Trying to make border trade, travel a priority
U.S-Mexico cross-border delays reportedly cost $716 million in output losses and 3,600 jobs in labor losses in California alone.
The Trucker News Services
7/2/2009
WASHINGTON — The Border Trade Alliance (BTA), a tri-lateral advocacy organization representing North American border communities and trade, is pressing the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to ensure secure trade and travel at U.S. borders is made a priority in-line with the $830 billion in annual economic activity it generates in upcoming federal spending bills.
Currently, the House and Senate versions of the FY10 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill are absent funding for critical land port infrastructure upgrades and may fail to match President Obama's budget request for previously mandated border security initiatives, BTA officials said.
This combination of budgetary shortfalls threatens to undermine the secure movement of more than 45.7 million pedestrians, 10.7 million commercial trucks, and 107.5 million personal vehicles to a sum of over $750 billion in economic activity at U.S. land borders, according to Maria Luisa O’Connell, BTA president.
In 2008, Michigan alone handled nearly $67 billion in surface trade with Canada, she noted.
Most U.S. land ports were built half a century or more ago without the adequate infrastructure to handle the tremendous growth in trade and implementation of the many layers of security now in place at all U.S. land ports of entry, BTA officials said.
The organization is urging Congress to address the continued need for more capacity on our bridges, more cargo and passenger lanes at our land ports of entry, and a greater number of staffed inspection booths to securely and efficiently facilitate the tremendous volume of trade and travel at our ports.
"Clearly, with studies showing that U.S-Mexico cross-border delays cost $716 million in output losses and 3,600 jobs in labor losses in California alone, solutions to these problems would pay for themselves,” O'Connell said. "Our border states, and the nation at large, should not have to continue to bare the burdens of the historic underfunding of our land ports."
The BTA said that this year as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Congress provided $720 million — or 1/100th of the 2008 economic activity generated or Califonia's output losses in 2007 — in land port infrastructure upgrades through Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the General Services Administration (GSA).
However, O’Connell said with the exception of the Nogales, Ari., and San Ysidro, Calif., land ports, most of the projects selected for funding by CBP and GSA were for security upgrades at land ports with small crossing volumes and no congestion.
“While most projects failed to meet the stated goal of the stimulus in yielding the largest possible return in added jobs and economic activity that would have resulted from congestion reduction at our ports, they also failed to address the security risks posed by overburdened ports of entry,” she said.
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