Thread: Senator Moves To Block Mexican Trucks

PREMEDITATED MERGER
Senator moves to block Mexican trucks
Democrat's amendment cuts funding to project opening U.S. highways

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Posted: September 10, 2007
12:46 p.m. Eastern


By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com





Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.
Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan plans to offer an amendment today that would block the controversial federal program allowing Mexican trucks to operate freely on roads across the U.S.

Barry Piatt, spokesman for the North Dakota senator, told WND the amendment to the Fiscal 2008 Department of Transportation appropriations bill essentially will say, "None of the funds made available under this Act may be used to establish or implement a cross-border motor carrier demonstration or pilot project or program to allow Mexico-domiciled motor carriers to operate beyond the commercial zones on the United States-Mexico border."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today the amendment will come up for a vote tomorrow morning.

WND reported last week, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., charged the Bush administration with being "hell-bent on opening our borders, but has failed to require that Mexican drivers and trucks meet the same safety and security standards as U.S. drivers and trucks."


In May, the House of Representatives passed the Safe American Roads Act of 2007 (H.R. 1773), by an overwhelming, bipartisan 411-3 margin.

WND also reported a White House strategy to pressure the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation not to hold hearings or take any action on the House-approved Safe Roads Act.

The overwhelming majority by which H.R. 1773 was passed strongly suggests the House would accept in conference a Dorgan-submitted amendment to cut DOT funding of the Mexican truck demonstration project.

WND reported Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters attended a ceremony in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Feb. 22 in which Transportes Olympic was announced to the Mexican public and press as the first Mexican trucking company certified to participate in the truck demonstration project.

The name of the company was not announced to the U.S. media or public until the surprise, extraordinary 9 p.m. telephone press conference Thursday by John Hill, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, held with a hastily assembled select group of reporters.

The first Mexican truck under the DOT demonstration project crossed the border Saturday at 1:50 a.m. Eastern Time at Laredo, Texas, headed for North Carolina.




http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=57559

Something is better than nothing but this will not stop the program.

Dixie

The first Mexican truck under the DOT demonstration project crossed the border Saturday at 1:50 a.m. Eastern Time at Laredo, Texas, headed for North Carolina.

This makes me SO EFFIN MAD!! I wonder just WHERE in NC the SOB went?

Most articles related to these Mexican trucks have been in the News section so moving there.

Comments are being left after this article at the source link.
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Senate votes to ban Mexican trucks from U.S. highways
Associated Press
Sept. 11, 2007 05:21 PM

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to ban Mexican trucks from U.S. roadways, rekindling a more than decade-old trade dispute with Mexico.

By a 74-24 vote, the Senate approved a proposal by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., prohibiting the Transportation Department from spending money on a North American Free Trade Agreement pilot program giving Mexican trucks greater access to U.S. highways.

The proposal is part of a $106 billion transportation and housing spending bill that the Senate hopes to vote on later this week. The House approved a similar provision to Dorgan's in July as part of its version of the transportation spending bill.


Supporters of Dorgan's amendment argued the trucks are not yet proven safe. Opponents said the U.S. is applying tougher standards to Mexican trucks than to Canadian trucks and failing to live up to its NAFTA obligations.

Until last week, Mexican trucks were restricted to a commercial border zone stretching about 20 miles inside the United States, except in Arizona, where it extended 75 miles. One truck has traveled deep into the U.S. interior as part of the pilot program.

Blocking the trucks would help Democrats curry favor with organized labor, an important ally for the 2008 presidential elections.

“Why the urgency? Why not stand up for the (truck) standards that we've created and developed in this country?â€

Senate votes to kill Mexican truck demo
Bush 'Open Borders' agenda dealt serious bi-partisan blow

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Posted: September 11, 2007
10:49 p.m. Eastern


By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 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 bi-partisan 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.

"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 bi-partisan 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."


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=57597