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Bob McCarty speaks out ,,,,,,,,,,,,
Here is the post written by Bob McCarty on the mexican truck / border issue.
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LaHood Overhauling Mexican Truck Program
June 2nd, 2009 · 2 Comments
Ray LaHood
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a National Press Club gathering May 21 that his plan to overhaul the controversial Mexican truck demonstration program is now being vetted by the White House and has the support of “a number of members of Congress.” If he gets his way, Mexican tractor-trailer rigs will soon be crossing our nation’s southern border once again on their way to delivering goods to destinations within the United States. But at what cost?
Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have long opposed any rebirth of the North American Free Trade Agreement program that members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to kill in March. The group’s opposition to the plan is based, in part, upon information found during OOIDA Treasurer Rick Craig’s 12-month review of records in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration SafeStat database that prompted them to oppose the demonstration program launched in September 2007 [Related item: Declaration of Catherine O'Mara].
The review revealed patterns (see chart) of unsafe operations by Mexico-domiciled motor carriers operating within the commercial border areas of the United States — carriers that had passed an FMCSA safety audit, a prerequisite for participation in the aforementioned demonstration project. Two examples of findings appear below:
One of those carriers, Trinity Industries de Mexico, had amassed 1,123 violations — or 112 violations per vehicle registered with FMCSA — during the one-year period; and
Another carrier, GCC Transporte, SA, had been cited for 372 violations — or 36 violations per FMCSA-registered vehicle — during the same period.
Others in the U.S. trucking industry share similar feelings about Secretary LaHood’s effort to revive the Mexican truck program.
Dan Little
“Before LaHood has his way, somebody needs to take a serious look at how this is going to devastate the (trucking) industry in the United States,” said Dan Little, an independent cattle hauler and president of Owner-Operators United, a fledgling independent truckers group. “(The Mexican trucking program) will be one of the final straws.”
“If they want to bring those trucks over here and run ‘em, fine,” he said, “but let’s level the playing field.”
To Little and others within the trucking industry, leveling the playing field means requiring Mexican truck drivers and companies to adhere to the same regulations as U.S. drivers when it comes to safety, health, drug and alcohol testing, fuel standards, etc.
Clayton Boyce, vice president of public affairs for the American Trucking Associations, isn’t so quick to cry foul and thinks safety concerns have been overblown by the Teamsters and others in the trucking community.
“While they talk about safety, their issue is jobs,” Boyce said. “They think that this will take jobs away from U.S. drivers.”
“The way that cross-border trucking is designed, it shouldn’t,” Boyce continued. “It should just make the border crossing more efficient and, as we have seen with Canada, generally the cross-border activity evens out, so you have just as many U.S. trucks going into Mexico or Canada as you have Canadian or Mexican trucks coming into the U.S.”
Still, Boyce acknowledges the possibility that the Mexican trucking program will produce negative outcomes in the form of lost jobs and business for U.S. companies if enforcement lags and “cabotage” is allowed to take place.
He described cabotage as occurring when a Mexican truck comes into the United States and drops off its load from Mexico and then picks up a load in the United States and delivers it within the United States. It must be made illegal.
There are, of course, other requirements officials at OOIDA, OOU and ATA, among others, want to see in any Mexican truck plan. Many are contained in a report submitted to Secretary LaHood May 20 by the DOT’s own Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee. Others are outlined in H.R. 1773, “The Safe American Roads Act.”
Incredibly, this capitalist blogger is largely in agreement with James P. Hoffa on this issue. In a worth-reading piece published in the Detroit News April 10, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters cited obvious safety and jobs as issues, but also cited national security and drug smuggling as troubling concerns.
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LaHood Overhauling Mexican Truck Program
June 2nd, 2009 · 2 Comments
Ray LaHood
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a National Press Club gathering May 21 that his plan to overhaul the controversial Mexican truck demonstration program is now being vetted by the White House and has the support of “a number of members of Congress.” If he gets his way, Mexican tractor-trailer rigs will soon be crossing our nation’s southern border once again on their way to delivering goods to destinations within the United States. But at what cost?
Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have long opposed any rebirth of the North American Free Trade Agreement program that members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to kill in March. The group’s opposition to the plan is based, in part, upon information found during OOIDA Treasurer Rick Craig’s 12-month review of records in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration SafeStat database that prompted them to oppose the demonstration program launched in September 2007 [Related item: Declaration of Catherine O'Mara].
The review revealed patterns (see chart) of unsafe operations by Mexico-domiciled motor carriers operating within the commercial border areas of the United States — carriers that had passed an FMCSA safety audit, a prerequisite for participation in the aforementioned demonstration project. Two examples of findings appear below:
One of those carriers, Trinity Industries de Mexico, had amassed 1,123 violations — or 112 violations per vehicle registered with FMCSA — during the one-year period; and
Another carrier, GCC Transporte, SA, had been cited for 372 violations — or 36 violations per FMCSA-registered vehicle — during the same period.
Others in the U.S. trucking industry share similar feelings about Secretary LaHood’s effort to revive the Mexican truck program.
Dan Little
“Before LaHood has his way, somebody needs to take a serious look at how this is going to devastate the (trucking) industry in the United States,” said Dan Little, an independent cattle hauler and president of Owner-Operators United, a fledgling independent truckers group. “(The Mexican trucking program) will be one of the final straws.”
“If they want to bring those trucks over here and run ‘em, fine,” he said, “but let’s level the playing field.”
To Little and others within the trucking industry, leveling the playing field means requiring Mexican truck drivers and companies to adhere to the same regulations as U.S. drivers when it comes to safety, health, drug and alcohol testing, fuel standards, etc.
Clayton Boyce, vice president of public affairs for the American Trucking Associations, isn’t so quick to cry foul and thinks safety concerns have been overblown by the Teamsters and others in the trucking community.
“While they talk about safety, their issue is jobs,” Boyce said. “They think that this will take jobs away from U.S. drivers.”
“The way that cross-border trucking is designed, it shouldn’t,” Boyce continued. “It should just make the border crossing more efficient and, as we have seen with Canada, generally the cross-border activity evens out, so you have just as many U.S. trucks going into Mexico or Canada as you have Canadian or Mexican trucks coming into the U.S.”
Still, Boyce acknowledges the possibility that the Mexican trucking program will produce negative outcomes in the form of lost jobs and business for U.S. companies if enforcement lags and “cabotage” is allowed to take place.
He described cabotage as occurring when a Mexican truck comes into the United States and drops off its load from Mexico and then picks up a load in the United States and delivers it within the United States. It must be made illegal.
There are, of course, other requirements officials at OOIDA, OOU and ATA, among others, want to see in any Mexican truck plan. Many are contained in a report submitted to Secretary LaHood May 20 by the DOT’s own Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee. Others are outlined in H.R. 1773, “The Safe American Roads Act.”
Incredibly, this capitalist blogger is largely in agreement with James P. Hoffa on this issue. In a worth-reading piece published in the Detroit News April 10, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters cited obvious safety and jobs as issues, but also cited national security and drug smuggling as troubling concerns.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by dan Little on -
Mexican group files against the US
They want 6 BILLION dollars , which one of you guys wants to give up your job so they can run up here ?
Lets see they imposed 2.6 Billion dollars in tarrifs & to remove them we can pay them 6 Billion dollars, does anyone see whats happening here ?
This story came from the wall street journal,
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MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican trade association representing more than 4,500 trucking companies is seeking $6 billion in damages from the U.S. government because of Washington's refusal to allow Mexican trucks to carry cargo over U.S. roads.
The group, Canacar, filed a demand for arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. State Department in April, but didn't publicize the move until Monday.
"We want reciprocity," said Pedro Ojeda, a lawyer for Canacar. "The U.S. has notoriously not kept its commitments." Mr. Ojeda said the complaint is the largest such demand made under Nafta, as the 1993 pact is known.
Deborah Mesloh, a spokeswoman for U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, said Monday that, "We take our trade obligations very seriously and this is an issue we've been working on for a couple months." A State Department spokesman said the claim is "being studied."
The arbitration demand is the latest fallout from legislation signed earlier this year by President Barack Obama canceling a pilot program that had allowed Mexican trucks to carry cargo on U.S. roads. In March, the Mexican government retaliated by slapping tariffs on $2.4 billion of U.S. goods.
Affected U.S. industries, many facing import duties of 10% to 20% of a product's value, have been urging the administration to resolve the spat. "During this time of historical job loss, we should be doing everything we can as a country to ensure commerce and trade flow as freely as possible," said Scott Openshaw, a Grocery Manufacturers Association spokesman.
Canacar said its members have lost money and missed business opportunities because Mexican truckers have been restricted to operating within 25 miles of the border on the U.S. side. Mexico City's position is that this restriction violates Nafta.
Nafta called for creating a trans-border trucking program by 2000. But it never materialized mainly because of opposition from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and its allies in Congress, who have argued that Mexican trucks are unsafe, that some drivers don't know English, and that Mexican authorities don't keep adequate safety records on drivers.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been working with members of Congress, industry officials and union representatives to craft a new program that would satisfy safety concerns and reopen the roads to Mexican-based truckers.
Mr. LaHood said on May 21 that his proposal contains "good metrics" for testing the safety of Mexican trucks and assuring that drivers are properly licensed.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D., N.D.) inserted the language that killed the cross-border trucking program into a spending bill this year. A spokesman declined to comment on the issue Monday.
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Permalink Reply by Brad AKA "BEAR" on -
I would hope that folks get involved with this......again. We cant afford one more job loss in this country.
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