Sunday, March 18, 2007 8:18 p.m. EDT
Mexican 'Smog' Soon to Hit

So, instead of California saying "NO" to Mexican trucks, mark my words, they will force their citizens to stop doing something else, first it was no smoking, environmental standards on their cars, etc....but they seem to want to allow these Mexican trucks into their State, and will cut pollution elsewhere......WHERE?




Environmenmentally sensitive Californians may soon be engulfed in mists of smog thanks to the fleets of Mexican trucks that will transiting the state's highways, a new report warns. California has an Air Resources Board which released its report this past Monday, stating that 50 tons of new smog - the equivalent of that produced by 2.2 million cars - will be pouring into California's skies because 17,500 Mexican trucks will be crossing into the Golden State each day under NAFTA's rules.

Today, that number is only 3,500 trucks.

Of the additional 14,000 trucks, a quarter were on the road before 1980, and as many as nine of every 10 were built before 1993, according to the air board report.

"The supplemental emissions generated by the increased truck traffic could impede California's progress toward attaining the federal air quality standards, which could potentially jeopardize billions of dollars in federal transportation funding," the report states. San Diego officials say they may have to impose more stringent local standards to offset the added pollution from Mexican trucks.


Story Continues Below




A series of legal challenges stalled the opening of California's border to long-distance foreign trucks after NAFTA became law.

The Union Tribune recalled that in 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government was not required to prepare complete environmental studies on impacts associated with foreign traffic.

The Bush administration, the paper reports, is expected to erase the existing border-truck policy, which had limited most Mexican truckers to a 20-mile zone within California. The air board's report said an announcement repealing the limit is "imminent.” San Diego officials have long struggled to comply with federal standards for cleaner air and the region risks losing federal dollars as punishment for not improving air quality. "If we want overall reductions, we have to get them from somewhere,” an official to the newspapers. "It would have to come from some other source. We need reductions, period.”

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007 ... shtml?s=ic