1st Mexican truck to cross Texas border for U.S. interior Fr
1st Mexican truck to cross Texas border for U.S. interior Friday
By Julie Watson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: 8:13 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011
SAN DIEGO — The first Mexican carrier is set to roll over the border into Texas and head along Interstate 35 toward the U.S. interior within days, but the Teamsters union and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program that had been stalled for years by safety concerns and political wrangling.
U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner joined Teamsters President James Hoffa at the border Wednesday to take a bipartisan stand against the pilot project that will let approved Mexican trucks come deep into the U.S. The first Mexican truck will enter Texas on Friday on a route likely to take it through Austin.
The lawmakers and Hoffa were surrounded by more than 75 union members at a news conference near a major border crossing in San Diego. Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, and Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.
Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them to U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, they said.
"We're literally taking good jobs here in America and passing them over the line to Mexico," Hunter said.
Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after that provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute.
Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic maiden trip.
The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo and head about 450 miles north to Garland to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, transport manager at the firm in the Monterrey suburb of Apodaca.
He dismissed claims that Mexican companies and their drivers don't meet U.S. safety standards. He said his company has a strict drug testing policy for its 61 drivers and it has bought more than a dozen trucks in the past two years. U.S. inspectors will check the trucks today, Perez said.
"It's a really controlled program. There's no way to avoid the law," he said.
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