Local port funding fails to show up in Bush's budget

Nogales International ^ | February 5, 2008 | Manuel C. Coppola

[yorkie]

In a press briefing on President Bush's 2009 fiscal plan Monday morning, White House Budget Director Jim Nussel said "economic growth is the most critical element" in putting the budget together.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons folks in Nogales were taken aback when they discovered that $167.2 million for the expansion of the Mariposa Port of Entry, was left out of Bush's equation despite the fact that the port is at the crux of more than $20 billion in annual international trade.

The port has been obsolete for more than two decades and Mariposa is the second most troublesome bottleneck along the proposed CANAMEX Corridor after U.S. Route 93 as it crosses over the top of the Hoover Dam.

The Mariposa project has gained wide support not just from the Arizona Congressional delegation, but from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the General Services Administration. In addition, Mexico is anticipating and has budgeted for construction south of the border to compliment the expansion to 22 lanes.

[yorkie]

From the article:

"They learned at the Jan 21 meeting that GSA has already informed Mexican officials that the expansion will take the current eight lanes to 22 lanes - 10 commercial and 12 non-commercial lanes, said Luis Ramirez, a consultant to the port authority.

"This will make Mariposa one of the largest ports of entry on the Mexican border," he told the port authority membership at a meeting on Thursday. By comparison, the border at San Ysidro, Calif., has 24 lanes."

[3AngelaD]

One can only hope that money for expansion of the Mariposa Port of Entry was moved to the account that pays for the border fence project. First things first.

[yorkie]

Not if our lovely Governor has anything to say about it.