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 Business News | December 2007 
Cross-Border Truck Program Hits a Pothole
 Paul M. Krawzak - Copley News Service
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| | Driver Arturo Cortez, an employee of Transportes Rafa de Baja California, prepared to check the oil in one of the company's trucks in Mexicali. (K.C. Alfred/Union-Tribune) |
Washington – The Mexican government is considering blocking U.S. exports, such as pork and rice, should Congress cut off funding for a cross-border trucking program, as is expected to happen within days.
Even if Congress ends funding for the contentious program through the catch-all spending bill that is under consideration, there is a growing expectation that the Bush administration will find a way to continue it in what some say would be an act of defiance and others say would be compliance with the law.
“We anticipate that they'll find a way to keep it going,” said Leslie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters union, which opposes the program. “We know that they will do whatever they can to keep this program going.”
U.S. transportation officials declined to say how they would respond to a cutoff of congressional funds.
“We're going to wait and see what happens and evaluate our next steps,” said Melissa Mazzella DeLaney, a spokeswoman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The threat of trade sanctions adds a new twist to the debate over whether the one-year pilot program should continue.
“We learned that the Mexican government has recently been undertaking an exercise to estimate the impact of retaliating against the U.S. if this pilot program is halted,” said Janet Kavinoky, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbyist who focuses on transportation legislation.
Kavinoky said she has been told that if the program is ended, “Mexico will retaliate by not allowing exports of U.S. pork, rice and possibly other products – because we're violating NAFTA.”
The chamber supports opening the U.S. border to Mexican trucks, an action it says would benefit the economies of both countries.
Mexico has had the right to impose trade sanctions over the failure to open the border to commercial traffic since 2001, when a NAFTA arbitration panel ruled against the United States in the dispute.
The administration began the program in September to test the safety of Mexican trucks in the United States. The program allows up to 100 Mexican carriers to send trucks throughout the country. An equal number of American trucks are being allowed to cross into Mexico for the first time.
If the program is successful, it would likely lead to a fuller opening of the border to commercial traffic, as required under NAFTA.
Opponents contend that Mexican trucks are not being held to the same standards as American drivers, creating a danger on highways. They have persuaded large majorities in the House and Senate to vote to shut down the program.
U.S. transportation officials insist that Mexican drivers are being held to the same standards through pre-authorization safety checks and monitoring.
Congress is expected to cut off funding for the program within days through a provision in an omnibus spending bill approved by the House and under consideration last night in the Senate.
Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy, declined to say what action Mexico would take if Congress ends the program.
“Mexico will wait until the bill is enacted and then we will have to review the text and its implications,” he said in a statement. “We are leaving all options on the table.”
Many have assumed the congressional directive would end funding to the program, but a former U.S. transportation official disputes this.
Brigham McCown, a former general counsel for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said the agency might be able to ignore the bill's provision.
The directive would cut off funds to “establish” a program, but it does not specifically rule out funding an ongoing program, said McCown, a lawyer at the Winstead PC law firm in Dallas.
“My sense is that language is not preventing (the Department of Transportation) from continuing to operate that which is already in existence,” he said.
DeLaney declined to discuss the administration's view of the language in the directive.
“I don't think we have a position on this at this time,” she said. |
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