Spending bill passes; second bill to block Mexican truck pilot program surfaces

The Trucker News Services

3/30/2007

WASHINGTON (March 30, 2007) — The U.S. Senate has passed the mammoth, $121 billion emergency supplemental spending bill that contains an amendment to further stall a pilot program to authorize Mexican trucks to travel deep into the U.S.

The bill will have to be reconciled with the House version and then would go to President George W. Bush, who has promised to veto it because it has too much spending unrelated to the war effort.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who helped sponsor the pilot program amendment to the bill, applauded the bill’s passage, as did various other groups including the Teamsters.

Meanwhile, the second in what may be a series of legislators’ bills to block the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Mexican truck pilot program has surfaced. H.R. 1773 is sponsored by Rep. Nancy E. Boyda, D-Kan., and would “limit the authority of the Secretary of Transportation to grant authority to motor carriers domiciled in Mexico to operate beyond the United States municipalities and commercial zones on the United States-Mexico border.”

Boyda’s bill is called the “Safe American Roads Act of 2007” and has received support from Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, according to a PRNewswire report.

Yesterday U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., introduced the “North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Trucking Safety Act.” It would subject Mexican truckers to the same background checks and inspection requirements as their American counterparts, among other things. (See related story on The Trucker Web site).

—The Trucker News Services