Posted on 09/11/2007 5:09:04 PM PDT by ruination
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 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 driving within a commercial border zone that stretched about 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexican boundary, 75 miles in Arizona. 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?" Dorgan asked.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who drafted a Republican alternative to Dorgan's amendment, said the attempt to block the trucks appeared to be about limiting competition and may amount to discrimination against Mexico.
"I would never allow an unsafe truck on our highways, particularly Texas highways," he said.
Under NAFTA, Mexico can seek retaliation against the U.S. for failing to adhere to the treaty's requirements, including retaining tariffs on goods that the treaty eliminates, said Sidney Weintraub, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin.
The trucking program allows up to 100 Mexican carriers to send their trucks on U.S. roadways for delivery and pickup of cargo. None can carry hazardous material or haul cargo between U.S. points.
So far, the Department of Transportation has granted a single Mexican carrier, Transportes Olympic, access to U.S. roads after a more than decade-long dispute over the NAFTA provision opening up the roadways.
One of the carrier's trucks crossed the border in Laredo, Texas last week and delivered its cargo in North Carolina on Monday and was expected to return to Mexico late this week after a stop in Decatur, Ala.
The transportation bill is S. 1789.
I don't despise the USA.
What I do despise are preying politicians like byron dorgan and I have pity for those who cannot see through his populist and self-aggrandizing tactics.
It's about a globalist desire to facilitate "prosperity and well-being" and a "commitment to fight poverty and promote opportunity" (of course)
Our current system allows us to take a truck and trailer into Mexico, drop it at a loading facility, and pick it up in transit to the US using the most direct, safe, and approved method. Or, we could just sit and wait on it...for 2,3,4, or even 5 days. LOL
When I drove, I used to have a regular beer customer, with beer coming from Mexico going into Canada. I would drive into Tecate from Cali., over the mountains (on the dirt roads), park my truck inside of their building, and take a room a few bldg’s down. They’d come and get me when it was ready to go. I never had a problem, people were great, and I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t even think of doing that nowadays.
We currently have in place, with Canada, the NAFTA system of reciprocity, and the Canadians cheat like crazy. It DOES hurt us, noticeably, in the refrigerated and “open” freight (Flatbed/Step Decks, Double Drops, RGN’s, etc) segments.
The Canadians, at least, have some class about it and try not to make themselves too visible and, generally, don’t cause problems.
OTOH, we get the heck harassed out of us when we go into Canada, starting at the border. This is especially true in the Eastern Provinces. {wink-wink}
With the exception of a few places in North Western Manitoba, I won’t even send a truck East of Saskatchewan anymore.
What you are saying is an unsupported assertion. Let’s apply a rule of informal logic: ‘An unsupported assertion may be refuted by an unsupported denial’. I call BS. The gain in efficiency, if any, will be more than offset by economic dislocation and increased social costs to the American public. Under those conditions the only possible motivation for your position is personal gain.
Did La Raza give you time off to post on FR some more?
BTTT!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Too bad you’re incapable of distinguishing values of individuals from accidents of birth. Perhaps it’s because your approach is collectivist.
You do know that evil knows no ethnic boundries, but what the hey, it’s America and nobody is stopping you from making broad stereotypical generalizations of Hisapnics always bad, Whites always good.
Did they let you out of the rubber room to post on FR?
See, I can play your game also.
The playing field isn't level. It isn't competition if the game is rigged.
Ewww. Bad move, Daner. There are hundreds of stories of illegals killing American citizens by the dozens everyday. Americans who would be alive if we actually enforced our border.
Are you sure you want to go down this road?
Dane, you’re famous for your hateful posts denigrating the USA. I’m just wondering if you ever had anything nice to say about this great nation.
You are a perceptive fellow. Yes, it’s all about our national sovereignty : the trucks, the 12M mexican flood...we are literally being invaded by a foreign power. Heretofore the pols haven’t wanted to admit it but the american people are not fooled, they see their schools, hospitals, social support programs being CONSUMED by the mexican mice that have weaseled their way into the pantry. If there is a violent, co-ordinated terrorist attack upon us, these southern brown mice who have provided cover for the terrorists will find out what happens when the american people get ****ed off!
Your above should be the new definition in the dictionary for the term of political projection.
BTW, my first reply on this thread(#432) had nothing to do with racial issues but with economic ones, in which DoughtyOne still hasn't answered.
The point is this. Mexican truckers come here and earn income. Do they spend it here? No.(DoughtyOne)
Really? So they do not pay the avg. 43 cent gas tax, or sales tax at restaurants or motels.
Also by the way using your logic the gas stations and restaurants give these Mexican truckers free gas and food.
Now don't you feel silly for making such declarative statements.(Dane)
You sound just like Jesse Jackson the first time I heard him talk, I’ll quote him verbatim—”blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah and blah.” You made as much sense as he did. All double talk. Unless, of course, I read you wrong? Or were you speaking corporate talk?
The playing field is never level for anyone, anywhere. Does that negate the benefits of competition?
Exactly, "hundreds" of "stories"(i.e more like urban myths) that you take for the God's honest truth.
Akin to barbara streisand believing as the God's honest truth every post on DU.
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