Supreme Court Hears Mexico Truck Case
ASHINGTON — The government asked the Supreme Court to allow Mexican trucks to travel throughout the United States by overturning a lower court ruling that an environmental impact study had to be completed before the ban on such operations could be lifted.
The court was told on April 21 that the border opening was mandated by the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, and that the environmental analysis would ultimately have no impact on the border opening, which President Bush ordered in 2002.
Bush acted after a Nafta arbitration panel found the United States in violation of the treaty. At the time, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta warned that the United States could be liable for $1 billion a year in punitive tariffs from Mexico for failing to allow the trucks across the border.
While DOT began the EIS process in August, Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler told the justices last week that the assessment was not necessary and that the lower court’s ruling was “incorrect and frustrated the president’s ability to comply with Nafta.”
Opponents said opening the border would allow a stream of unsafe and polluting Mexican trucks into the country.
Most trucks bringing freight from Mexico to the United States are allowed no farther than commercial zones along the border, where they transfer freight to U.S. trucks and return. Mexican trucks have been banned from operating on other U.S. highways under a moratorium the Clinton administration imposed after the Teamsters asked him to do so.
Because the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has rules in place governing Mexican trucks, if the Supreme Court agrees with the administration the trucks could begin entering the United States immediately. Otherwise, they would have to wait until the environmental study is completed and considered.
Trucking companies working in the two countries have said allowing trucks from Mexico to deliver in the United States would make operations more efficient.
Mexico is the second-largest U.S. trading partner, after Canada, the other country in Nafta.
“It would streamline the freight movement between both countries just as Nafta provided for,” said Stephen Russell, chief executive officer of the Celadon Group, according to Bloomberg News.
Most of the questioning by justices at the Supreme Court session focused on whether FMCSA became obligated to do an environmental study by issuing its safety regulations last year.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist said it was “a very doubtful proposition” that regulations governing FMCSA’s actions would stop the president from enforcing the treaty and allowing Mexican trucks to travel here.
Kneedler argued that it was President Bush who made the decision to open the border and not FMCSA, and since the agency has “no control over what the president was going to do” it did not need to conduct a review of the impact of Mexican trucks on U.S. air quality.
Kneedler said the agency did look at the immediate impact of its rules permitting the trucks to enter the United States and determined it would be “minimal.”
FMCSA, Kneedler said, could not be responsible for determining the impact of Mexican truck traffic in the United States because so much of it — the routes traveled and number of trucks taking advantage of the open border — was “out of the agency’s control.”
Justice Antonin Scalia also offered some sharp questions to Jonathan Weissglass, the attorney representing the ban’s supporters, regarding the extent to which environmental review rules need to be applied to routine agency actions.
“It seems to me obvious that you don’t have to make an environmental impact statement on something you have no power to remedy,” Scalia said.
Weissglass, a San Francisco-based lawyer, argued that the rules FMCSA issued could be set to restrict trucks and reduce pollution.
According to Weissglass, the agency has “significant choices” to make, and “those choice will determine what trucks come in and how many.”
The challengers argued that there is a link between the age of a truck fleet and safety risks as well as emissions and that the Mexican truck fleet “skews older” than its counterpart in the United States.
Justice David Souter said, “You can’t keep old trucks out just for that reason,” in challenging Weissglass’ position that older trucks could pollute more.
Souter said that if an older truck met the requisite safety standards it should not be barred from the United States, and Weissglass agreed.
The argument last week was on a ruling made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
By Sean McNally
taff Reporter
(Click here for previous coverage.)
