Sides haggling over wording of law passed in December
It all comes down to the word "establish."
In the latest battle over cross-border trucking, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Teamsters and Congress are at loggerheads over whether to allow trucks from Mexico to cross freely into the United States.
The Transportation Department has decided to continue its pilot program despite a law against it that Congress passed in December. DOT's argument is that the law prohibits the government from spending any money to "establish" the program but it began the program in September and simply is continuing it.
The law says: "None of the funds made available under this act may be used to establish a cross-border motor carrier demonstration program to allow Mexico-domiciled motor carriers to operate beyond the commercial zones along the international border between the United States and Mexico."
Semantics aside, the fact that Mexican trucks still are rolling into the United States has rankled the Teamsters Union, which this week filed a letter in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco claiming: "The Bush administration broke yet another law in continuing to allow long-haul trucks from Mexico to use U.S. highways."
"The lawlessness, recklessness and sheer arrogance of the Bush administration just blows my mind," Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said in a statement. The Teamsters say the trucking program creates a safety hazard on U.S. highways because Mexican trucks and drivers are not held to the same safety standards as their U.S. counterparts. But even before the cross-border trucking pilot program began last year, hundreds of Mexican trucks already were making legal deliveries to the interior of the United States. Full Story
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