A VICTORY! US Senate Pulls Plug on Open Borders for Mexican Trucks!
Posted on Wednesday, September 12 @ 03:36:26 EDT
Topic: NAFTA CAFTA FTAA
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 ALIPAC Note: Thank you to the many ALIPAC activists on our e-mail alerts list and in our Discussion Groups that did the hard work to help block these trucks! Our activism works!
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Senate votes to kill Mexican truck demo
Bush 'Open Borders' agenda dealt serious bipartisan blow
September 11, 2007
By Jerome R. Corsi
(Author of Late Great United States)
WorldNetDaily.com
The U.S. Senate has dealt a likely death blow to the Bush
administration plans to give Mexican long-haul trucking rigs free
access to United States roads and highways.
A bipartisan majority voted 74-24 tonight to pass an amendment
offered by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to remove funding from the Fiscal
Year 2008 Department of Transportation appropriations bill for the
Department of Transportation Mexican trucking demonstration project.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., joined Dorgan as a co-sponsor of his amendment.
"Tonight, commerce – for a change – did not trump safety," Dorgan said in a news release issued after the vote.
Topics: illegal immigration, drugs, trucks, gangs, safety, NAFTA, FTAA, CAFTA, Open Borders Lobby, President, George Bush, victory for Immigration Enforcement side, activism, Americans fighting back, Senate, Democrats, Republicans
"Tonight's vote is a vote for safety," Dorgan said. "It also represents
a turning of the tide on the senseless, headlong rush this country has
been engaged in for some time, to dismantle safety standards and a
quality of life it took generations to achieve."
Teamster General President Jim Hoffa praised the Senate for
"slamming the door on the Bush administration's illegal, reckless plan
to open our borders to trucks from Mexico."
"The American people have spoken, and Congress has spoken," Hoffa
said. "Now it's time for the Bush administration to listen. We don't
want to share our highways with dangerous trucks from Mexico."
A counter amendment offered by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was
submitted in an effort to keep the Mexican truck demonstration project
alive, even if on life support.
Cornyn had proposed to allow the demonstration project to go
forward, while reserving the right of the Senate to pull the plug if
safety problems developed in the initial phases of the program
roll-out.
Cornyn's proposal was killed by a strong bipartisan 80-18 vote to table his amendment.
Repeatedly, in arguing from the floor of the Senate for his
amendment, Cornyn mischaracterized NAFTA as having created a "treaty
obligation" requiring the United States to allow Mexican trucks free
access to U.S. roads.
Dorgan objected, pointing out that NAFTA was passed in 1993 as a law, not a treaty.
The vote, taken on the evening of the sixth anniversary of the 9/11
attacks, represented a strong sentiment in the Senate that the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the DOT inspector
general had failed to make the case in their eleventh hour reports
submitted to Congress late last Thursday that adequate inspection
procedures were in place to insure that Mexican trucks would meet U.S.
safety standards.
Dorgan argued on the floor of the U.S. Senate that Mexico had no
national database which would permit the FMCSA or the DOT inspector
general to verify accident reports or driver violations of Mexican
drivers or the reliability of vehicle inspections conducted in Mexico.
Speaking in favor of Dorgan's amendment, Sen. Sherrod Brown,
D-Ohio, said the issue really was "free trade" agreements advanced by
the Bush administration that advantaged only the multi-national
corporations.
Brown compared the safety concerns of allowing Mexican trucks to
enter freely into the United States with the safety risks raised by
lead paint use by the Chinese on imported toys and Chinese pet and
human food that contained poisonous or otherwise toxic elements.
"We need to vote for our children, for our families, for our pets,
and for ourselves," Brown charged, urging in an emotional plea that the
Senate pass Dorgan's amendment.
In May, the House of Representatives passed the Safe American Roads
Act of 2007 (H.R. 1773), by an overwhelming, bipartisan 411-3 margin.
The majority in the House opposing the DOT Mexican trucking
demonstration project makes almost certain that the Dorgan amendment
will survive when a conference committee reviews the DOT funding bill
that will go to President Bush for his signature.
The Senate is now considered likely to finalize the DOT funding bill today, with the Dorgan amendment included.
"Because my amendment is identical to language already included in
the House-passed version of this bill," Dorgan said in the press
release issued after the vote, "I expect this provision will not be
altered in the House-Senate conference committee and that we have,
effectively, stopped this pilot program."
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| Article Rating | Average Score: 4.86
Votes: 107
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