Portland — A Senate subcommittee has approved a bill that expressly prohibits funding any study looking at the feasibility or cost of imposing a border crossing fee on people entering the United States by land from Canada or Mexico, US Senator Susan Collins said.

The Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday approved the department's fiscal year 2014 funding bill, with language prohibiting the study of a border crossing fee.

Collins, who grew up in northern Maine near the Canadian border, said border community residents routinely go back and forth between countries to work, dine, shop, visit family, or attend church.

"Any fee, no matter how small, would have a negative impact on the day-to-day commerce and travel between border communities," Collins said in a statement. "It would unduly penalize families who have relatives on either side of the border. In addition, it would damage relations between the US and the neighbors that are vital trading partners."

Collins and other members of Congress from northern border states strongly objected last spring when the Department of Homeland Security, in its 2014 budget proposal, asked permission to study the possibility of a fee at land border crossings.

The fiscal bill approved by the subcommittee must now be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, which was scheduled to consider it on Thursday, July 18th.