Emissions by the Truckload

In the next few weeks, President Bush is likely to issue an executive order opening the Mexican border to cross-border trucking. Tens of thousands of big rigs from Mexico will then be free to travel throughout the United States--bringing with them serious environmental consequences, especially for California and other border states. Caving in to diplomatic pressure, the Bush administration has chosen to simply ignore American environmental laws. Bush is compromising public health in the process.

The North American Free Trade Agreement originally provided that Mexican trucks be allowed access to border states in 1995 and throughout the U.S. by January 2000. Citing safety concerns, however, the Clinton administration allowed Mexican trucks to operate only within a 20-mile buffer area inside the border. In 2001, a NAFTA trade panel took up the issue, ultimately ordering the U.S. to allow Mexican trucks to operate throughout the U.S. Since then, Bush has indicated his intention to lift the Clinton moratorium, insisting that NAFTA requires him to do so. But there are ways to satisfy the requirements of NAFTA other than by simply throwing open our borders.

Mexico’s fleet of tractor trailers is much older--and dirtier--than that in the U.S. Before 1993, truck engines in Mexico were unregulated. Even engines manufactured more recently don’t begin to meet environmental standards being phased in for U.S. engines. Yet, in deciding to open the border, the administration declined to consider the environmental impacts of these diesel-spewing behemoths.

As a condition to opening the border, Congress required the Department of Transportation to promulgate regulations governing the process. But in doing so, the agency simply ignored the mandate of the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires that the government fully evaluate the impact of any “major federal action” on the environment and public health. Instead, without any significant evidentiary or scientific support, the department issued a “finding of no significant impact,” insisting that opening the borders would not harm the environment.

In reaching its conclusion--a ludicrous one in light of studies showing that Mexican trucks on average generate 150% more smog-forming nitrogen oxide and 200% more dangerous particulate matter than U.S. trucks--the administration looked at the effect of opening the border on the nation as a whole. The potentially heavy impact on border states was balanced against the far lighter effect on, say, New England states.

This was ridiculous. California already has some of the most polluted, unhealthy air in the nation, the cause of respiratory disease and premature death. The brunt of increased Mexican truck traffic will fall most heavily on Southern California, in municipalities like Los Angeles, which is already far out of compliance with the federal Clean Air Act. In fact, the act prohibits the federal government from causing or contributing “to any new violation of any [clean air] standard [or] increas[ing] the frequency or severity of any existing violation” in already troubled areas.

The proposed presidential action once again raises a question central to the NAFTA debate: Must increased free trade come at the expense of American environmental standards and the public health?

The short answer is no. Had the Bush administration chosen to follow American environmental laws rather than run roughshod over them, the transition to increased cross-border trucking from Mexico could have occurred in an orderly fashion. The trade agreement with Mexico requires us to allow Mexican trucks access to U.S. roads, but that doesn’t mean we have to exempt the trucks from all U.S. laws.

Pre-1994 trucks, which make up 80% to 90% of Mexico’s fleet, could be excluded from U.S. roads unless they were retrofitted. Better emissions inspections at the border could ensure that Mexican trucks met U.S. standards. Illegal so-called “defeat devices” (which allow diesel engines to run dirty when on the open road), now being removed from U.S. trucks, could be removed from Mexican trucks as well. And, most important, the Bush administration could require that, starting in 2007, any Mexican truck entering the U.S. meet the very strict engine and fuel standards that will apply in the U.S. starting that year. Instead, the administration, intoxicated with the idea of deregulation, simply assured us there would be no negative effect.

To oppose this threat to public health, a collection of environmental, labor and business organizations, including the California Trucking Assn., Public Citizen, the Teamsters, the California Labor Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Planning and Conservation League, has filed a lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer has supported the suit as a friend of the court. But the Bush Justice Department has indicated that the administration will not wait on the court’s action to open the border to Mexican trucks.

Last year, Congress acted to prevent the Bush administration from moving ahead. Hearings were held, testimony was taken and concerns were expressed about the safety of Mexican trucks and the training of their drivers--as well as about possible terrorism. As a result, by a wide majority, the Republican-controlled House passed a rider to the Transportation Department appropriations bill preventing Bush from opening the border. The Senate followed suit, but in the face of a veto threat compromise legislation was enacted requiring various safety checks before the border could be opened. Those safety checks must address environmental concerns, because a truck that increases the risk of cancer or other diseases through its pollution is not a safe truck.