and most important U.S. trade lanes.”
Until now, heavyweight freight shipping options in the U.S.-Mexico market were limited to costly airfreight deliveries or less expensive but slower LTL movements, UPS said. As a result, shippers had no “middle ground” between the two services, the company added.
Safe, well maintained commercial trucks from Mexicosuch as this one belonging to Transportes Olympic is what OOIDA and other opponents of Mexican trucking are trying to stop, and failing miserably.
OOIDA has filed its final reply brief April 4 in its frivolous DC Circuit Court of Appeals lawsuit to try and stop the Mexico Cross Border Pilot program. FMCSA has also filed it’s reply to OOIDA’s reply. Confused yet? It gets better.
For the record, the case in question is 11-1251. The document is 185 pages of the most convoluted “crap” one would ever want to read and is easily disproven by FMCSA’s reply.
OOIDA’s claims are nothing new from the smoke they’ve been blowing up peoples asses for more than 10 years.
They claim that;
- Elements of the program are precluded and illegal under Federal statutes. These include the ability to grant operating authority to Mexican carriers, acceptance of Mexican Licencia Federal de Conductors and the validity of Mexican medical certificates.
- The claim that OOIDA has granted exemptions and exception to Mexican carriers without following proper procedures.
- They question the level of “safety” achieved citing perceived differences in Mexican licensing standards, drug testing and medical standards, and finally,
- OOIDA is making the ludicrous claim that Mexican carriers will be held to lesser, more lax standards than their US counterparts.
You can download the entire 185 brief by clicking on the box below.
Download OOIDA Reply
FMCSA, in their reply brief, counters all of the bogus arguments made by OOIDA’s attorneys.
The governments brief is available for study by clicking on the box below.
Download FMCSA Reply
In response to OOIDA’s unsubstantiated claims, FMCSA argument is quite transparent and simple to understand. FMCSA positions are;
- OOIDA has not established or met it’s burden to prove standing in the case. In other words, there is no evidence that any OOIDA member has been or will be harmed economically or otherwise by the continuation of this program.
- FMCSA counters OOIDA’s arguments that Mexican carriers will not be required to comply with US regulation by pointing out that not only will they be required to comply, there are additional and unique requirements they must comply with that are not required of US or Canadian carriers and that the programs requirements are consistent with all US regulations.
- At the end of the argument, which is contained in the 74 page brief, that OOIDA’s arguments lack merit, something we’ve argued all along and firmly debunked.
Take a moment to download the briefs and make your own decision. FMCSA’s brief details minutely the history and the law that permits them to establish the pilot program and thoroughly blows out of the water, all the claims you’ve heard from OOIDA over the years trashing Mexico and it’s transportation industry.
If you notice while reading OOIDA’s brief and the accompanying government response, OOIDA’s agenda is crystal clear. Subvert, confuse and cloud the issue for their members and when all else fails, outright lie. OOIDA’s brief constantly whines about how FMCSA does not provide the most minute details for public comment. FMCSA addresses that and also addresses another whine by OOIDA that some documents are not translated into English. FMCSA’s response? Nothing in the statutes requires them to provide translation services to OOIDA.
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Trucker Ronnie Earl Ricks, 61, of Pasadena, TX – 50 years for marijuana smuggling
A Texas trucker caught hauling around 2,400 pounds of pot through Montgomery County (Tx) in July probably will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Judge Fred Edwards, of the 9th state District Court, sentenced Ronnie Earl Ricks, 61, of Pasadena, to 50 years in prison during a sentencing hearing Thursday morning. A Montgomery County jury had convicted Ricks of first-degree felony possession of marijuana.
Ricks’ 18-wheeler was brokedown in the northbound main lanes of U.S. 59 July 6 when a Precinct 4 Constable’s deputy happened upon it. When the deputy questioned Ricks, his story didn’t add up, Precinct 4 Constable Kenneth “Rowdy” Hayden previously said.
Ricks’ log books did not match his story, Hayden said, so deputies searched the trailer. They found 2,400 pounds of marijuana,worth millions of dollars, hidden among produce in the trailer.
The truck was loaded down near the Texas-Mexico border and went through a Border Patrol checkpoint in Saritas Texas.
During the investigation, authorities checked records at the checkpoint, at a motel in the valley that Ricks supposedly stayed at and nothing matched what he said to investigators and prosecutors.
The entire time, Ricks and his family lied and were generally uncooperative with investigators and the Court.
Landeline Now , the in house rag of OOIDA, picked up on this story, presumably to use to to continue their opposition to Mexican trucks in the US. But to the contrary, this continues to prove our position that drugs don’t come across the border in great quantities in trucks, but instead, are crossed by other methods, stored in a stash house on this side of the border until a greedy US trucker such as Ricks, is found to haul them.
Other stories covering this event claim that Ricks was being “used as a drug mule by a Mexican cartel”. Certainly, the drugs were owned by a TCO (Trans-National Criminal Organization), not a cartel, but Ricks certainly wasn’t being “used”. He was in it for the profit, claiming he had three young children to support after the death of his wife. Still no excuse.
The sentence while stiff, is just, even though Canadian trucker Gaston Danjou received a sentence last week in Las Vegas Nevada of six years in prison for his role in an operation that smuggled more than $1.2 million dollars worth of cocaine through Nevada. Danjou, who will be allowed to serve that sentence in a Canadian prison, will be eligible for parole in 17 months, counting time already spent in custody.
From THE TRUCKER- Essentially saying they have “no dog in the hunt,” the Department of Transportation and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Wednesday responded to lawsuits by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and the International Brotherhood of Teamster challenging the legality of the cross-border trucking pilot program.
“OOIDA’s members are not regulated by the program, or eligible to participate in it, and therefore its standing cannot be presumed,” the DOT and FMCSA said in their response. “OOIDA’s allegation of an increased risk of injury to its member is not sufficient … absent a showing that some identifiable member of the group faces a ‘substantially’ increased risk of harm and that the overall risk of such harm is ‘substantial.’”
The response said that OOIDA’s competitive standing arguments are also flawed.
“OOIDA cannot show that the program will almost surely cause its members to lose business, because the vast majority of the cross-border deliveries are likely to be made in the commercial zones by carriers already authorized to operate there and because Mexico-domiciled carriers are prohibited from making point-to-point deliveries of domestic freight.”
The pilot program creates a double standard, OOIDA said.
“The obligation of the U.S. under NAFTA to provide national treatment to Mexico-domiciled motor carriers is in complete harmony with U.S. statutes and regulations governing motor carrier safety,” OOIDA said in its suit.
“The respondent’s (DOT and FMCSA) pilot program goes well beyond what is required to provide national treatment to Mexico-domiciled motor carriers and drivers. The pilot program violates a number of federal statutes and regulations, causing prejudice to U.S. motor carriers and drivers who must follow all U.S. safety regulations while their Mexican counterparts are instead allowed to comply with selected Mexican regulations.
There is not a single word in FMCSA’s proposal or final order explaining why this double standard has been created.”
In filing its suit against the program, the Teamsters said the FMCSA had failed to comply with safety statutes and regulations that expressly govern the granting of any long-haul operating authority to Mexico-domiciled trucking companies and ensure the safe operation of trucks on the nation’s highways.
The Teamsters said that FMCSA had created a program that was not assured of having a sufficient or representative sample of Mexico-domiciled motor carriers to yield valid findings and merely presumes — but cannot demonstrate — that Mexico-domiciled trucks are as safe as their U.S. counterparts.
The DOT and FMCSA response noted that Teamster members were not regulated by the program or eligible to participate in it.
Their response also said that “Congress has enacted multiple statutes containing preconditions for any test of opening the border to long-haul operations by Mexico-domiciled carriers.
“FMCSA has explained how the pilot program challenges here meet each of those preconditions as well as the existing motor carrier safety laws and regulations,” the agency said.
Mexican trucks such as these two are the targeted obsession of Teamsters, OOIDA and their allies whose lawsuit against allowing them legally required access has now been consolidated by the DC Court of Appeals
The two separate and frivolous lawsuits filed last year by the Teamsters, Public Citizen, Sierra Club and Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) have now been consolidated into one lawsuit on orders from a Judge with the D.C. Court of Appeals.
The case numbers for the two actions are 11-1444 for the Teamsters and 11-1251 for OOIDA.
Attorney’s for all plaintiffs will now be required to make their oral arguments before the Court in the same courtroom on the same day.
Back in July of 2011, OOIDA filed their frivolous action against the Cross Border Pilot Program with Mexico asking the court to “enjoin, set-aside, suspend (in whole or in part) or determine the validity of the implementation of (DOT’s cross-border program).” In September of 2011, the Court refused their request for the injunction sought to stop the program, but did agree to put it on the fast track.
Later in September of last year, the Teamsters, along with the shady advocacy group Public Citizen and the tree huggers from Sierra Club filed their own and very similar lawsuit to stop the program with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. That action, with all parties agreeing, was kicked over to the DC Circuit later in 2011, denying Hoffa and his cronies their foray into “judge shopping”.
Both lawsuits are “frivolous and without merit” as they closely parallel a cases filed by the same groups in 2002.
Those lawsuits voiced the same environmental concerns as are being pressed in the 2011 filings. The trial court in 2002 sided with FMCSA saying
that although the FMCSA pilot program would result in more trucks, FMCSA did not have control over those trucks and therefore did not have to account for them in an EIS. Public Citizen went shopping and appealed to the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, reversing the trial court. The Appellate Court found that the EA was deficient because it failed to give adequate consideration to the overall environmental impact from the Mexican trucks. Of course, FMCSA appealed, all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
The case was argued before the Supreme Court on April 21, 2004 with a unanimous verdict being rendered on June 7, 2004.
The US Supreme Court held that the FMCSA had no control of the trucks once the regulations governing the pilot program were passed, and would therefore be unable to act on the findings of an EIS even if it did conduct one.
FMCSA has no statutory authority to impose or enforce emissions controls or to establish environmental requirements unrelated to motor carrier safety.
The Court also found that the passage of the regulations was not sufficiently responsible for the increased pollution caused by the trucks to warrant an EIS.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the Courts most conservative Judge wrote the opinion which you can read here.
Merging these two lawsuits will make it easier and quicker for the sitting judges to toss them as a whole when they are argued before the Court. This will clear the way for more Mexican carriers to apply to the program without having to worry about it being a waste of time and money for them to do so.
The long anticipated release of the revised hours of service regulations were finally released by FMCSA yesterday, and at first read, they are not as bad as anticipated.
The 11 hour driving time has been retained, despite heavy pressure from the Teamsters and various bogus safety groups to reduce it to 10 hours or less per day.
The 34 hour restart provision is also retained but with added restrictions. Under the new rules, the 34 hour restart provision can be used only once in a 7 day (168 hour) period and must contain two periods of rest between 0100-0500 in the morning. While less restrictive than the proposed period of 00:00 to 0600, drivers will still need to be aware when they begin the restart period so as not to be forced by the new provision into taking more than 34 hours. This provision in theory, reduces the drivers on duty time from 82 hours to a true 70 hours in 8 days.
FMCSA has also mandated that a driver can operate no more than 8 hours without taking a 30 minute rest break, something most would consider a ridiculous requirement since most drivers stop throughout the day for short periods.
The definition of “on duty time”
And finally, companies and drivers that commit egregious violations of the rule could face the maximum penalties for each offense. Trucking companies that allow drivers to exceed the 11-hour driving limit by 3 or more hours could be fined $11,000 per offense, and the drivers themselves could face civil penalties of up to $2,750 for each offense.
“This final rule is the culmination of the most extensive and transparent public outreach effort in our agency’s history,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro. “With robust input from all areas of the trucking community, coupled with the latest scientific research, we carefully crafted a rule acknowledging that when truckers are rested, alert and focused on safety, it makes our roadways safer.”
Ferro’s comment is a total joke in our opinion. Leaving the rules the way they were, and not caving in to the demands of bogus “safety groups” such as Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT), Public Citizen and Advocates for Highway Safety, especially when the trucking industry has seen some of the safest years in decades, would have accomplished the same goal.
BOTH SIDES QUICK TO YELL FOUL
From the ATA to the aforemention bogus safety groups and the Teamsters, everyone is objecting to the new rules.
Henry Jasny, vice president of Washington- based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety said in an interview;
“This is a breach of promise of making safety the No. 1 goal of the agency and the Transportation Department,It’s more than disappointing. Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety will continue to pursue a 10-hour rule, and may take the issue to court”
Daphne Izer, a co-founder of Parents Against Tired Truckers chimed in;
“I don’t know what it is going to take for the government to get real about protecting us on our roads.”
Izer’s son Jeff and three other teenagers were killed in a 1993 crash with a big rig and since that time, she and others have devoted their lives to exacting revenge against the entire trucking industry for the actions of one driver.
The American Trucking Association issued a statement today in which ATA Chairman Bill Graves stated,
“Today’s announcement of a new rule on the hours-of-service is completely unsurprising. What is surprising and new to us is that for the first time in the agency’s history, FMCSA has chosen to eschew a stream of positive safety data and cave in to a vocal anti-truck minority and issue a rule that will have no positive impact on safety. From the beginning of this process in October 2009, the agency set itself on a course to fix a rule that’s not only not broken, but by all objective accounts is working to improve highway safety. Unfortunately, along the way, FMCSA twisted data and, as part of this final rule, is using unjustified causal estimates to justify unnecessary changes.”
Bill Graves hit the nail on the head. ATA Chairman Dan England, chairman of C.R. England, Salt Lake City Utah followed Graves statement by saying;
“Even with an uptick in truck-involved fatalities in 2010, since the current rules went into effect in 2004, fatalities have fallen 29.9%, even as overall miles traveled for trucks has risen by tens of billions of miles. No one can dispute these facts”
OOIDA Executive Vice President stated;
“Collectively, the changes in this rule will have a dramatic effect on the lives and livelihoods of small-business truckers. The changes are unnecessary and unwelcome and will result in no significant safety gains.
OOIDA has long held that to meaningfully improve highway safety, proposed changes would need to include all aspects of a truckers’ workday that affect their ability to drive safely. This includes loading and unloading times, split sleeper berth for team operations, and the ability to interrupt the 14-hour day for needed rest periods.
Compliance with any regulation is already a challenge because everyone else in the supply chain is free to waste the driver’s time loading or unloading with no accountability.
The hours-of-service regulations should instead be more flexible to allow drivers to sleep when tired and to work when rested and not penalize them for doing so. It’s the only way to reach significant gains in highway safety and reduce non-compliance.”
For once, we totally agree with Spencer’s assessment of the situation.
Teamsters President James P. Hoffa alluded to filing legal action against the rule stating;
“We said all along that an hours of service rule has to protect highway safety and our truck drivers’ health. We are reviewing the new rule, and in the coming weeks we will meet and discuss it with our allies and, if necessary, determine our next course of action.”
The new rules, if not enjoined, will go into effect on July 1, 2013.
The U.S. Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center has released its National Drug Threat Assessment 2011 and to the consternation of many who have made the claim that Mexican trucks are the main conveyances with which drugs enter the US, pretty much debunks this idea.
And as usual, we can count on Charlie Morasch, a Landlinemag.com staff hack, to spin the report in a direction that evidence doesn’t indicate.
Morasch uses quotes from a FBI special agent, Kevin Donovan to get his points across, yet one of the remarks attributed to this agent totally blows one of OOIDA and the TEAMSTER positions against Mexican trucking clean out of the water.
In that regard, of Mexican trucking firms being owned by cartels for the express purpose of moving contraband, Donovan is quoted as saying;
In some instances, drug organizations purchase trucks and establish their own motor carrier for the purpose of controlling the transportation leg of their operation.
“It does offer them the opportunity to have more control over the individuals that are transporting the loads. But oftentimes the individuals transporting the loads won’t even necessarily know they’re carrying narcotics because it’s secreted in a legitimate load. That way the driver doesn’t even appear to be nervous because they don’t even know the drugs are there.
Establishing a motor carrier, however, isn’t widely used for reasons every trucking business is aware of: Truck ownership, maintenance and state and federal licensing upkeep are costly.
“From a business perspective, it is an expensive route to take.”
“And the bottom line is,” he said, “it’s a business.”
And it’s certain these trucks would never stand up to the scrutiny that would allow them to operate throughout the US.
Donovan stopped short of saying trucks were the most widely used method for illegal drug transport into the US, something OOIDA, Teamsters and others opposed to Mexican trucks continue to maintain.
So, how do these trans national criminal organizations (TCO’s) move their product? According to the report, they generally smuggle smaller loads of cocaine,heroin, and methamphetamine in noncommercial vehicles (cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks), most likely to blend in with cross-border traffic. Some of the larger loads come across in non commercial and commercial vehicles but likely as not, they’re caught at the border.
Interestingly enough, The number of illicit drug seizures involving noncommercial conveyances at the Southwest Border greatly exceeds the number of seizures involving commercial conveyances.
Analysis of NSS seizure data reveals that only 578 of the 34,274 seizure incidents at and between Southwest Border POEs between 2005 and 2010j involved commercial vehicles. These seizures accounted for less
than 10 percent of the total quantity of illicit drugs seized.
More than 99 percent of illicit drug seizures made between POEs in Arizona and New Mexico involve marijuana; more than 91 percent of the marijuana seized in these incidentsis seized from smugglers on foot.
At the interior POE’s in Texas, Signs indicate that more than 900 US CDL holders have had their licenses revoked under the Texas Hold Em’ Initiative. This is further proof of what the DOJ reports as to the method that drugs make their way into the country. Not by Mexican trucks but by non descript personal vehicles and on the backs of humans.
Josue Cruz, a driver for Transportes Olympic inaugurated the new Mexico Cross Border Pilot Program when he arrived in Laredo today on his first trip to Garland Texas
An editorial caught me eye this morning, on this day that the first Mexican carrier to be granted authority to operate beyond the commercial zone enters the U.S. It reads in part;
When a nation signs and ratifies a treaty with another, it is in effect a contract between those countries.
And when one country later simply decides it does not like the terms of the treaty and unilaterally decides to stop abiding by those terms —- well, that nation isn’t behaving very honorably, is it?
The roadblocks being thrown up by groups like OOIDA and the Teamsters that have prevented the United States from honoring their contract is nothing short of dishonorable.
Today changes that as a truck belonging to Transportes Olympics of Apodaca Nuevo Leon and driven by Joshua Cruz, 29 and a father of three from the Monterrey area. Cruz, who has been driving for Transportes Olympic since March has more than 10 years experience behind the wheel.
[pullquote]“I consider my fleet’s access to the U.S. interior like being invited to a friend’s house. ”We have to be extra orderly and very respectful. We will demonstrate that we can operate safely and efficiently.” Fernando Paez Trevino [/pullquote]
Cruz, driving a 2009 Freightliner Cascadia, unit number 76 will be pulling flatbed with a 30 foot drilling tower to Garland Texas for a 0700 delivery appointment on Saturday with Atlas Copco Drilling Solutions, which specializes in the manufacturing and marketing of equipment used in drilling and exploration industries such as oil, water, mining, among others. The tower originated from INMAGUSA in Monclova Coahuilla and arrived on Transportes Olympics Apodaca terminal yesterday.
After leaving Apodaca this morning, Cruz arrived at Bridge #3 in Laredo to plenty of fanfare and celebration. Greeting Cruz as he began the inspection process that all of the participants must undergo each time they cross the border, was the Secretaries of Economy and Transport and Communications, Bruno Ferrari and Dionisio Perez-Jacome, respectively, the U.S. ambassador in Mexico, Anthony Wayne, and the governor of Tamaulipas, Egidio Torre Cantú.
“With this program, we’re initiating a new stage of competition, of prosperity, of regional integration,” said Bruno Ferrari, Mexican secretary of the economy.
U.S. Ambassador Anthony Wayne said governments “have to support the businesses in their efforts to reduce costs and accelerate trade.”
Following the Level I CVSA inspection by personnel from the FMCSA and Texas DPS, something not required of the Canadians when they enter the country, Cruz will proceed up I-35 to his destination in Garland Texas.
Hours before today’s ceremony in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico announced it was suspending the tariffs. But the Mexican government warned that they would be reinstated if the U.S. does not honor the accord.
Transportes Olympic, a wholly owned Mexican company established in 1999 was also the first carrier authorized to cross during the successful 2007 demonstration project, which was defunded by Congress under threats from the Teamsters and others.
Transportes Olympics successful participation in the previous program gives them a “fast track” to permanent operating authority under the rules of the current program, something they have certainly earned and deserve.
So now we sit back and observe as this program commences and once again the Mexican carriers who are approved show once again that they are more than capable of operating in this country, complying with our rules and regulations and conducting themselves in a safe and professional manner as they have in the past.
Juan Carlos Munoz, president of Mexico’s largest trucking trade group, known by its Spanish initials as CANACAR, noted that opposition remains in Mexico. Some Mexican trucking companies doubt that the U.S. will treat them the same as American drivers.
“But we can’t cry before they hit us, as we say here in Mexico,” Munoz said. He called Friday’s activity the “first step on a long climb.
We’ll also sit back and chuckle a little at each impotent attempt to demonize the program and it’s participants as is continuing by the Teamsters and OOIDA and their allies in Congress.
And indeed it is impotent attempts as acknowledged by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) who acknowledged yesterday that he was losing the fight to stop this legal obligation of ours. DeFazio has had no success in getting his HB-2407 bill out of committee that would limit this to a pilot program. He acknowledges that he has little chance of getting an amendment into a continuing appropriations bill. Indeed, 9 out of 10 calls to Congress have been in support of the program.
And should by some strange twist of fate, the opponents succeed in once again delaying, defunding or causing the program to be suspended or scrapped, Mexico stands ready to bring the tariffs back with a vengeance, as they have every right to do.
Get used to it people! These well managed, closely monitored Mexican carriers are here to stay. Instead of beating your heads against the wall, making empty threats against the drivers, perhaps we should be looking at ways to profits from their presence. After all, Mexican trucks are nothing new to American roadways. They’ve been allowed for more than 60 years. You haven’t realized this because the Mexicans rarely do anything that brings attention to them. In other words, they operate in a safe professional manner under the same rules as US drivers and the 37,000 Canadian trucks that enjoy full access to the US with little oversight.
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