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.
Uh...OK. Brown Mice.
This discussion has gone south. My only question is what color mole are you?
Later all.
Uh... have you ever talked to a guy who has worked on Mexican trucks?
I have.
In Mexico, the safety regs we have on our trucks basically don’t exist. Here, your GVW had better be 80,000lbs and under unless you have an over-weight permit and are on the roads designated for over-weight loads.
In Mexico, they load trucks until the frames, tires or axles fail. Then they back off and decide that the load just below component failure is the maximum load of the truck.
Safety inspections? Ha. They don’t need no stinkin’ safety inspections.
Log books? Maximum road time? Log book checks? Pfah. None of that.
The reason why American truckers are superior is that they adhere (in the majority) with state and federal laws.
Even yours?
Good night. I have to get up in the morning and work for myself and my country. Yes...I still have one that I can call my own.
“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.”
RATFLMAO!
Fair means an even playing field. It means they must follow the same rules as we do. It means that their manufacturing must endure about the same level of taxation as ours, or our Country must lower it’s taxes. It means that we should not be forced to compete with industries in Countries that subsidize, in any way, shape, or form, to give them a competitive advantage.
Specifically, with regards to trucking, which I know extremely well; it means their equipment must be on par, and meet the same regulations as ours, including EPA. It means that I must be able to verify their credentials, including their safety, credit, insurance, and driver histories. It means that they must posses the same medical certificates, judged by the same medical standards as we are, AND, the records of these must be available to our LEO agencies. 90% of that, at this time, is not in place.
Yet, in our “free trade” border zones, these guys come and go as they please. Many, even though they are not legal residents, rent apartments on the US side, and make use of our infrastructure, as if it were their own. They may, or may not, have insurance, a valid medical certificate, a valid CDL, or even a truck that has been inspected in the past year or two by a qualified, and honest, inspector.
If I were to cross the freedom bridge to the Mexican side, I’d be pulled over in a matter of blocks, and I’d better have a pocket full of dollars, cause they won’t take pesos from a gevacho :)
Good night. I have to get up in the morning and work for myself and my country. Yes...I still have one that I can call my own.
Please, do not patronize me. It's all about race, akin to the "Japanese are taking over" mania of the 80's.
BTW, get back to me when we all are eating sushi for Thanksgiving.
If you believe that they will actually comply with our weight and safety regs, then I have some oceanfront property in Kansas that I’d like to sell you.
What race are US citizens? You’re so blinded by racism, you’re willfully ignorant of the real problems.
“Please, don’t patronize me”. My, how smarmy of you.
And the problem with people working cleaning toilets, washing dishes, picking vegetables is????
The rejected plan was a limited, pilot program that required prior certification for all your good stuff. One company - not endless hordes - had managed to qualify.
If it’s race, where’s the rhetoric on color? It’s about nationalism.
It IS an FMCSA/DOT requirement.
49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) of the FMCSRs state...
This provision requires that drivers of CMVs operating in interstate commerce be able to ``read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, understand highway traffic signs and signals, respond to official inquiries, and make entries on reports and records.”
Uh you do know that hitler and nazism were all about "nationalism", after all the official name of the nazi's was the "Nationalist Socialist" party.
LAPD's most wanted list-74% Hispanic....no "urban myth".. fact....
Uh, nothing...unless 20 million from another COUNTRY decides to supplant the workers of this NATION. (See, no race mentioned)
Hmmmm. Whatever the reason, we don’t need Mexican trucks up here blocking the roads all winter with balt tires, no chains, and the tanks full of No. 2 (the consistency of thin jello at -30F) waiting for spring.
And Detroit's most wanted list is probably 74% black, but unlike you I don't stereotype to make cheap and mental orgasmic political points and blame a whole ethnicity like your new hero byron dorgan, instead of the individuals.
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