(TTNews.com)
Posted on 02/24/2007 2:35:24 PM PST by Pete-R-Bilt
(TTNews.com) |
In return, 100 U.S. trucking companies will be allowed to operate in Mexico but at a later date.
Calling for congressional hearings, Teamsters General President Jimmy Hoffa compared the announcement to the "Dubai Ports debacle," charging President Bush is "playing a game of Russian roulette on America's highways."
As WND previously reported, the Teamsters Union has strongly protested the opening up of U.S. highways to Mexican trucks, citing safety concerns.
A spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies, told WND the senator plans to hold hearings March 8 on the DOT pilot program.
A statement from Murray's office said she wants "to find out if the administration has really met the safety requirements that the law and the American people demand before long-haul Mexican trucks can travel across all our highways."
A spokeman from the office of Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, told WND hearings will most likely be held by Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, chaired by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
Both Oberstar and DeFazio are traveling today and a spokesman from Oberstar's office said the lawmakers have not had a chance yet to confer, so no hearings have yet been scheduled.
Oberstar and DeFazio have posted statements on the homepage of the House Transportation and Infrastructure raising questions about DOT's proposed Mexican truck pilot program.
Todd Spencer, spokesman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, told WND that "to reach a conclusion that the safety regime in Mexico is compatible in any way, shape, or form with what we have here in the U.S. is ignoring reality. Mexico has never had hours-in-service regulations or drug testing of drivers. We still can't verify the accuracy of somebody's Commercial Driver’s License in Mexico for safety or compliance."
Spencer stressed the decision is not just a border decision.
"Once Mexican trucks are in the United States on this pilot program, they can operate everywhere in the U.S.," Spencer told WND. "If some state highway policeman in Vermont or Iowa stops a Mexican commercial truck in their state, they have absolutely no idea of deciding if that vehicle is in compliance with federal safety requirements. Who's going to provide the training or the equipment for state police to verify the legality of a commercial truck from Mexico, in terms of its cargo, its haul, its log book, or even the driver? Local police aren't going to have a clue."
Hoffa cited Mexico's inability to satisfy the DOT Inspector General's requirements for safety that have been mandated to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA.
WND previously reported applications of some 678 Mexican motor carriers seeking long-haul authority to operate about 4,000 vehicles was being held up pending the completed DOT Inspector General's review of proposed FMCSA rules regarding safety reviews for Mexican trucks seeking to operate in the U.S., including rules for on-site safety inspections in Mexico.
The DOT spokesman also affirmed to WND the FMCSA has now drafted regulations that the DOT Inspector General has accepted, after an audit of the enforcement mechanisms and regulations the FMCSA created.
The Teamsters Union posed to WND a series of "unanswered questions," including:
According to a DOT spokesman, the pilot program "is predicated on the notion that Mexican trucks operating in the U.S. under the pilot program will operate pursuant to every single requirement that pertains to U.S. trucks operating in the United States, including both safety and security requirements on both the state and federal level."
DOT has increased its inspection staff by some 270 inspectors to implement the program. Still, DOT plans to continue the on-site inspection activities in Mexico that were announced by DOT Secretary Mary Peters earlier this week in Monterrey, Mexico.
The DOT spokesman confirmed there is no limit to the number of trucks the 100 Mexican trucking companies can operate in the United States. There is no restriction on the roads within the United States that the Mexican trucks can travel once they are admitted in the pilot program at the border.
The Mexican trucks, however, will be limited to carrying international cargo, in that they will be prohibited from stopping at one point in the U.S. destined for another point within the country.
On their return home, Mexican trucks, however, will be allowed to pick up in U.S. cargo originating in the U.S. destined for delivery back to Mexico.
While in the U.S., the Mexican drivers will operate under U.S. rules and regulations, including those controlling hours of time allowed at the wheel without a break.
The DOT spokesman specified that under agreements with Mexico already in effect, Mexican and U.S. commercial driver's licenses will be consider equivalent during the pilot program.
Mexican trucks operating in the United States will be required to have U.S. insurance coverage for all liabilities, including traffic accidents.
"The intent is for the Mexican trucking operations in the U.S. to be indistinguishable from U.S. trucking operations," the DOT spokesperson affirmed, "except that the driver and the truck began their trip in Mexico."
Let me add one other thought. To those that were sure putting the Dems in charge of congress was going to teach the Republicans something. Well?
And to those of us that have (had) hope of keeping the WH in 08 and making gains in congress...we're screwed. This pro-Mexican administration is killing us. Not one of these jackasses thinks their "kiss the butts" of illegals policies had anything to do with election losses.
Alternate universe alert.
Communitarian law in action: Note the rogue agency, the Department of Transportation-- it was corrupted in the Clinton administration into an agency for the globalist agenda. Note the 'action plan' that was developed in Santiago Chile, not by Americans for America but by foreign governments and transnational corporations who will reap the profits from looting America of her sovereignty and economy. America is a republic in name only, since these corrupt globalists siezed our government from us in the late 1980's and early 1990s.
Geez, I hope Smokey reads this and tickets their butts off.
This is going to be an unmitigated disaster! I feel sorry for those who have to drive fwys every day.
The first question I'd ask is who would want to go down there?
When the haulers crossed the border for the racing events, they were escorted to their destination.
PRB, going to need someone to ride shot gun?
This is going to be a disaster, as I see it.
The friggin' Taco Trucks (lunch vendors) are bad enough on the Interstate - speed limit is 65 mph. They are doing 45 mph - in the middle lane. All of them do it.
There are some people on this forum who have such a fundamental misunderstanding of our representative form of government that they feel that if they were not sitting at the table when NAFTA was signed, then their "democratic" way of life has been threatened. These issues have been signed, ratified, approved, passed, promulgated, and litigated up, down, and sideways. Time after time, as they find themselves on the losing end of the argument, they lash out at whatever bogeyman is available. They have no choice, it is the only way they can explain the things they themselves cannot understand.
Speaking of insurance, will these truckers be properly insured?
Nope, I have only read the corrupt federal highway adminstrations website, and the summit of the Americas documents. 1ruthbaderginsboy prefers to consult internationalist institutions and prefers their communitarian rule over American citizens for some reason that only he can say.
BTTT
sugar
Exactly. US trackers will have either learn how to get by on Mexican wages or will have to retrain. Nanotechnology might be a good field for them.
You should give infowars.com a try. You are really lock step with them.
If anyone wants, I'll direct you to the specific CFR sections regarding Mexican trucks, and then you can go to Thomas or some other resource and determine how your rights have been violated. It's all part of the public record. [chuckle]
"Notice that U.S. operators will run in Mexico LATER"
Hell, our trucks will be pirated in the criminal areas of Mexico.
Logistically it won't happen, we are now using 15ppm ultra low sulpher diesel as part of the 2007 epa standards, the mexican fuel vendors are still using 500ppm fuel as the standards set forth in 1993, so the mexican trucks will be spewing excess oxides of nitrogen while ours won't be able to use their fuel without damaging the emissions equipment in our trucks
not to mention why will a shipper pay what I'd charge to go there when he could hire a mexican to do it for a fifth the price...
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