Senate blocks Mexican trucks trial program

Only the other day we wrote about how Luis González became the first Mexican trucker to cross the U.S.-Mexico border under a controversial Department of Transportation (DOT) program aimed at satisfying one of the last outstanding components of NAFTA. Wouldn’t you know it, a day after we published the story — but surely not becasue we published it — the Senate voted overwhelmingly to block this very DOT program, in the process dealing a serious setback to the Bush administration. On a 74-24 vote, the Senate approved an amendment by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), which would bar the use of federal funds to operate a one-year trucking pilot program that allows certain Mexican trucks beyond a narrow, twenty-five-mile-wide border commercial zone. The House adopted a similar amendment in July — placing both houses of Congress on record against the trucking program. Note that with the defunding effort attached to a spending bill that remains a few steps away from reaching Bush’s desk — a bill, moreover, which faces a veto threat — it was unclear whether the administration would immediately halt the cross-border trucking program.

The Houston Chronicle’s Michelle Mittelstand writes that the head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which is administering the pilot project, criticized the vote, but did not say whether the program would end immediately. “Tonight’s decision by the Senate is a sad victory for the politics of fear and protectionism and a disappointing defeat for U.S. consumers and U.S. truck drivers,” said FMCSA aministrator John Hill. “This decision robs consumers of significant new savings, deprives drivers of new opportunities to compete in Mexico and squanders millions in taxpayer dollars Congress has spent to put in place a sophisticated safety network for border crossings,” he said.

Only one Mexican carrier so far has been granted a permit to operate two trucks in the United States. Under the pilot program, a maximum of 100 Mexican carriers could receive permits, with U.S. officials predicting no more than 500 to 600 Mexican trucks would operate during the life of the program. Tuesday’s congressional skirmish, during consideration of a $104.6 billion transportation and housing spending bill, was the latest fight over a cross-border trucking provision ratified as part of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The three NAFTA partners — the United States, Canada, and Mexico —agreed to open their highways to each country’s