Advisory committee submits principles for cross border program

The report begins by emphasizing transparency. It’s something the committee heard over and over from industry stakeholders and others during the time it worked on the report, according to David Parker, committee chairman and senior legal counsel at Great West Casualty Co.

The Trucker Staff

5/22/2009

WASHINGTON — The Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee has submitted to Rose McMurray, acting deputy administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a list of principles it suggests be used in developing a program to replace the Cross Border Demonstration Project.

The committee was acting under direction of the FMCSA and provides advice and recommendations to the administrator of the FMCSA on motor carrier safety programs and motor carrier safety regulations.

In March, FMCSA tasked the committee with providing advice and guidance on the essential elements that the agency should include when drafting new proposed legislation to permit Mexico-domiciled trucks beyond the current commercial zones along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The report includes 38 guiding principles broken down into four sections — program design, enforcement data, collection/information exchange and education/outreach.

The report begins by emphasizing transparency. It’s something the committee heard over and over from industry stakeholders and others during the time it worked on the report, according to David Parker, committee chairman and senior legal counsel at Great West Casualty Co.

“I believe the salient point [the committee heard] was the recognition that going forward in the design, implementation and evaluation of what is done was the requirement for total transparency in what is set up, how it is set up and what is ultimately done,” Parker told The Trucker.

After it is reviewed by officials at FMCSA and the Department of Transportation, it will be forwarded to the Obama administration and to Capitol Hill.

To read the full report, click here.

It was be another in a series of principles submitted to the White House concerning the Mexico project.

In the weeks after the pilot project was ended, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood held a series of meetings with trucking industry stakeholders and Congressional leaders to develop a set of principles to submit to President Barack Obama prior to the president’s trip to Mexico in April.

The White House has never issued any report about whether Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderón discussed the principles during meetings in Mexico City.

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Lyndon Finney of The Trucker staff may be reached to comment at editor@thetrucker.com.