Plan to Limit Mexican Truck Access Shapes Up

Safety advocates opposed to granting Mexican trucks unrestricted access to U.S. roads under the North American Free Trade Agreement are pushing a compromise that would limit the number of trucks allowed.

The move could give the Bush administration a political opening to resolve a contentious trade conflict between the United States and Mexico while also addressing concerns about the safety of Mexican trucks.

Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), who opposes a wider border opening for Mexican trucks, said that the United States could grant such access to Mexican trucking firms with fleets that meet U.S. safety standards. Such approvals should be backed up by deploying more truck inspectors on both sides of the border, he said.

“If we had enough inspectors on the U.S. side and U.S.-certified inspectors on the Mexican side, we could do it,” said Oberstar. “Case-by-case approvals could be a way to resolve the dispute.”

Oberstar is a prominent member of a coalition of lawmakers, unions, insurance organizations, independent truckers and safety groups formed to protest a ruling earlier this week by a special NAFTA arbitration panel that favored admitting Mexican trucks.

It remains unclear whether labor unions and independent truckers--who fear that competition from Mexico would undercut their earnings--would support a compromise.

Under the Clinton administration, politically supportive unions had counted on an indefinite extension of the trucking ban. But labor now concedes that a wider opening of the border seems inevitable.

Currently, the United States forbids Mexican trucks to operate outside designated commercial areas in the four border states: California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

But the NAFTA panel declared that the ban violates America’s treaty obligations, although it affirmed the U.S. right to apply its safety laws to Mexican trucks.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said that the Bush administration has not decided how to respond. U.S. officials could choose to keep restricting Mexican trucks, in which case the terms of NAFTA would require the government to compensate Mexico. Mexican officials claim that the country loses $2 billion a year in commerce because of the truck restrictions.

President Bush said during the 2000 campaign that he favors an open border for Mexican trucks. But some Republicans are warning him that such a decision could cost him politically if the result is an increase in deadly crashes involving Mexican trucks.

The controversy has been simmering since NAFTA’s inception. In retaliation, Mexico denies U.S. trucking firms permission to circulate freely in its territory.

U.S. safety advocates said that Mexican truck safety rules are weak to nonexistent and that inspections are infrequent and superficial.

The Washington-based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety analyzed Mexican truck safety rules and found that violations that would result in a big rig being idled in the United States only incur a ticket and a promise to fix the problem within 20 days in Mexico. Among the infractions: leaks of hazardous materials and improperly securing a load.

Currently, a shortage of U.S. inspectors means only about 1% of the 3.7 million Mexican trucks that cross the border each year are carefully checked, according to the Transportation Department’s inspector general. Of those, 35% are immediately idled for violations, a rate 46% higher than for U.S. trucks.

The small cadre of 40 federal inspectors is supplemented by state officers. Of the four border states, California and New Mexico have the strongest inspection systems, while Texas and Arizona have been criticized for not doing enough.

Senior Republicans are urging the Bush administration to proceed cautiously on the matter.

The administration “must be able to guarantee that every truck crossing our border meets all applicable U.S. safety standards for both the driver and the truck before it enters this country,” said Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

“Tread very carefully on this issue because lives are at stake,” Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) wrote Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta. “Already more than 5,000 people die every year on our roads in accidents involving heavy trucks. The number could skyrocket if unsafe trucks from Mexico are allowed on our highways.”

Wolf said that the Bush administration “absolutely” risks a political backlash if deadly crashes involving Mexican trucks follow a lifting on the travel restrictions. “Some of the trucks I’ve seen from Mexico, I don’t want coming into my congressional district,” said Wolf, a longtime advocate of stronger U.S. truck safety rules and enforcement.

Teamsters spokesman Bret Caldwell added: “However it chooses to open the border, the U.S. government must understand that it has to invest much more in safety. We have to have a fail-safe program to assure that [Mexican] companies approved are actually operating under U.S. laws.”