Editorial - Clear the Air, Open the Border
img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>It is now more than nine years after the date the United States agreed to begin opening its borders to Mexican truck operators under the North American Free Trade Agreement, and four years since it pledged to open its borders completely.
And still, the entry of Mexican truckers is prohibited.
We hope that the Supreme Court will honor the free trade accord, open the border to international shipments in Mexican trucks — and do it quickly.
The Department of Transportation and its Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration have created the infrastructure needed to handle the volume of traffic and ensure that the trucks that are allowed into the United States meet our safety standards.
But opponents convinced lower federal courts that DOT had to complete an environmental impact study before it could proceed with the border opening.
The Bush administration then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, even as DOT began the environmental review.
Several justices at the Supreme Court hearing last week noted that the president still has the authority to open the border, no matter what the environmental review finds. And they noted that it wasn’t DOT that decided to open the border, but the president, so why should the agency have to do a review?
Those who have worked diligently to keep Mexican truckers out of the U.S. despite the Nafta agreement understood all of this before they launched their stalling tactics. The real goal here was not to improve the safety or environmental performance of Mexican trucks, but to delay the border opening.
The federal government responded to legitimate concerns about the quality of Mexican truck operations by establishing appropriate rules and the means to enforce them. Unsafe and unclean Mexican trucks will not be admitted. Good trucks will, and there are many fully qualified, well-equipped Mexican trucking operations. Indeed, everything is ready to go — except for the padlock imposed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the form of the environmental review.
It’s time for the United States to keep its word and open its border with its second-biggest trading partner, in a manner similar to the arrangement the U.S. already has with its largest partner, Canada.
This article appears in the April 26 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
