Thread: A VICTORY! Senate votes to kill Mexican truck demo!

Senate votes to kill Mexican truck demo
Bush 'Open Borders' agenda dealt serious bipartisan blow

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 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.

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"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."

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

Bravo ...

added to the homepage with the following note

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!

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=N ... e&sid=2543


Email alert about this victory for our side is going out shortly!

W

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!

YES OUR ACTIVISM DOES WORK.

AND THANK YOU TO ALIPAC FOR GIVING US THIS "HOME". IT IS SO MUCH EASIER TO STAY CURRENT ON ISSUES WITH EVERYTHING IN ONE PLACE. IT BEATS SEARCHING AROUND THE NET.

KEEPING UP CAN BE TIME CONSUMING AND WE ALL HAVE TO WORK AND KEEP OUR LIVES TOGETHER. HAVING ALIPAC MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO REMAIN INFORMED AND ACTIVE.

THANKS ALIPAC AND ALIPACERS!!!

RedPony, you've said it all!! Thanks to Alipac for everything!! It's amazing to see what can happen when people work together! WHOOO HOOOOO!!

I have to tell you... if it wasnt for sites like ALIPAC... our combined voices would not have been heard... we would be at the mercy of lobby groups and Big Business that the Bush Administration Luv's to Pieces ... I am sure he was going for kickbacks when he drags his goat smelling AS_ out of political office

Finally our congressmen and women in conjunction with the Senate has gotten it right..... what the hell took you so long

ALIPAC... I bow to your power by the people for the people

All you grass roots folks... you are welcome in my home anytime.. just leave the goats and chickens alone ... if we go to the Amero ... I will need the goats and chickens to barter....

BECAUSE I WILL NOT USE ANYTHING BUT THE GOOD OLE GREENBACK

side bar.... or my goats and chickens ifigotta

I'm sorry I lied... I live in a big city and have no chickens or goats; im up Shi_ creek without a paddle if we dont stop this globalism

LOL AIRBORNE.....AND I AM UP THE CREEK WITH YOU. NO GOATS AND CHICKENS. JUST A FEW VEGGIES GROWING ON MY FIRE ESCAPE. WELL THERE ARE A FEW PIGEONS FLYING AROUND OUT THERE...LOL. BUT NO WAY I AM USING ANYTHING BUT THE DOLLAR. NO WAY. I WILL FIGHT TOOTH AND NAIL SCREAMING AND KICKING (AND EMAILING)

Yea! The senate stood up for America!